Friday, July 03, 2009

The Art of the Internal

Internal monologue is something used in writing to convey the feelings, impressions, and mental state of a character we're reading about. It lets us know more intimately those characters, what their emotional context is given a specific situation, and why they are acting in a given way to that situation. However, in dueling, while internal monologue is a good tool for fleshing out your character, it is a poor tool in a duel. And like any tool, while some are good for specific jobs, this one is not meant truly for the arena of forum dueling. It doesn't convey the action, does not give a sense of what is happening, only what is happening internally in the mind of one character.

Dueling has and always will be a battle of wills. It is both an internal and an external struggle between two fictitious characters. But when internal monologue overshadows the action and combat and the necessary components to describe that, then it has gone too far. While I understand some people's need to constantly reference their own characters, those character's feelings and mental state, it should not interfere with the action itself. Attacks suffer when too little effort is spent to properly flesh them out; the same goes for defenses or even counters to incoming attacks. No attention to detail in regards to the core of dueling, the action, and the duel as a whole suffers for it.

While attention does need to be paid toward the setting, in relation to the area, locale, and local flavor, it should be enough that all persons involved understand just where they are, what is going on, and if there are extra naunces they should be made aware of. The same goes for attacks, defenses and counters; enough information described clearly and concisely to get the point across without seeming redundant. Singular sentences of what is happening can sometimes do it, such as "threw a punch for the face," but not always if the series of actions is far more complex. A complete list of the chain of events needs to take place instead of a Deus Ex Machina-mentality where internal thoughts take precedence followed by a Mormanistic "and then it happened."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Then WHAT happened? Spontanious orgasm?
Solving the crossword puzzle of the human genome? I NEED THE ANSWER!