Literary Gateways and Kaleidoscope Plot Alternation writing techniques, Copyright 2008 by Linda G. Shelnutt

In my forum in the Amazon Shorts category (the forum title is, Toasting John Cassell's novel, "HELL'S QUEST: 1971": An ongoing commentary) several working authors have been discussing various writing techniques, having come up with a few new terms for some of these.  I mentioned my term, the LITERARY GATEWAY in a previous article here on Gather.  I'll continue adding to that term in this article, and introduce a new literary technique.    I had been promising for several pages in my Hell's Quest forum to post an example of a Literary Gateway (which could be abbreviated LG) from my paranormal mystery pilot, MYRTLE'S ULTIMATE MYSTERY.

 

Included below, following a brief preface, is that promised excerpt.
 
Upon noticing that the below quote bridges the end of chapter 4 to the opening of chapter 5 of MUM, I realized that this excerpt would also serve as an example of another literary technique, which I named the KALEIDOSCOPE PLOT ALTERNATION.  We could abbreviate that term KPA... or use the word, Kaleidoscope, if you want to type that often enough to learn the spelling.
 
I'll briefly describe a few parameters of the KPA, after presenting the MUM excerpt below. 
 
For newcomers who want more information on my term "Literary Gateway," please feel free to peruse earlier pages in the Hell's Quest forum for details about the LG, and for examples of that literary effect. (This article was also posted in the HQ forum on 7/18/08)
 
Briefly, the LG is a part in a story or novel which comes across for the reader with such enthralling intensity the reader feels as if a gateway has opened between physical (ongoing reality) and mental (reading) realms (like some type of sci fi worm hole concept)... giving the reader a sensation of having physically stepped into the plot.
 
Here's an LG example from my Myrtle pilot novel (copyright protection as per John Cassell's legal disclaimer posted in previous pages in the HQ forum):
 
>>>>>>>>>
Having parked my yellow 320-I next to Han's black limo, I stretched one foot out of the car.  Noticing a nylon covered toe pointing out of my lavender, low-healed, sling-backed shoe, also noticing the Herringbone, red-bricked, circular driveway solidly and perfectly underfoot, I smiled, thinking what great cover art that "picture" would make for a murder mystery.
 
Not this one, though.  Then, looking up and up at the mansion I developed a dropped lower jaw.  Believe me, that's some piece of residential architecture there.
 
Light, grey-stone construction, diamond-shaped, leaded-windows in abundance, five levels in imitation of an ancient Austrian castle, the mansion was, I admit, overwhelming.  Drooling in anticipation of touring the place, I clapped my dropped-jaw shut.
 
"I do have a question, Hans," I turned to him.   "Why, if Ruth told you to wait two days before saying anything if she just 'happened' to disappear, did you phone Jean after one day?"

 

Chapter 5
MANSION IN GREY
 
"That's a good question," Hans complimented.  "I'm not sure... Maybe in my nervousness I got ahead of the game."
 
"Well, I guess that's honest.  You don't appear to be a nervous person, though..."  I began following him along the curved-brick-walkway to the front door when he abruptly turned toward me and I nearly smashed into him.
 
"Pardon me; I wasn't thinking clearly," Hans apologized, briefly touching my shoulder to assure that I wouldn't lose balance from his abrupt turn-about.  "Too much on my mind, I guess," he frowned in thought, then suddenly smiled.  "Instead of going in the front door, we should be putting both vehicles in the garage.  Ruth would 'turn over in her grave'... not that she's in one... if I didn't invite you to stay at the mansion."
<<<<<<<<<
 
Regarding the KPA technique:
 
The above excerpt from MUM is actually an example in contrast to the literary Kaleidoscope.
 
That sample shows the typical storytelling style in which the narrator continues the main plot sequentially and directly from chapter to chapter, leaving the reader hanging at the end of one chapter, then immediately picking up that dangling thread at the opening of the next chapter.
 
This technique (opposite the Kaleidoscope) is usually meant to give a chapter-break-pause with a strong bait of needing to know what comes next, with the reader trusting that the next chapter will continue the baited threads without skipping a beat.  The reader has a clear, comfortable choice to keep reading, or to take a break.  When the technique works at its prime, an either/or double-win is available:
 
--- The reader's curiosity will either carry him forward with compulsion, to hungrily begin the next chapter without a break.
 
--- Or, the reader will pause his reading in relative ease, knowing he has a ready-made, easy-in to the plot, for the next time he picks up the book, with the dangling thread in mind.
 
On the other hand, in the case of the KPA technique, the ending of one chapter gives a merciless bait, causing in the reader a desperation to know what happens next.  HOWever, the next chapter begins a totally different plot point from the previous chapter, often in a different setting, with characters the reader hasn't yet met.  The reader feels an enormous sense of frustration, yet knows that the dangling thread will be picked up at some point... later, ugh.  Maybe a sensation of "OOF" happens as well.
 
When I read this type of book, depending on how extensively I feel I need to know what happens next, I sometimes skip the next chapter (which had leaped from a now intimate setting to somewhere in Timbuktu), flipping ahead without reading pages or chapters, to the point in the book which returns to the now cozy setting, to read the resolution of the dangling thread.
 
