When two parallel lines intersect…
[Note: Continuing this week of respite from the elections, I wrote this light-hearted but serious piece on writing techniques. Enjoy.]
I shook the mathematical beliefs of my thirteen-year-old niece the other afternoon. An elementary problem in algebra required knowing that the measures of the interior angles in a triangle sum to 180 degrees. That’s in Euclidean geometry. I commented that there are other non-Euclidean geometries where that “rule” is not true. In one of these geometries, parallel lines can meet.
Many of you might be yawning now, I suppose, but there’s a message about writing here. That algebra help session with my niece started me thinking that a novel’s timeline is linear, but its plot lines can be parallel. But plot lines are non-Euclidean—they satisfy a stranger geometry where they have to meet at least once by the end of the book, either in the climax or in the denouement.
Time is linear in a novel. Yes, you can have flash backs, and you can even experiment with flash forwards (sometimes too often, like the writers of Lost). However, the former need flash forwards to return to where you were, and the latter need flash backs to do the same. Remember, I’m writing about story timeline here, not time travel. If you start tinkering with story timeline with too many gaps or hopping around a lot, you’ll have your reader scratching his head and saying, “Huh?” Your writing might be very original, but you’ll lose readers along the way.
Parallel plot lines are completely different. They can run parallel awhile, and then intertwine or intersect. In a new novel I’m working on, The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, I have some action scenes described from the point-of-view (POV) of the main protagonist, DHS agent Ashley Scott. Later, these same scenes are described from the POV of reporter Eduardo Ortega. This parallelism continues until the two plot lines come together and amorous sparks fly. The two plot lines then diverge again as each character blames the other for the divergence.
Do the plot lines rejoin? You’ll have to read the book. The important point is that plot lines can run in parallel, intertwine, or intersect. Moreover, there can be many plot lines. In the same novel, the bad guys will also have their plot line. Yet there is only one linear time line.
I suppose this technique could be used in a short story, if it’s not too short, but such stories tend to have a plot line and time line that are strongly coupled and very linear. An extreme example of this is the story “Violent Absolution” in my short story collection Pop Two Antacids and Have Some Java. Here NYPD Detective Castilblanco (also a main character in The Midas Bomb and Angels Need Not Apply and a secondary character in The Golden Years) waits for a murderous junky as the minutes tick away on a digital clock, a modern-day High Noon (probably the greatest Hollywood example of tightly coupled plot and time lines).
Novels, however, often have parallel plot lines. They are particularly common in thrillers like The Golden Years, where we move from protagonist to villain and back, for example. Patterson, Deaver, Land, and other thriller authors have successfully used this technique. Even mystery writers use it if various parties are investigating the case from different aspects—sleuthing teams like Holmes and Watson come to mind. I’m not a romance or paranormal writer, but I don’t know any reason why their novels should be any different.
A simple change of POV does not a parallel plot make. By this, I mean a jump where one character’s POV follows another on a time line. Many times these POV changes flow so naturally that the reader isn’t even aware of them—this should be every writer’s goal, in fact. Not so the jump from one plot line to another. This should be noticeable to the reader. If it isn’t, you’re in trouble.
Multiple characters and multiple plot lines characterize complex writing. Novels are more complex than short stories. Readers expect short stories to be direct and to the point, although they often delight in a twist at the end. They also expect some complexity in the novels they read. Parallel plot lines permit multiple twists. I’ve read some novels without parallel plot lines, but I can’t remember any right now. Maybe that’s because they’re not memorable?
I do recognize that every reader’s threshold for complexity is different. Good novel writers remember Goldilocks’ Rule, which applies to many aspects of writing: the writer should find a comfortable compromise between too much complexity and too little. You want the average reader in your target audience to be comfortable with the complexity. Your guide to this, as always, is to read, read, read in your genre in order to develop a feeling for what’s a good comfort level—not yours, but readers out there who just want a good book to read. Readers rule.
In libris libertas…
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