Rashomoning

[SFCTaleSpinner]

With the story I'm working on right now, I'm thinking about having a Rashomon-like part where the story repeats sections of itself, only from different characters' perspectives. But I'm worried that the repetition and chronological rewinding might turn readers off.

I've got two main characters whom the story revolves around, Marcy and Paul. and I've got a sequence of events that I'll call:

A->B->C->D->E

Paul is present for A & D, and Marcy is present for A, B & E. Neither of them are present for C, however I have secondary characters that are present for the full sequence of events. So in addition to telling the story from Paul & Marcy's point of view (with only a small amount of overlap at 'A'), I'm tossing up on whether or not I should add a segment that recounts B, C & D from a secondary character's point of view.

On one hand, it would tie everything together neatly. But on the other, 'C' doesn't really contain any crucial enlightenment. There's certainly been a major change in the situation between 'B' and 'D'. But it's not difficult to believe that the former could naturally progress to the latter and the reader's own conclusions about what probably happened in between would probably be pretty close to what I'd write. With that in mind, I'm wondering if including the B, C, D recount would just bloat the story and steal focus from my mains.

What do you think? Paint the full picture or keep it concise?

 

[Kimikimidoll]

With the story I'm working on right now, I'm thinking about having a Rashomon-like part where the story repeats sections of itself, only from different characters' perspectives. But I'm worried that the repetition and chronological rewinding might turn readers off.

I've got two main characters whom the story revolves around, Marcy and Paul. and I've got a sequence of events that I'll call:

A->B->C->D->E

Paul is present for A & D, and Marcy is present for A, B & E. Neither of them are present for C, however I have secondary characters that are present for the full sequence of events. So in addition to telling the story from Paul & Marcy's point of view (with only a small amount of overlap at 'A'), I'm tossing up on whether or not I should add a segment that recounts B, C & D from a secondary character's point of view.

On one hand, it would tie everything together neatly. But on the other, 'C' doesn't really contain any crucial enlightenment. There's certainly been a major change in the situation between 'B' and 'D'. But it's not difficult to believe that the former could naturally progress to the latter and the reader's own conclusions about what probably happened in between would probably be pretty close to what I'd write. With that in mind, I'm wondering if including the B, C, D recount would just bloat the story and steal focus from my mains.

What do you think? Paint the full picture or keep it concise?

Maybe it will bloat the story? How about letting C be told by you, the omniscient author?

So..how many sections is this adding up to again? I'm assuming if only Paul and Marcy are there for 4 of the events, then there will be a total of 8 recollections of the whole thing? Or am I getting it wrong?

Edit: okay- two chapters- one from Paul's POV, other from Marcy, and the third can be you recounting C or some other guy recounting C, but ONLY C (not the other parts)

 

[Nezhul]

I'll tell you this. If done right, this will make for a very exciting story and a refreshing reading experience, because not many authors do that.

But at the same time the complexity to pull this off is very high too. It's very easy to write this wrong.

What I feel is this: you can repeat one and the same scene from different perspectives. What important here is that each new perspective advances the plot and covers some details that previous character might have missed entirely.

It will be very good if, for example, you have a scene of a car crash. Character A witnesses this scene and makes a judgment that the driver of the bus was at fault. He rushes in to help the people in the bus and allows them to escape.
Then there's another perspective of the character B, and it turns out that the bus was in fact hijacked by robbers, and character A actually helped some of them escape when he helped the people.
Then there's another perspective of character C, who was one of the people hi-jacking the bus, and it turns out that they were not really villains but in fact had noble pursuits.
Character D is the driver of the car that the bus have collided with, and his perspective is totally different.
And so on.

See? Like, every other perspective changes the scene and lets you re-evaluate it in an exciting new way. That way you can repeat the same scene over and over and still make it interesting.

 

[hylas_]

Is there no way you can convey C from either Marcy or Paul's perspective? Maybe they learn about the events of C in a news report on TV or something. Maybe somebody calls them and tells them about the events of C.

I think the concept sounds super exciting, but it also sounds difficult to pull off. Adding a 3rd POV character or even an omniscient narrator might confuse things.

 

[Kimikimidoll]

I second the news report, but if it's something like sex, I don't think it'll be reported on the news XD

 

[hylas_]

^ Paris and Kim beg to differ

 

[SFCTaleSpinner]

So..how many sections is this adding up to again? I'm assuming if only Paul and Marcy are there for 4 of the events, then there will be a total of 8 recollections of the whole thing? Or am I getting it wrong?

