How fast to reveal things?

OK, so here is my idea for a novel:

A guy (not the Main Character) on an Antarctic base goes berserk and destroys the base to try and kill everyone. It's mid-winter, and no-one can get out. To avoid freezing to death, a few people (including the Main Character) inject a drug that enables them to survive extreme cold by going into suspended animation.

Main Character wakes up thousands of years later. Runaway global warming has melted almost all of the ice cap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis). It has also made most of the rest of the world uninhabitable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercane). To survive, people relocated to Antarctica. But the relocation happened very hastily, without the tools needed to sustain civilisation long term. Furthermore, different colonies of survivors began going to war with each other. It wasn't long before humanity regressed to a situation like the Dark Ages. Even the climate change and migration south were gradually forgotten, transformed into myths.

Of course, the Main Character doesn't know any of this yet (and as such, the readers don't know either). All he knows is that he is on a deserted plain at the foot of a glacier. He is taken prisoner and enslaved by a strange group of people. They are extremely organised and disciplined, but technologically only at medieval levels. Their society is also extremely alien, most noticeably that they all have elaborate facial tattoos.

What I am wondering is how long would it take for the Main Character to cotton on to what has happened?

Factors hindering the MC figuring out what happened:

• English is a long dead language (like Latin or Ancient Greek today, understood by no-one apart from a few scholars). Even after he learns the language, all people can tell him are stories of a great ancient civilisation, which tried to enhance their power by summoning demons from under the ground, however the demons turned on their masters by heating the air, flooding the land and creating huge storms, forcing people to flee over the sea.
• The climate is dramatically different. Spring has temperate, extremely pleasant weather, summer is hot with torrential rain which continues into autumn although the temperature becomes cold. Winter is still very cold (sea freezes over), but it is unlikely that the main character would thaw out of the ice in winter.

Factors helping the MC figure out what happened:

• He can see that the sun is moving anti-clockwise in the sky, which automatically puts him in the Southern Hemisphere (he is a scientist, so he can figure these things out).
• The sun always stays low in the sky, which puts him at a high latitude.
• Depending on when he thaws out, it will only be a maximum of a few months until it is either summer (months of permanent daylight), or winter (months of permanent night). This indicates that he is south of the Antarctic Circle.
• Winter has Siberia-like cold, with the sea freezing over.
• Eventually, he runs into other people from the base, who thawed out earlier than him. If he hasn't figured out what has happened by this stage, they will surely tell him.
• He knows that he took a drug that put him into suspended animation.

Are there any that I have missed?

Figuring out what has happened is far from the only thing going on in the story. We have the MC struggling to work his way up in the new society (he starts at the bottom as a slave), and as he does so, changing his opinion of the society from entirely negative to a more a balanced view.

I'm wondering how long it would realistically take for him (and also the reader) to work out where he is and in what time. Also from the point of view of making the story readable, how long is desirable?

If I really wanted to, I could make the drug give the MC amnesia, (so he forgets taking it) which gradually wears off. If I did this, I could use a prologue for the initial scene where the base is destroyed and they inject the drug. This would mean that the reader has a chance to puzzle out what has happened before the MC does.

But on the other hand, part of me worries that hiding things like this is just going to annoy readers, and I should make the MC figure things out early in the story.

What do people here think I should do? I would be very grateful for any input.

Thanks in advance

BethKLewis said:

Sounds like a fun story.

The amnesia trick is overused and has become almost worse than cliche. I'd find it more interesting to have the MC take the drug, fall asleep, then instantly wake up in the future and remember everything that happened to him. The severe confusion and horror he would feel would be really fun to explore.

Just write it and see how it naturally flows and how he naturally comes to the realisation. Your MC will do a lot of the work for you. That's not very helpful but the answer to most pacing/reveal questions is just write it, see what happens. Your instincts will kick in. I'd recommend you read The Sleeper Awakes and The Time Machine by HG Wells too.

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I understand what you mean about the MC doing a lot of the work. But still, I need to decide what season he thaws out in. Summer will mean months of midnight sun. Whereas spring and autumn would have 24 hour day and night cycles just like the rest of the world.

