i mean, yeah, zoning out is a thing that exists, i'm not saying it's not. i'm saying that narrative exposition doesn't take place in realtime for the viewpoint character.
For my part, I was gonna say I mostly don’t notice it when it happens in narrative, because jerking out of a reverie about nothing relevant to what’s going on right in front of me is, like, my primary mode of interacting with reality. *edit* Well, either that or hypervigilance, but that gets tiring after a few minutes.
I would appreciate it if authors would please stop referring to fully grown adult characters as "boy" in (non-ageplay) sex scenes. It really wigs me out.
When people forget they are not writing about humans and say "inhuman" when what they really mean is "in[alien]" or something like "feral" or "bestial"
The internal monologue thing depends heavily on context, for me. Like, for example (although I’m not sure if this is what you meant): in my fic—which is explicitly about mental illness, I should probably note, and told in second-person POV—the viewpoint character experiences occasional dissociative episodes, based largely on my own. During these moments, the narrative does stop to focus on those thoughts—though in fairness, I think I’ve had her shake herself out of them maybe twice. Most of the time it’s another character pointing out that she’s been staring blankly into space for a while now. I think that kind of fairly narrow context (characters dissociating or zoning out in a way that makes sense contextually) makes the general concept of internal-monologue-showing-time-has-passed at least somewhat more acceptable. HOWEVER, in a lot of contexts (probably most, from what y’all are saying), where there’s no actual REASON for that to happen (say, it’s in the middle of a fight, or the character wouldn’t space out so badly in the first place), it’s definitely a problem. So...I’d personally argue that there are some contexts where it CAN work. But in most cases it’s just used at terrible times and/or in a context that doesn’t work.
I think Jacktrash's point is that in these situations it wouldn't be an internal monolouge in character at all. Like it's not something the character would actually have to think about. Like... Jim whistled as he looked down at his phone. "Mark, have you heard the President's latest comments about the UN?" The UN was a multinational council of leaders from around the world, focusing on keeping global peace and stability. It was formed after World War II, where the evil empire Germany had tried to take over the world, and focused on making sure nation's stuck to a certain code of morality- which made them pretty unpopular with certain burdeoning dictators. "Mark?" Jim repeated, and Mark realized he'd been staring into space.
Oh, that. Completely agreed, in that case! I haven’t encountered much of it myself but it sounds obnoxious as hell.
I also do that, but that's partially because a) actually kinda helps with dissociation, and b) persistent existential delusions. Which I guess could be an interesting trait to add to your first-person narrator.
yeah, that's EXACTLY what i mean. particularly in the context of the adventure stories i like, it ends up being all like it just keeps happening and. no. that. doesn't take time. exposition is a free action.
Sorry for the confusion! ^^; (This is why I shouldn’t post when I’ve only had one caffeine so far...)
When the summary is a couple of vague lines and a question, like When love blooms in adversity and disaster hides around every corner... Will she find the courage to give in to desire? What does that even mean?
I don't understand why anyone bothers phrasing it as a question. We're here to read fanfiction, we all know what's up
Have accidentally stumbled into a Reader-fic; thought it was just second person for effect. Nope! Story’s engaging enough, or at least non-excruciating so far, but when the POV character changes, the reader-insert still gets referred to as “you,” and we hates it.
Re: questions in summaries: the epic collection of terrible HP fic summaries from 2003 had one entire post that was just a terrifying 2000-word block of questions from summaries, and which I want someone to do a dramatic reading of almost as much as I want someone to do a dramatic reading of the infamous "interrogating the text from the wrong perspective" rant.
