  Action/Adventure
This week: Eight Seconds Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Eight Seconds
Eight seconds. Not a long time, is it? You spend five times as much sitting at a red light. Or ten times that amount of time opening your mail. How many tasks can you do in eight seconds at your job? Maybe if you're a really good window washer, an eight second wipe down could be fast.
If you were writing something that took eight seconds, how many words or sentences would you use? A car crash takes less than eight seconds, but it would take more than a sentence or two to describe. It would only take eight seconds in a surgery for things to go horribly wrong and lose a patient, but much longer to describe.
In bull riding...eight seconds means the difference between big cash-payout glory and your butt in the dust. We're talking about a sport where a man willingly straps his fist under a rope and straddles a 1500-pound bucking bull. This guy is willing to have some very important parts of his body thrown up and slammed right back down onto the back of a riled cow. All the while the bull is bucking and twisting, this cowboy is holding on for dear life and trying to stay balanced enough to remain upright on that cow for...eight seconds. Did I mention style counts? Not only does the cowboy have to stay on, he has to look good doing it.
And then he has to get off the animal! He has to get that strap released and throw his body overboard, trying to land upright and not under the pounding hooves of the bull. Then, before he can catch his breath, he has to make a mad dash for the fence before he gets trampled or tossed through the air by the annoyed bull.
How long would you last? In 2009 the top standing bullrider in the elite tour of professional bullriders made almost $1.6 million dollars. In respect to professional athletes, that's not much. Kobe Bryant in the NBA is making $25 million this year for bouncing a ball down the basketball court. Ironic, don't you think?
When writing, give an important event the description it deserves. Even if the event only lasts eight seconds.
This month's question: What methods do you use to control pacing in your writing?
Answer below  Editors love feedback! 
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Excerpt: A baby's wail pierced through the whooshing of the snowstorm held at bay by the thick walls of the old cabin. Glass panes rattled against their housing, filling the warm building with noise. The father of the child stood in the doorway and waited, flicking his long fingers and shuffling his feet at a sudden attack of nerves.
“A son!” the midwife called. “Stars bless us, it's a boy!”
Excerpt: The long trip across the great salt sea was exhausting and taxed them to the extreme. After a short stop in Havenhall to see her parents, Analia and Elise decided to seek adventures in the lands of the rising sun. Stories told by the boastful Nordland seafarers, described great castles, beautiful women, honorable knights, strange animals and frightening sea creatures living in a green and bountiful land. Since she and Elise were determined to explore, regardless of what anyone else said, her father, Emperor John III of Angalund, provisioned them and gave them his blessing.
Excerpt: 'Maybe I'll just go away. Maybe today is my day.' The day had been long for Corbin. She had taken the time to whisper her thoughts to the ancient tree at the entrance of the gate. She let her negativity leave her as the wind flowed through the trees ember leaves. The morning had been filled with the usual melancholy and pander of the uninspired. Human dregs flowed into the ship ready to be carried forward to the stars.
Excerpt: I knew I was being followed, but I didn’t care. Normally, a creepy guy in a hood following me throughout downtown New York City would have sent me running, but not today. My day was ruined. I thought the interview had gone okay, but clearly it hadn’t since the manager had refused me the job. Ugh, that manager. Why did he get to go around selecting which one of us lowly peasants got to work for him?
Excerpt: “Calibrating.”
“Shut up, Babs.”
“Chance of failure: 17.3%.”
“Babs! I said shut up!” I stopped, my booted feet planted firm in the rotting detritus of London as my voice lapped into the distance with the river of filth beneath me. Inside the concrete confines of the sewers, the sharp rasps of my breath sounded like howling winds; I stopped breathing and strained against the near-silence, desperate to know if I’d been heard. If I was heard, I was done. It was good-night, light’s out, sayonara me. An ignominious end for Lisbeth Cooper.
Excerpt: Dennis watched a big muscular Labrador prance out of a large white sedan parked in front of his car.
“That dog should be on a leash,” the man said to himself.
He continued to observe as a red and orange rooster hopped out of the backseat and strutted after the dog. Dennis was curios. Sure he had seen this kind of thing candid camera shows, but experiencing such a peculiar situation was indeed interesting. Things got even more bazar as a man in a clown suit stepped out of the car holding a small pig. Everyone around Dennis was staring bewilderedly at the sight as well.
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This month's question: What methods do you use to control pacing in your writing?
Answer below Editors love feedback!
Last month's question: Do videos give you story ideas?
Quick-Quill  replied: I haven't tried the video routine, but s I watch movies I get spinoffs that hatch plot bunnies. sometimes I catch them, sometimes they just disappear down a rabbit hole. (tongue in cheek)
willwilcox responded: There is a realm of YouTube that is so fringe that even the conspiracy people stay away. It reveals an area of the mind that inters this creepy feeling of 'truth-I-don't-really-want-to-know'. Next time you go there, call me, I'll hold your hand.
Monty  said: You tube and you- You tube and me. I do the same thing when it comes to you tube.
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Thank you for the feedback! It's much appreciated. Leger~ |
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Action/Adventure: February 03, 2016 Issue [#7462]
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