Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
21st Feb 2014 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WrittenINMyOWNHeartsBLOOD #Book8 #OutJUNE10th #technique
Something a bit different tonight: we’ve had a discussion going in the Compuserve Books and Writers Community (my long-time hangout) about using multiple points of view in a book. This being something I commonly do <cough>, I put in my two cents:
“… In other words, if you're going to change up the POV on them (the readers) frequently, you better have a Gripping Paragraph to get us into each new viewpoint. Just for entertainment, here are the opening paragraphs of the first few scenes in one section of MOBY (I don't think they contain much in the way of spoilers).”
Even if you’re not into the craft of writing, I thought y’all might enjoy the array of multiple #DL’s.
[NB: Just to be clear: each paragraph below is the opening to a separate scene. They’re not from the same scene.]
Excerpt, WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD
Copyright 2014 Diana Gabaldon
Ian had been over the land briefly the day before, scouting. “And a good thing, too,” he said, under his breath. It was the dark of the moon, and he must go canny and keep the road. He wasn’t risking his horse’s legs over the rough land before he had to, and Bride grant him the sky would be fully light by then.
The men had lain on their arms all night, by Sir Henry’s orders. While one didn’t actually lie on a musket and cartridge box, there was something about sleeping with a gun touching your body that kept you alert, ready to rouse from sleep in nothing flat.
It was perhaps four o’clock ack emma. Or before sparrow-fart, as the British armed forces of my own time used to put it. That sense of temporal dislocation was back again, memories of another war coming like a sudden fog between me and my work, then disappearing in an instant, leaving the present sharp and vivid as Kodachrome. The army was moving.
Jamie strode toward his waiting companies, loosely assembled near the river. The breath of the water and the mist rising from it comforted him, keeping him wrapped for a little while longer in the peace of the night, and the deep sense of his kin, there at his shoulder. He’d told Ian Mòr to stay with Ian Òg, as was right, but had the odd sense that there were three men with him, still.
I tied Clarence to a picquet and made my way back into the tent, less troubled, though still keyed up. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen fast, and likely with little warning. Fergus and Germain had gone to find breakfast; I hoped they would show up before I had to leave—because when the time came, I would have to leave, no matter my reservations about abandoning a patient. Any patient.
It was barely an hour past dawn and it would doubtless be another beastly hot day, but for the moment, the air was still fresh and both William and Goth were happy. He threaded his way through the boiling mass of men, horses, limbers, and the other impedimenta of war, quietly whistling “The King Enjoys His Own Again.”
Fergus had brought me a sausage roll and a cannikin of coffee—real coffee, for a wonder. “Milord will send for you shortly,” he said, handing these over.
I hurried after Germain with my medical satchel slung over my shoulder, full of gurgling bottles, a small box of extra instruments and sutures under my arm, Clarence’s reins in hand, and a mind so agitated I could hardly see where I was going.
The Marquis de La Fayette was waiting for them at the rendezvous, face flushed and eyes bright with anticipation. Jamie couldn’t help smiling at sight of the young Frenchman, got up regardless in a glorious uniform with red silk facings. He wasn’t inexperienced, though, despite his youth and his very obvious Frenchness. He’d told Jamie about [battle] a year before, where he’d been wounded in the leg, and how Washington had insisted that he lie beside him, and wrapped him in his own cloak. Gilbert idolized Washington, who had no sons of his own, and who clearly felt a deep affection for the wee marquis.
There were three creeks running through the land, cutting it up. Where the earth was soft, the water had cut deep and the creek ran at the bottom of a steep ravine, the banks of it thick with saplings and underbrush. A farmer he’d spoken to while scouting the day before had told him the names of them--Dividing Brook, Spotswood Middle Brook, and Spotswood North Brook--but Ian wasn’t at all sure he kent for sure which this one was.