Corpses/Cliffhangers/Remedies for pacing

Corpses, Cliffhangers and Other Remedies for Pacing

Jessica Morrell


Main Points of this Lecture:

1) Fiction is never predictable
Emotional intensity and how many things you have in a row
- Not just what you’d think of as pacing
Job is to have your reader have physical experience; like with a
Movie screen

Fiction is not about happy stuff
In real life people avoid conflict
In fiction we want conflict – author’s job to create conflict

As writers we need to pay attention to both beginnings and ends of chapters and
Novel
Try to put emphatic word at end of line

Fiction has a lot of structure:
Not all pacing is about things going very fast
It’s about crescendos and valleys; big crescendo in middle of novel
Transitions and tension building important

Author needs to tell about:
Vulnerable Characters
Readers relate to vulnerability
Motivation, characters and conflict
Take characters into new emotions they’d rather not go in to

Pacing is a tool that:

1) Shows time – make sure time passes
2) Varies
Both Needed: (Internal dialog, thinking – slow)(Action – fast)

Narrative Drive: What drives story forward: Tension, Dialog and Foreshadowing are all a part of this

Thriller – sometimes dangerous to slow down but not usually
Fiction can also go too fast

Jumpy conflicts – not enough stops along the way for reader to know characters

Need balance of the following two (the components of pacing):

1) Story events
2) Additional information

Pace set by number of events per page
If every paragraph was an event it would be a summary and not fiction

Quick pace – good
If reader wants to skim it there is a problem

Start of Novel:

Needs change, conflict and intrigue


Tools for speeding up
1) Action scenes – needs varied lengths of sentences – don’t write too many short sent in a row
2) Change – slow or fast – each scene has at least one change
Show at least one character off balance
Number of changes directly proportional to speed of pace
3) Cliffhangers

When you leave outcome of chapter hanging
Should try to use ¼ to 1/3 of chapters cliffhangers
If characters are in the middle of dialog end with a reaction, threat or challenge


Take character in another dimension; characters should be thrown off balance; keep
Sideswiping (bushwhacking) characters at intervals;

Characters may act badly

Protagonists threat from Antagonist may become more personal as book goes on;

Alternate viewpoints increase pace; editors like multiple viewpoints

All these characters left dangling

More pace changers:

Chases and contests increase pacing

Any kind of danger – person trapped – Traps pick up pace

Kids stories: Things speeding out of control works

Physical or emotional life or death increases pace

The more powerful the villain the greater the pace
Often in villain stories the villain is offstage

Dialog can pick up pace:
A ping-pong effect in midst of action or conflict

Prolonging outcome: delay, delay, delay.
Note - Too many writers give away too much too early

Scene cut or jump cut

Story moves to new location for no reason; no explanation;
Can use if you want to get away from using transitions;
Readers can follow this

Reversals: Character starts one way and ends the opposite way;
Eg. Loser to success; happy to sad

A series of actions that take place in rapid succession

Microlevel

Word change and structure level

Too much white space or too long of paragraphs bad

For fast pace – can use fragments and short sentences

Harsh consonants on sound words with unpleasant association
Trim all sentences of extras
1) Prepositional phrases

Finish story and revise:

Event->Info->Event->Info, etc


Slow it down

Suspense almost always contains a murder


Dialog – keep people’s names out of it
The attributes (said and asked) should be used in dialog; how dialog is said
Should come from context;
NO ADVERBS – have to justify every adverb you use
Adjectives – the carbohydrates of writing

Be careful of introspection – don’t put much in
Internal dialog and introspection are same thing
A good use of introspection – What they think in funny situations

Try to layer things – keep bringing things up – especially dominant trait

Two types of flashbacks:

1) Front story – all that happens after present
2) Backstory – All that happens in past
Generally do in quiet or alone times

In a car – a good place for introspection or flashback

Reasons for Slowing Down

1) Simplify
2) To create suspension
3) To pause for significance

Writing scenes:

1) Ask what you want to do before writing it.
2) Sometimes slower pace wanted – wedding or love scenes
3) Times where there’s normally slowing down

Readers don’t want non-stop action (melodrama)

Description slows things down but it’s also important so story is believeable
Need a little bit of description all the time
- try to use active verbs to pace in description

Distraction – slows things down
- Small actions
-- eg. - handling an object
Delay device

Exposition:
- Slowest of writing
Biographical and historical
Straightforward exposition – trim down to essential – STORY COMES FIRST

Flashbacks slow things down
- want series of them
-- if only have 1 or 2 of them – don’t use them; too single
- use in slower parts of story before starting to build tension

Character’s thoughts should mimic dialog

Protagonist needs to struggle: 2 steps forward, 1 back

Some normal calm periods balanced with action

Sequels – aftermath of action scenes: (slow scenes)
Eg. Thrillers – protagonist very brilliant – not a lot of sequels
Romance – Lots of sequels

Texture of sentences

Soft sounding wording; verbs;
Long, repetitive, series all slow down

Need to balance fast and slow – start fast, explain later

Slow beginning -> danger to write; backstory needs to be included on an as needed
To know basis

Every novel is based on a major dramatic question:
Emotional pitch
Emotional pace as important as action
Emotion varies in book; readers want to savor deeply

Setpiece – Most dangerous emotional explosion
Setpieces for coming scenes: 4 or 5 a book to set up scenes

More building and foreshadowing

Transitions

Transition –
Writers don’t give reader a map to move from place to place
Time always needs to be accounted for
- Can be used to compress time

Use transitions to anchor flashbacks
Need external trigger: to past perfect ->simple past->previous tense as before flashback

Transition in Change of setting (especially if abrupt) : more dangerous

Can also have transitions for change of mood or change of POV