writing concurrent action

Story Scholar

I’ve long admired Charles Williams’ Arthurian poems, but I only recently discovered his novels. They’re a fascinating blend of comedy, mysticism, and action — hard to imagine until you read them for yourself.

There’s so much I’ve enjoyed about Williams’ style and subject matter, but in this article I’ll limit myself to highlighting some of his techniques for conveying simultaneous action.

☞ There may be minor spoilers for War in Heaven, Many Dimensions, and The Place of the Lion. You can find these texts on Project Gutenberg Canada, or listen to them on Storytel.

Describing action that occurs at the same time is always tricky given the linear (and singular) nature of narratives. In Williams’ work, concurrent action is used for:

Dramatic effect
Conveying visionary states
Unifying subplots
Emphasising key information
Increasing suspense

SHARED KNOWLEDGE

Within the limits of the linear narrative, Williams creates a dynamic, cinematic parallel by showing two people coming upon the same piece of information — a redacted paragraph — at the same moment. The point of view pivots around the page that the characters are focused on:

“Behold the proof,” Lionel said, “in the proof. It goes off to-night.” He held the sheet out to the other man, who took it with a word of thanks and glanced at the red-ink line. “That’s it,” he said, “the last paragraph on page 218.” He stood for a moment reading it through.
In the room across the corridor the Archdeacon turned over page 217 and read on.
– from War in Heaven by Charles Williams

The paragraph that each party reads is a description of the whereabouts of the Holy Grail, and this key piece of information is what sets the plot in motion. To use this technique in your own story:

Find a key piece of information that has profound consequences for anyone who comes in possession of it.
Establish the importance of this information, as well as any stakes for the characters involved.
Build suspense by alternating between the two parallel parties.
Use the information (or an item representing the revelation) as a focus to switch between points of view.
Keep the description of the revelation brief, allowing the reader to appreciate its purport themselves.

SYNCHRONISED SOUND

Since sounds can be heard simultaneously by many people, they can also be used as a common point to “synchronise” various narrative timelines:

‘Do, or do not,’ she silently uttered, and fell even mentally into stillness in order that unhindered that action might or might not take place. The light grew suddenly around her; some encumbrance for a moment touched her mouth and would have interrupted her appeal, had it been vocal; a vibration went through her, as if a note of music had been struck along her whole frame, and far off she heard as it were a single trumpet at the gate of the house of Suleiman with a prolonged blast saluting the dawn.
The police-constable on his beat outside had come slowly down the road, and from a few yards off saw a dark heap at the door of Mrs. Webb’s house. He broke into a run, bent over it for a minute, then straightened himself, and blew his whistle. It was the body of a man that lay there; they found afterwards that it was burnt as if by lightning and broken as if cast from an immense distance. The constable’s whistle sounded again as if with a prolonged blast saluting the dawn.

If the repetition of “a prolonged blast saluting the dawn” wasn’t enough, the link between the trumpet and the whistle is confirmed on the next page, when the incident is recounted, and the consequences of the vision and the reality of the simultaneous activitiy are solidified.

The Chief Justice had listened in silence to Chloe’s account of the night.
‘And that blast of sound went on,’ she ended, ‘and it seemed to be a long time before I understood it was just a police whistle, and all that light was just the moon. And then I knew that whatever it was had gone away; so I got up and looked out of the window. And there they were.’
– from Many Dimensions by Charles Williams

Even as it resolves the subplot involving the dead man, the sound acts almost like the Return Threshold, heralding a spiritual awakening for Chloe as the Master of Two Worlds, poised between action and inaction without choosing either, the sound passing through her even though she can’t (and doesn’t intend to) speak.

If you use this technique, consider a sound that:

Has special significance to the character who hears it.
Can be heard by several characters at the same time.
Means different things to different characters, or is heard differently by them.
Creates suspense or rouses curiosity in the reader.
Creates a bridge between the sacred and the mundane.
Ties a dream or vision into the “real” world, or manifests it.
Wakens the character.

☞ See the final example for another way to use sound to unify subplots.