Edit: okay- two chapters- one from Paul's POV, other from Marcy, and the third can be you recounting C or some other guy recounting C, but ONLY C (not the other parts)

It would only be 3 sections:
Paul's section: He sees 'A', then he gets separated from the main storyline and we follow him on his own separate adventure. He returns to the central storyline to see 'D', then departs from it again.

Marcy's section: She sees 'A' and 'B', then has her own separate storyline, which we follow, until she reconnects at 'E'.

Secondary character's section: They see the whole of the central storyline.

Is there no way you can convey C from either Marcy or Paul's perspective? Maybe they learn about the events of C in a news report on TV or something. Maybe somebody calls them and tells them about the events of C.

Fraid not. The events aren't really a big enough deal to warrant that level of attention. And the secondary characters wouldn't be inclined to disclose what happened.

I think the concept sounds super exciting, but it also sounds difficult to pull off. Adding a 3rd POV character or even an omniscient narrator might confuse things.

That's what I've been thinking.

I'll tell you this. If done right, this will make for a very exciting story and a refreshing reading experience, because not many authors do that.

But at the same time the complexity to pull this off is very high too. It's very easy to write this wrong.

What I feel is this: you can repeat one and the same scene from different perspectives. What important here is that each new perspective advances the plot and covers some details that previous character might have missed entirely.

It will be very good if, for example, you have a scene of a car crash. Character A witnesses this scene and makes a judgment that the driver of the bus was at fault. He rushes in to help the people in the bus and allows them to escape.
Then there's another perspective of the character B, and it turns out that the bus was in fact hijacked by robbers, and character A actually helped some of them escape when he helped the people.
Then there's another perspective of character C, who was one of the people hi-jacking the bus, and it turns out that they were not really villains but in fact had noble pursuits.
Character D is the driver of the car that the bus have collided with, and his perspective is totally different.
And so on.

See? Like, every other perspective changes the scene and lets you re-evaluate it in an exciting new way. That way you can repeat the same scene over and over and still make it interesting.

I see what you're getting at, but unlike your story, the section of the story I'm talking about doesn't really have any twists per se that the alternative viewpoints would reveal.

My story would be more akin to having Character A fumbling around with his barbecue, cursing and muttering about all the trouble he's having attaching a new gas cylinder to it. Character B, his wife, witnesses this, then goes off to run some errands. When she comes home, she finds a smouldering crater in the backyard and Character A's dead body.

Knowing the before and after, you could make an educated guess about what happened in between: somehow Char A fucked up with the gas cylinder and made it explode. You could add in a retelling of the story from his point of view and show precisely what he did wrong, but all you are getting are fine details that the reader could probably develop pretty accurate assumptions about simply by telling the story from Character B's point of view.

 

[Kimikimidoll]

So C is the 'explosion' that nobody was there to witness. (Okay, Char A, but I get what you mean, it's like that question about if a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound)

Well, you kind of answered your own question. Is C really necessary? Although I understand why you might want to explain it, since some readers don't catch on that quick (and I'm not saying it in a demeaning way- in your head everything seems pretty obvious since you know the whole thing but not in someone else's).

 

[hylas_]

Agreed, sounds like you can skip C.

 

[49greg]

It is a good idea and as has already been said has the potential to be a great story, but it would also be an easy story to muddle up.

I've wanted to so such a thing for some time, even in my pre-Lit days. None have done it right. Another option is to mix up the time frame. Start at a later time frame, then go back to an earlier frame to complete the story, possibly shifting to different times during the process. Sounds confusing the way I write it, but there are several stories and films that have done it very well.

Is anyone else a fan of the film "The Final Countdown"? - although it's been a couple of decades since I've seen it.

 

[PervOtaku]

I've seen stories where the point of view flips back and forth between the two characters and every moment of plot is done from both perspectives, and they are the most tedious things. Better to say "fuck it" and go third person omniscient.

Rashomon-type stories work best when the characters' viewpoints are radically different, even to the point of contradicting each other. Sometimes the "what really happened" is left to the reader to decide, sometimes at the end a more impartial viewpoint of yet another character is given. Probably the latter moreso when the former would be difficult to do without help.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I tried that within just on chapter of a story and my editor screamed bloody murder at me. I rewrote the repeat so it was different but the same. That calmed my editor down, a bit.

Although TV shows tend to do it a lot, they don't repeat, they continue on from point B with a new perspective.

 

[Hypoxia]

Novels have room for ingenious complexities and structural onanism. The usual LIT pieces shouldn't confuse the audience. They can be surly. Stick with 3rd-person omniscient - - it's clean.