Pacing Reviews

Something I’ve recently learned about when looking into the craft and techniques good writers use is that you can control the pace and mood of the reader as they go through your story by alternating lengths of sentences and paragraphs. As I just discovered the new technique, I don’t think it smart for me to try and explain it to you in a helpful way. However, I believe this to be an important technique to learn so I am going to give you links to other people who do understand this technique and can explain it to you better than I can.

K. M. Weiland’s video blog on pacing based off of chapters definitely gives me something to think about when revising my stories. For those of you who prefer reading to listening, the UTube video is also transcribed below the video box.

She wrote an excellent blog post about 5 ways to pace a story that I recommend every writer trying to capture the attention of others read. Those are some great ways to vary pacing and thoughts to remember as you edit.

Aimed more at those who want to create suspense, Heidi M. Thomas does a great job of explaining how to speed up a book. However, she gets into the basics of pacing and those of you that want to slow your story down can merely reverse her ideas

Watch How You Tell Things

One of the hardest things to do as a writer is to balance the action with description. When I write a story, I tend to write down all the description at once. I remember reading the Babysitter’s Club books years ago and getting annoyed after the first few books because the writer always did the same thing. Whenever the Club had their first meeting in the book, the writer always spent a whole chapter describing every person at the meeting. The idea was that if the reader hadn’t read ever book in the series until that book, it wasn’t hard to meet the characters. To those that had read most or every book in the series, it was plain annoying. I quickly got in the habit of reading the first page or so of conversation and flipping through the chapter to the rest of the conversation, effectively skipping all the family and personal data of the characters I already knew. Now that I’m reading books for older people, I’m noticing a much more effective way of describing people and their backgrounds, which is in little pieces. It’s expected that when a character is introduced the writer will give a description and maybe an biographical paragraph if the point of view character knows the information. Saying the guy is tall, brown haired, and has a gorgeous smile but the character knows he’s hiding a black heart behind that smile as she used to date him often works better than having all their past history fly through her mind at the sight of him on the way to her important meeting. Although seeing him again may serve to distract her at the meeting, a long description of the past may slow down the pace for the reader.

Depending on the effect you want to create, a better way to introduce character may be more subtle like giving a brief physical description and the point of view character doesn’t realize for a few pages that his sister’s friend has lovely green eyes up close rather than the plain brown eyes he assumed because of her hair color or the friend’s dimples don’t make it into the book until he actually smiles.

As you write your story, I want you to keep in mind the different effects you can use in description and introduction of characters and settings. Think about how you want your readers to view this new place or person and what mood you have going in your story or scene. Once you know those things, you can decide how you want to craft the description to create the desired affect.

What's So Troublesome About Cliches?

As you go through and revise your rough draft or your tenth draft or any other draft you do, remember to watch out for clichés. Wikipedia describes clichés as: “an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, rendering it a stereotype, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel… A cliché is often a vivid depiction of an abstraction that relies upon analogy or exaggeration for effect, often drawn from everyday experience. Used sparingly, they may succeed. However, cliché in writing or speech is generally considered a mark of inexperience or unoriginality.” Although readers may skim over clichés in their reading, an editor or other writers will notice. Being labeled unoriginal in the writing community is laughable and until you can learn to minimize the use of clichés, or better yet: avoid them, you won’t be taken seriously as a writer and aren’t likely to get anything published.
Here is a very thorough article on clichés to involve clichés in expressions, plots, characters, and a self test on clichés. Another place to look for information on clichés is a list of clichés in alphabetical order on the ClicheSite.com.

Is It A Story Or A Report?

When you pick up a newspaper or read a news article online, you may get a lot of details and facts, but you don’t feel as if you were standing right there. News reports are designed to give a lot of information in a small amount of space; they don’t have a number of pages to write about how the scene affects all five senses or to describe the setting in thrilling detail. They can’t make the scene come alive as story writers need to be able to. People read newspapers in order to get facts about current events. People read stories hoping to be somewhere else, someone else for a little while. They don’t merely want the facts of what happened and how, readers want to feel it and sense the action or tension in the room.

The difference is in the details: how they’re incorporated in the scene and how they’re worded. Wording and timing are a writer’s best tools. Use them correctly and you may have an award-winning story. Don’t use them enough or correctly and you may not even have a good report to let others read. Which would you prefer to have at the end of your project?

Foreshadowing

There is just one more thing I want to comment on before talking about editing your story, and that is foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is where you put hints of future events or the climax earlier in the story. Readers then anticipate the event and it adds suspense. Here are some general ideas on how to foreshadow in a story and here is a page on foreshadowing used in Star Wars.
Earlier I wrote about writing from a basic plan for your story. Foreshadowing only works well when you know how your story will end or what your next scene will be. For that reason it is probably best to save foreshadowing for the revision period of your story but if you have a plan of your story and plot, adding foreshadowing can be a lot of fun as you write.
Here is an article that explains foreshadowing and flashbacks rather well.

All You Need To Write Your Story!

Are you planning to write that story that’s been in your head that you know will be a bestseller if you could just figure out how to write it? Well, I’ve given some pointers on creating a setting and about specific settings in science fiction writing. I’ve talked about knowing your characters and even given you a profile to use to get to know each of your characters. In my last post I wrote about having at least a basic plan of what you’re writing. You’ve done all those things, correct? Well, what are you waiting for? Sit down at your computer or notebook and start writing! Stop procrastinating and get your rough draft done. Don’t worry about writing the perfect story in your first attempt. Books go through a lot of drafts before even getting to the publisher, who usually asks for at least one more draft because the author was too close to the story to notice things. The rough draft is where you put your idea on paper and the editing process is where you adjust wording, cut paragraphs or scenes that don’t add to the story, and generally polish your story until it shines. However, before you can edit your story, you need to write it. Now, stop procrastinating!

Work From A Plan

So you want to write a novel or short story? Where do you start? I’ve already talked about creating settings and characters, so let’s assume you already know your setting and all your characters as well as you know yourself. Now you’re ready to sit down in front of your computer or notebook and start writing. Before you start, though, you should think about your plot and story. If you’re like me, you decided to write a story based on a character or a scene that’s been stuck in your head. You may even write a story because you want other people to experience a setting in your mind or you want to prove a part of society foolish, like in Animal Farm which was a political commentary. Whatever your reason for writing your story, you need at least a basic idea of your plot and story.

Many writers say you should have your story and plot completely outlined before starting stories. Other writers talk about how their characters “talk” to the writers and the story ends up differently than the writer thought it would. To be honest, my way of writing has always been to just sit down and write, making it up as I write it down. That has yet to provide a story I’m happy to let others read so I’m starting to plan out a story and plot. It’s hard to write an organized story when you don’t know where you want the novel or short story to go. As much fun as it can be to just go for a walk one day and not have a destination in mind, you get places faster by knowing where you’re heading. If you want a story about a lady rediscovering her confidence after a divorce or a man who finds the strength inside himself to leave a job he hates, you need at least a basic idea of plot points needed to get the character where they need to be. Not only does a basic plan help avoid major writer’s block in your rough draft, it also helps you keep the story focused on the transition your character makes so your reader doesn’t get confused or bogged down by long and pointless scenes you shouldn’t have spent so much time on. No matter what your style of writing fiction is having a basic plan of where you want your story to end is beneficial.