LEADING UP

Another way that Williams conveys concurrent action in a way that creates dramatic tension, is to use a chapter break to return to an earlier point in time, in order to explain the — previously withheld — details of how a dramatic event came about:

“… I wish to give myself up to the police for murder.”
XVII. — THE MARRIAGE OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
While Inspector Colquhoun had been discussing the Pattison murder with his chief that morning, the Archdeacon of Castra Parvulorum had been working at parish business in his study.
– from War in Heaven by Charles Williams

Here’s how to deploy this technique:

Use a point of view that allows you to keep the actions of Character A veiled from the reader.
Show Character A making a dramatic revelation, or acting in a remarkably uncharacteristic way.
Start a new chapter.
Return to an earlier point in time — possibly from the point of view of Character B observing Character A — and describe the series of events leading to the revelation or explaining the cause of the uncharacteristic action.
For more stylistic contrast, Character B can be as far removed as possible from the dramatic revelation of Character A — or even from any relation with Character A at all.

This is a technique frequently employed in film and TV to hook viewers, and I think it works equally well in writing.

BREAK IN CONTINUITY

As far as literary techniques go, I think this one is quite remarkable:

‘It makes it so awkward,’ Dr. Rockbotham said, passing through, with a little bow of acknowledgement, ‘when there is no easy way of——‘
Anthony followed, shutting the door after him, and as he turned to step along the landing, found that he stood on a landing indeed but no more that of the simple house into which he had so recently come. It was a ledge rather than a landing, and though below him he saw the shadowy forms of staircase and hall, yet below him and below these there fell great cliffs, bottomless, or having the bottom hidden by flooding darkness. He was standing above a vast pit, the walls of which swept away from him on either side till they closed again opposite him, and some sort of huge circle was complete.

The description of the vision — along with some philosophising about free will — continues for two long paragraphs, before Anthony returns to the present, and finds Dr. Rockbotham hasn’t noticed anything, and is just completing his sentence…

‘—discovering where his relations live—if any,’ Dr. Rockbotham said, shaking his head, and beginning the descent of the stairs.
‘Quite,’ said Anthony, following him slowly down and into one of the rooms on the ground floor. He wasn’t sorry to sit down; the doctor meanwhile wandering round rather restlessly. He was saying something but Anthony was incapable of knowing what, or what his own voice at intervals said in answer. What on earth had happened on the landing? Had he fainted? Surely not, or the doctor would have noticed it—people generally did notice when other people fainted. But he felt very breathless, and yet quite keen.
– from The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams

We’re accustomed to the narrator’s or author’s voice indulging in expository tangents of this kind, but Williams uses the technique more specifically, emphasising Anthony’s disconnection from the “real” world, and the ordinary flow of time.

There’s such a long break between the beginning of Rockbotham’s utterance and its end, — combined with the fact that the sentence isn’t of any particular importance, — that the reader is forced to circle back and re-read the dialogue.

You could use this technique when you want to:

Create a sense of distorted or relative time
Show a character thinking quickly
Show a character paying attention to something more important than the conversation of another character

CATCHING UP

The Sunday evening was very quiet. A few noises, wheels, footsteps, a door shutting, broke the stillness, and from some distance off the last hymn of the evening service at some church. That died away, and for a few minutes there was utter silence. In that silence there came to Anthony, distant but shrill, the sound of a woman’s terrified scream. He pulled himself back, shut the window, said to Richardson, ‘I’m sorry, I must go. That was Damaris,’ and moved with extreme lightness and extreme quickness to the front door, gathering his hat and stick in one movement as he passed. Richardson called out something which he did not catch; he waved his hand, took a leap down the steps, and ran along the street at top speed.
He was happily aware, as he went, of how easy, how lovely, it was to run like this; he was, more deeply and even more happily, aware that the moment for which he had long waited was come. But he was not aware of himself as bringing any help; it was his business to run because by that some sort of help could reach Damaris; what, he could no more tell than he could tell what danger had threatened her and had wrung from her that scream which some interior faculty of his soul had caught. He came to the corner and turned it.
– from The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams

In this example, Williams once again uses a unifying sound — a woman’s scream — and a chapter break to switch point of view, but this time the suspense is created through: