Hello, writers. In the comments section below, you'll find a roster for Write On! hosts. So far it contains ace Write On! regulars Emmet and mettle fatigue. Please consider joining it! If you're a WO! regular then you probably spend some time thinking about writing, and that means you probably have some aspect of writing that you'd like to discuss, share your knowledge about, or ask others about.
As for the “Tonight's Challenges,” if you can't get one organically out of the diary topic, you can always choose two words randomly from the dictionary and use them as a writing prompt.
Anyway. On to tonight's topic. Pacing. What is it? I never heard the term until a couple years ago.
Pacing, as nearly as I can tell, is the quality of a book that keeps us turning pages, that makes the story move right along. 19th century novels are full of what today would be pacing fails.
There's Dickens's Bleak House, which opens with a four-page description of rain. (When Terry Pratchett parodied this in his recent novel Dodger, he kept it to half a page of rain, and even that was pushing it.)
There's Uncle Tom's Cabin, where the famous (and true) scene of Eliza crossing the Ohio River on ice floes takes a single page, shorter than some of the (many) religious exhortations with which Stowe regales the reader.
So pacing is the opposite of this. It's giving action scenes, and other emotionally-driven scenes, room to develop. A build-up, the scene itself playing out with maximum impact (more about that in a second) and then usually a walking scene to follow.
The Build-Up
Whatever the big scene is, we should see it coming. Anticipating it is half the fun. There can be brief hints in preceding chapters that it is coming. There can be increasing hints that it is inevitable. There may or may not be a scene just before it that prepares us for the big scene.
Hints are very important. Can't do without 'em.
I usually have to go back on my revision and make sure all my big scenes had appropriate build-up.
The Big Scene
The battle. The finding of the Jewel of Togwogmagog. The confrontation with the evil wizard/ dragon/ romantic rival/ nefarious criminal/ best friend who's carrying on with the protag's spouse. Pacing means not ruining this scene with any of the following:
- excess description
- long explanations of what the characters are thinking
- rationalizations for taking or not taking a particular action
- similes and metaphors
- snappy but pointless dialogue
- puns
I've actually got a big scene in Jinx's Fire where I worry about pacing. There were things that had to be explained (by me, not the characters) during the confrontation. I tried to keep these things to a bare minimum, to say them in as few words as possible, and to get back to the action. Hope I succeeded.
I'm also worried about the denouement, which I think some readers might thing is too long. At least there's a tradition of fantasy trilogies having long denouements. (In the case of Lord of the Rings, half a book.)
Anyway, pacing. That's my understanding of what it is. Would like to hear your thoughts.
Tonight's challenge:
A Callow Youth and his/her Stout Companion are trapped in a high tower. The enemy is climbing/slinking toward them up the staircase. They have two choices: to stand and fight, or to try to escape out the window.
Write the scene, and destroy the pacing with extraneous material.
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