Young Writers Society

I'm not sure how many of you have read my "Voices" series, but I've been working on them for several months now and am really enjoying myself.

The basic idea behind them has been that we have voices in our heads with different characteristics such as anger, love, sensibilty etc. The stories take place in reality as well as inside the narrator's mind where the voices vie for supremecy. To help clarify who is speaking where, I've seperated things off a little by putting reality in blod letters and putting the voices in italics. It seems to have worked rather well.

However, for a little while now, I've wanted to have a piece that shows a conversation/arguement between my two main characters that also shows the voices inside both of thier heads. This would make it so that I have three different "scenes" going on at the same time and I'm not sure how to do that without confusing the reader.

Thoughts?

(If you need a better picture of just the kind of thing I'm doing, here are the links to the Voices stories that I've done in the past:

In chronilogical order:
Voices II
Voices I
Voices III: The Break-up
Voices IV: We miss you...)

I also want some tips on how to avoid confusion.

So would the voices in both heads be interacting with eachother - voices to voices? Or are they merely in the background of their respective characters' actions, as the voice are with Jenn?

If they're responding to eachother - just as the 'reality' conversation is going on, you might not need to change anything in format.

But I couldn't tell from your explanation...?

No... the voices in one person's head would not be interacting with the voices in the other person's head.

Hmm, all right.

You could switch from one character to another - since you're using first person. I don't know if that would fit with how you've pieced together or not.

But say you began with Jenn.

...Jenn's POV...

(then) voices...

Then switch to whomever the other character is: Him (or whoever...)

his POV (first person)

...voices.

Would that work?

*considers that*

It would avoid confusion, but the entire flow of the piece would be knocked out of whack. I don't think that that's really gonna be workable. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

First, lemme say that this sounds very cool. You know I'm a big fan of your Voices stories, so this sounds like it could really turn out to be a great piece.

My suggestion: what if you left everything normal, and had one person's voices in bold and the other person's in italics? I'm not entirely certain what you're going for, but I could see that working. Such as:

"So... how have you been?" he asked.

"God, she looks good," said One.

"She's blushing!" whooped Two. "We made her blush!"

"Shut up," snapped Four. "She's probably wishing we'd just go away."

"Oh, um. Fine. You know. Things are... fine," she said.

"Smooth, babe!" said Four. "Way to articulate. Next time just stare at him for a moment and then walk off without saying anything. That might have the same effect."

"Who cares?" said One. "He looks so good. He's never worn his hair like that and I love it."

"He's grinning at us!" squealed Two. "I love that grin."

"Oh. Well that's good," he said.

"Yeah," she said.

That's the only way I can think of to do it, but you're so awesome I'm sure you'll come up with something. If you had the proper formatting you could show it with different fonts.... *shrugs* I dunno. Either way, I'll read it when it's done.

*smacks forehead* Now why didn't I think of that! *groans at her own stupidity* Thank you. So much.

I had thought about different fonts, but I wouldn't be able to post them on the YWS that way and so that didn't work for me. And I had thought about doing it in three different type styles, but I was thinking that I would have to use bold, italics and underlined. I didn't like that idea. But I hadn't even considered leaving what normal! *head/desk*

Yeah... thank you... Now I can work on that!

LOL, whatever makes you happy... Though, actually, now that I read over that very poorly written example, it might be easier on the eyes to make reality bold, one person's thoughts normal, and the other person's italics. Might be a smoother transition for the mind to pick up on... Quick experiment that will be just as bad as the first:

"Where are you headed?"

"Way to sound like a stalker," Four groans, rolling his eyes. "Next time say it really close to her and see if you can get her to back away slowly."

"That might actually be nice," Two reflects.

"What?" One asks, looking confused.

"Standing close to her," Two says, grinning.

She shrugs. "Probably just to grab something to eat and then I'll head home. Have to get an early start tomorrow."

"Dork!" shouts Four, pointing.

"Leave us alone," Three says, staring intently at him. "It's hard to think when he's looking at us like that..."

"Well, we'll do better next time," One says encouragingly.

"Cool," he says.

LOL... As awful as that little bit is, that is a really fun style to write in. I can see why you like it so much!

Oh gosh, Dusky -- this new piece sounds wonderful. And also very difficult.

While I'm not necessarily a fan of the bold/italic idea (Sorry, Ari!), I'd be interested in seeing how it works out for you. I guess I just wouldn't like to see something of mine all chopped up and bolded like that -- I like to use my emphasis fonts sparingly. I'm just facade oriented (and therefore, materialistic), I suppose!

If I was in your position, I'd probably do the POV thing, although, I wouldn't state the POV. I'd just probably separate the narrations with a simple

-----

between them. Although that probably wouldn't work if the voices of both people were all going at once. Gosh, how confusing! Well, anyway, good luck! I'm sure it will turn out superb, just like all your other stuff.