I have read The Time Machine, but not The Sleeper Awakes. Thanks for the recommendation.

Sword&Shield said:

2 things I am wondering!



Are these literal demons? or is it a metaphor for oil?


My other question is- it is going to be really hard for me to be sympathetic to a mass murderer. Being insane is pretty much a given if you are prone to killing tons of people. And then he has the presence of mind to say "oh man, I'm about to die too. Let me take this drug." And then he wakes up and his insanity in magically cured?

For me it would be like reading The Shining. Except the entire story was just a prologue, and Jack Torrance takes this drug to prevent from freezing to death in the snow... and he wakes up and is suddenly not insane anymore.

On the other hand, I think it is a really interesting concept. Did you plan on writing this in first or limited third? I assume it would be since you want to conceal the reader and MC from what happened. And if that is the case, I think it would be much more interesting (as someone already posted) if he was aware of everything he did. And since we are so close to his thoughts, maybe he isn't completely cured. Maybe the reader sees some of that insanity cracking through the voice of the story.

I don't know. Just ideas and brainstorming here. I think you have an interesting premise!

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The future inhabitants regressed technologically to medieval levels. Therefore they can't build oil rigs or extract gas from the ground. They don't know what CO2 is (or electricity). Without being able to use science to explain the world around them, they rely on religion and superstition.

So, over the centuries, the story of fossil fuels and climate change has transformed into a myth about ancient people trying to gain power by summoning demons from under the ground (they still remember that part), which then turn on their masters.

Maybe I should make something clear. The crazy mass murderer is not the Main Character. I'm planning to have the murderer freeze to death in the prologue (I can't imagine the others having the means or the will to give him the drug).

Though if he also managed to get his hands on some of the drug and also survive into the future, then he could make an interesting antagonist (though I have other antagonists in mind, such as influential religious zealots who believe anything "ancient" technology is evil).

I am thinking of writing this from limited third person. I was initially thinking of doing it in first, but I also think it would be interesting to do a few chapters from the POV of some of the inhabitants of the future Antarctica (of course, they were born so far after the climate change that it is mythological past to them). Plus, the very first page in the prologue is from the POV of the mass murderer (we have him planting a bomb and getting out his axe).

Filigree said:

Double check your sun-in-sky orientation. This site may help:http://moongazer.x10.mx/website/astronomy/rotation/index.htm

Otherwise sounds like a cool story.

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I don't mean the course of the sun over a year (it would only be a few months maximum before he finds out anyway).

I mean the movement of the sun over the course of a day. In the Southern Hemisphere, in the morning it is in the east, at noon it is in the north, and in the evening it is in the west. If there is midnight sun, at night it will be in the south. That is what I mean by it moving anti-clockwise.

Compare this to the Northern Hemisphere, where the sun is still in the east in the morning, in the south at noon and then in the west in the evening (if there is midnight sun, then it will be in the north). Hence here it is moving clockwise.

dawinsor said:

To me, the history is backstory. Your real story is what's happening in the book's present. So I'd disclose fairly quickly, not in an infodump, but as he encounters people and problems.

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What do you mean by the "history"? I disclose how the MC took the drug in the prologue, which is an action scene showing the crazy murderer killing people and destroying the base, and the desperate survivors taking the suspended animation drug.

The MC figures out where he is and what happened to the world by himself (the people around him can't help, because the climate change and migration happened so long ago that it is to them like the story of Atlantis is to us).

Much later on in the book, someone asks him to translate newspaper clippings (they are in English, which is a long dead language to the inhabitants). These clippings tell the story of catastrophic events linked to rapid methane release and runaway climate change. But by then, he has long since got a fair idea of what happened.

WeaselFire said:

First, welcome to Absolute Write.

Now, what is your story? Is it the tale of this man managing to survive as a Stranger in a Strange Land? Is he bringing the technologies and knowledge of the past to a future civilization through his time travel? Does he face any personal threats or triumphs as a part of his journey? Is he righting an injustice that occurred thousands of years in the past?

How about the perspective of the story? First person from your hero's point of view? Told by a modern narrator that already knows the changes and reveals them as he sees the character change? Third person omniscient with points of view of your hero as well as those whom he encounters?