I did this skipping ahead often in a novel by Barbara Delinsky, FLIRTING WITH PETE, and wrote in my customer review posted on the book's Amazon buying page, about this technique, how it effected my reading.
 
Sue Grafton used this Kaleidoscope somewhat in her Kinsey Millhone detective novel, S IS FOR SILENCE, as did James A. Michener in his novel titled THE NOVEL, both of which I reviewed on the Amazon buying pages.
 
I consider Sidney Sheldon to be the master of the Kaleidoscope plotting method, which he used in many of his mainstream novels, one of which began each of the first 5 chapters in diverse settings often across the globe from each other, with each chapter introducing a new set of characters (others of his books developed only the first few chapters with this alternation; I don't recall which books did what).  Each new plot seemed to be unrelated to the others until Sidney began weaving the first chapters together.
 
A couple decades ago, I had become addicted to Sheldon's novels and read all of them, but every time he used this technique I felt a tremendous let down at the end of each of those opening chapters, with an intensely baited need to know, right THEN, what happened next.  And, I wasn't inclined to begin all over again working to get into a "new deal."
 
I hate that technique!!
 
Yet, I've read many excellent novels which have used it successfully... depending on what we're meaning about success in those cases.
 
I noticed that in the few cases in which John Cassell's novels skip from one situation/setting to a completely different one, I haven't felt a typical KPA type of let down.  What he and I have surmised in those cases is that the point of drop from one scene to a grossly different one didn't leave the reader hanging in anxious need to continue immediately with a particularly well-developed, yet dangling, thread.
 
The point seems to be how and how intensely the reader is left dangling in the current thread before new threads are picked up:
 
--- Is he left dangling at a point with just enough completion or resolution of current threads to feel comfortable with a break at that point?
 
--- Or, is he left in desperate need of continuing the currently developed thread, then dropped cold, or hot as the case may be, for an indefinite stretch of plot time.
 
When reading for entertainment, I prefer the straight-ahead method of storytelling, in which subplots weave around the main plot in natural sequence, where chapter endings pick up precisely within the following chapter opening.  However, I'm able to admire (sometimes from a distance) the artistic KPA technique of alternating plots and subplots in a more complexly sequenced manner.  Sometimes a plot-subplot structure is so complexly divergent as to require some version of KPA.
 
All chapters in the Myrtle pilot end with a strong bait for what's next, with the following chapter picking up precisely where the previous chapter left off.  I didn't plan to write the story that way; it just happened.  Once I saw the technique in play, I entertained myself deciding where to break chapters, to be sure the reader would have a definite craving to move right into the next.
 
It may have been sadistic of me that most of the readers of that ms (prior to publication) were sent only a chapter at a time, and were asked to give a few comments before receiving the next.  One of those readers, Dr. BJ Ferrell, said that each time she read to the end of a chapter she would literally pound on the table, wanting the next page.
 
Speaking of where/how to make chapter breaks (most authors either do this intuitively, using a natural RB focus, or according to a pre-set, logically outlined plan, LB focus)...
 
Chapter lengths and breaks can develop or contribute to a rhythm of a plot (we've discussed various types of writing rhythm in earlier pages in this forum).
 
An example of that is something I noticed, after the fact in, MUM:
 
--- All the chapters in that novel were of a similar length.  In fact, after having written the first few chapters, I began sensing how they were playing out their own rhythm, and, following that lead, began aiming to end somewhere on the 11th or 12th ms page.  (As readers and writers likely know, books vary in chapter length.  Some regularly break every few pages; others collect up to 40 pages per chapter) .
 
--- When I was sending chapters of MUM to one of the first readers of the ms, I happened to notice that chapter 8 was only a few pages long, and wondered about that.  Should I add a few pages from the chapter before and after 8?  Upon rereading 8, I saw why that chapter had designed itself short, and (wisely) left it as it was.
 
In conclusion I should mention that use of the KPA can backfire for the author.  Some readers who are strongly oriented to natural sequence will quit reading after a merciless break which is not picked up in the following chapter, and will not return to the novel.  Or, as I often do, the reader might follow the alternating threads only through the more enthralling parts of the plot, to the end, and never go back to read the less enthralling parts.
 
A similar potential backfire for a writing technique is to intensely develop and carry a plot thread with absolutely no resolution relief, or bread crumbs given along the way (for me this style can feel like holding your breath underwater beyond endurance).  In those types of stories, I have sometimes been compelled to skip to the end and read it, when only 1/4 into the book.  Once I do that, it's rare that I will return to the unread pages.
 
Awareness of the above (and more) developed from my reading needs has driven the types of techniques I've used in writing my novels, driven by subconscious awareness, or by consciously avoiding what doesn't work for me as a reader, attempting to achieve what does work for me as a reader.   I've been surprised to discover that some writers don't regularly read other authors' novels for entertainment, and when they do, they don't attempt to develop an awareness of what draws the reader in, Vs what allows his mind to wander from the words in print.
 
Since my books (even the nonfiction) are meant to entertain first, then maybe to enlighten or edify after or within that entertainment, I try to give bread crumbs along the way, and to avoid breaking rhythm or content sequence unless the story demands that.
 
If readers here have examples to share of any of the techniques described above (or in other posts in the HQ forum) please feel free to do so, giving at least a brief blurb on how you see your chosen sample as applying to the technique.  Or, feel free to comment on anything in this article.