can there be too much happening at once to my character?

[shamguy4]

well here I am again with some issues in my book on how to proceed. I am looking for some ideas or help on moving forward. Just writing out my issue sometimes helps, so here goes:

So my character is on a space station with some family, all happy and everything is great. The station suddenly gets hit hard and he escapes via a pod, but some of his family gets split up. There are also a lot of prisoners on the station that coincidently escape at the same time and also escape with the pods.

What happens next is where I am stuck. I need the prisoners to organize and take over the area where they all land. They suddenly become the main next part of the book. (although they had nothing to do with the stations destruction). I need this to happen fast.

At the same time I wanted to pause for a second and let the main character sort of grieve over the fact that some family may not have made it out alive. He's a teenager and it would only make sense to let him land and first try and contact the rest of his family, then sort of sit in a corner on the world below somewhere with himself and take in everything that just happen. Nothing like this has ever happened to him before.

But somehow while he is sitting there sad and barely aware of the world around him, I need someone to alert him that the city is being taken over by the prisoners that escaped... In my head I try to see this and it seems unrealistic. He probably wouldn't take in a word that would be said.

Time would have to pass. People don't take over that quickly. I have thankfully never been in a warzone so I am also unsure what its like.
He also wouldn't have time to sit around, he would need to move! I feel im jumping from one scene that was major straight into another one and not letting my character or the readers breathe.

So my idea to fix this would be to have his pod crash and he blacks out for a day or two and wakes up in someones house who tells him the city has been overthrown and they are in hiding. Now he has all the time in the world to think about what happened and decide his next move.

But im wondering if there is a better way to deal with this. How do others deal with a major sad moment in their story that needs to get followed up by more drama.

 

[Overread]

Sometimes you can cover moments like this with a kind of "time advance" that is a section of the book where you write in less detail about day to day events and instead cover events in a kind of summary state. This can let you cover larger events in a swath; however its also partly breaking the normal narrative flow of the story and thus can throw a reader who is getting used to a pace of the book which then suddenly changes pace.

A lot of other options depends how you're telling the story. Are you writing purely from a narrators perspective; or from the single view of one character or from several characters? How you are delivering your story will vary on how you can best present an event like this.



Blacking out - escape pod suspended animation - heck just spending days lost looking for help/worrying can allow some time for people to take over.




As for people taking over how quick that is depends on a lot of things including:
1) How well armed they are
2) How well armed the place they are taking over is
3) Cohesion of both groups - affects how unified each faction is which in turn affects how complex they are when they react to an aggressive situation
4) The status of the place being taken over - ergo is it strongly fortified - is it highly factious - are the people unified or split - is there social class divisions - etc...
5) What does "taking over" mean to the prisoners. You can take over and steal the money; administer; etc... Much of this should be covered in why they are taking over the place itself - they have to have a reasoning behind that which guides their desires

Thus how easy or hard it is to take over will vary how much time you need to eat up in the story and what you have to work with.

 

[Locrian]

I feel that your prisoners need a single charismatic and powerful leader to emerge early to organise them so fast. Either someone who was influential before the accident, say a mafia leader ruling from the inside with their own existing power base or a very forceful character who has no qualms about putting down challengers with violence and some grand vision that draws the prisoners to his side.

Regarding your MC, I feel that watching characters just sit and mope isn't that interesting or realistic. I get that what has happened is horrible, but in a situation like that to stand any realistic chance of survival he would have to put his current needs first; food, shelter or water, people in those situations who sit and implode with despair tend to just die. That isn't to say he would just shrug it aside, maybe he's trying to start a fire and gets so distracted thinking about his family that he keeps messing it up. Maybe he is constantly reassuring himself about them so he can get things done and survive. Maybe he motivates himself to get his current struggles behind him so that he can get on with finding his family.

 

[Juliana]

Also, sometimes when horrible things happen people just keep going so as not to even think about them. So it would also be understandable if he kept putting his grieving aside and then later it all crashes down on him, especially if he's a teenager.

 

[Overread]

If you want a good example of a mopy character who endures what appears to be a serious depression whilst not doing all that much read Soliders Son by Robin Hobb - many say its one of her weaker offerings, however its weaker partly because the lead character is rather more passive and dealing with a lot on their plate - as a result much of the second book is the character not going that far. She goes well into his depressive cycle but it still emerges as a very hard character to write well and be liked by readers.

 

[shamguy4]

Alright thanks for the advice.

Im working on it.

somehow the prisoners become organized and take people hostages, including my main characters sister which causes more issues. He needs to first find this out and then go after her, while suppressing the fact that he may have lost other family members.

 

[zmunkz]

I agree with @Juliana I think when you are in a crisis situation grief takes a different form. A lot of people push on because they have to, and the grief goes with them but doesn't necessarily paralyze them. You can show its presence though the POV and the things the character says and notices, without stopping the action. Every time he sees a family huddling together: a pinch of anxiety. Maybe his eyes linger on anything his that reminds him of his family (a teddy bear like one his little sister owned, whatever). My point is, you can paint it in all the cracks and notches for the reader without bringing things to a stop when you need them to keep moving.