All of these will determine a different path for your hero, and thus a different type of awareness and awakening to a new land. Reveal what's needed for the story, when it is needed, according to the story's, and your hero's, needs.

Now, put your butt in a chair and write it.

Jeff

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Good questions!

I would say that my story is very much a "Stranger in a Strange Land" type of story. The MC uses his English and ancient knowledge to work his way up in the future society (starting from the bottom as a slave). He never reveals that he is from the past, because a) no-one would believe him, and b) a lot of people believe that the ancient people were evil. People just assume that he is a scholar from the other side of the continent, and he goes along with that (there is a strong cultural taboo about talking about yourself, or asking personal questions to other people).

He reveals some ancient knowledge and technology, but not too much because he is wary of attracting the attention of influential religious zealots who believe that ancient technology was black magic. Also in the beginning he totally hates the society he lives in and doesn't want to help them.

A big theme of the book is the MC's change of attitude towards the people he lives among. At first he hates them (they did enslave him and are aggressively imperialist, behaving brutally towards people who don't follow their religion). But as time goes on, he starts to see that their society is more progressive than those around them.

He learns that they have democracy (albeit Athenian style where women and slaves can't vote), with a constitution placing severe restrictions on the power of the formerly all powerful theocrats. In contrast, the neighbouring countries are ruled by warlords and absolute monarchies.

He learns that they are gradually moving towards the abolition of slavery, making a law that the children of slaves are born free, can receive an education and can even rise to prominent positions in their society (very unlike neighbouring countries).

I am planning to tell the story from limited third person POV, mostly from the character's perspective (though with a few chapters from the POV of natives of the future Antarctica).

I have already written the prologue and the initial scenes where the MC gets captured and herded together with other slaves. As yet, he doesn't know where he is, and still assumes he is in the present.

Now I need to decide whether to have him figure things out straight away, or work as a slave for a few months before that. Evidence is starting to pile up, but it is still a shocking conclusion to come to.

Myrealana said:

First, welcome!

Second, I'm hooked. Love the idea.

Finally, I agree that I wouldn't want to deal with an amnesia storyline for too long. I could see a certain amount of disorientation when he awoke, but if his adjustment to his new life isn't the primary plot of the book, I'd prefer to get that out of the way and move on to more important issues.

I'd suggest that he would reveal his own past in fairly short order, and then the reader could discover the new society along with him.

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Yes, I think I will have disorientation for a page, then no more amnesia. But even with a clear head, he still needs to figure out that he is still in Antarctica (which looks totally different), and that he has been frozen for thousands of years (no-one is going to tell him, when he took the drug he assumed he would be rescued and thawed out as soon as help arrived at the base).

InspectorFarquar said:

This is the only part I didn't like. Randomly crazy guy doing randomly crazy thing that, presumably, serves the plot.

But the rest of the story sounds fun. Carry on then.

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I didn't want it to be too transparent a plot device, so I fleshed out the crazy guy. He is an atmospheric chemist who can't cope with the boredom and isolation and starts using his chemistry skills to cook methamphetamine in the base lab.

He smokes the last of his stash (his coworkers took the rest away and locked him out of the lab) on the first page of the book, in between planting a bomb and getting out his axe.

Methamphetamine is easily synthesised, and often makes people go completely insane, in a paranoid, violent kind of way.

I did some research, and I found heaps of accounts of people becoming alcoholics to cope while spending the winter in Antarctica. I also found stories of people growing weed down there. So I feel like it would be plausible for someone to be cooking methamphetamine. An atmospheric chemist would be able to do it easily, and would be the kind of scientist that would get sent down to Antarctica anyway (to study the ozone hole).

CathleenT said:

I'd also nix the amnesia, and I'm also going to recommend killing the language barrier. Your readers are going to have to wait a long time for him to acquire information, and that'll be early on in the book. I think it'll be deadly to forward momentum.

I don't think you need thousands of years. A few hundred might make it plausible, and make it easier for him to understand the locals. That way you can just have some language shifts, and it saves you the necessity of creating a new language, which will also slow your narrative down.

It's all your call, of course. These were just my thoughts when I read your post.

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Regarding the language barrier, if the MC was exposed to the language 24/7, I think he would acquire the ability to have a basic conversation after only a few months. And after setting the scene where the main character is enslaved and describing the conditions he lives in, I would definitely want to jump a few months forward in time anyway, since all he is doing is the same repetitive drudge work day after day.

I have fleshed out a sketch of the language people speak, but agree that going into too much detail will slow the narrative down too much. The ways I want to use it in the story are:

• For scenes in the beginning where his captors yell things at the MC that he can't understand.
• One of the important characters in the book is a history buff, and has learned to read English. He sees that the MC is stronger in English than the local language, and often tries to use it to communicate with him. However, because he is used to speaking the local language, when he speaks English he mixes up some sounds (t vs. ch, d and z vs. j, s vs. sh) and uses stripped down grammar, particles from his native language, and weird syntax (that is consistent but follows its own rules, like what George Lucas did with Yoda, but I use different rules).
• There are a number of scenes where the MC mispronounces something in the language (it is a tonal language, like Thai, Vietnamese or Chinese) and causes hilarity or confusion.

Debbie V said:

This may be, but the conversation would focus on only the things he needs to know as a slave. His vocabulary would still be very limited because his exposure is limited. It takes 1-3 years to learn a language to conversational fluency.

There are plenty of words in English that have been around for centuries. Some words would likely stay, but with changes in pronunciation, spelling or meaning. This might help him understand some things. Consider reading Shakespeare or The Canterbury Tales in the original to get some idea of how English has changed in the past five hundred years or so. In fact, see what the oldest text you can find is.

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From personal experience, it takes months, not years to go from zero to conversational in a language if you are immersed 24/7 in it.

I have read some Shakespeare (Othello and Hamlet), but I imagine that the language the MC hears when he wakes up would have undergone much greater change:

Most importantly, it would have been massively influenced by other languages. Especially if the colonisation south happens in a rather disorderly fashion, then there are going to be speakers of English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese etc living side by side. This would probably lead to a lot of bilingualism / multilingualism among the first few generations born in Antarctica. Contact with other languages tends to accelerate language change (look at how contact with French influenced English after the Norman conquests).

Another reason might be that illiteracy increases after the colonisation of Antarctica. People can't educate their kids because they are too busy fighting wars, fleeing from wars or trying to scrape together enough food to eat. It is possible that language would change faster in an illiterate society.

Beowulf was only written 1000 years ago, and I can't make head of tail of it. If we go back 2000 years ago, we've got the language that was spoken by the Germanic tribes that fought it out with Caesar. I'm guessing that this would be a late version of Proto-Germanic, of which few written records survive, but I think there would be very little mutual intelligibility between it and modern English.

Dhewco said:

Personally, I think it's highly likely that a large portion of the survivors would be English speakers. To be blunt, they're the ones with the money. That won't change in such a disaster. You'd more like get English, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese as the prevalent languages. I highly doubt English would go away that much.

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Any language changes over time, especially when its speakers are in close contact with speakers of other languages.

I'm guessing that the initial migrants to Antarctica would include many speakers of Chinese and Spanish (especially since South America is so close). Don't forgot Arabic (rich sheikhs) and Japanese too. I'm not sure about Russian, since refugees from there would be more likely to move towards the Arctic.

But I'm also guessing that, even if the Antarctic colonies were set up as exclusive refuges for the rich, they would be overwhelmed by poorer refugees, who just get in a boat and set sail south hoping for the best. So any language spoken along the shores of an ocean with access to the Antarctic would also end up being spoken in Antarctica. Even if only one in 10 boats survived the journey, these countries are populous enough that a lot of people would make it.

So we would also see Indonesian (especially with their culture of boat building), Tagalog, Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Indian languages such as Tamil, Urdu, Hindi and Sinhala (OK technically Sri Lankan but the same deal), as well as African languages such as Swahili.

With speakers of all of these different languages thrown together, within a few generations their language is going to change a lot. Borrowings, code-switching, mixed languages and creoles are going to emerge. Now fast forward a few thousand years and you're going to get something totally different to present day English.