McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Pacing

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Kalshane:

--- Quote from: Dom on August 29, 2006, 12:16:32 AM ---I agree, the marigolds was a bad choice of example.  But yeah...it was 2AM!

--- End quote ---

Well, like I said marigolds have their place. And your point was a good one. I just wanted to mention the whole relevency angle. I've seen people try to add "depth" to a scene and end up being distracting instead.

novium:
I would find someone who loves you and reads a lot. Then, ruthlessly take advantage of them and force them to read the offending chapter. This may seem like a cop out, but let me explain.  This sort of reminds me of my first attempts at 10+ page essays... at least, from what you said, I think i had a similar problem. I would have more than enough to say, but I had a really difficult time with how to pace it; what to expand on, what to keep concise. The first few page or two would be ok. But then i'd start drawing out a few points way past what they should have been and interspersing them with facts fired at high speed. It made the damn things very disjoined and jarring, and let's not even get into the ugliness of choppy and overly-flower-y sentences.

Someone who is more of a reader than a writer should be able to point out "you drew this out too long, i found it dull" or "i want to know more about this, it went by so fast I don't understand it..." or "you need something to segue from this topic/sentence to that one."
from that, i'd look at the shaky sections and work out an outline (serving as a timetable of sorts instead of as an inspiration).  I am not recommending this as a permanent solution, but I think after successfully editing a monster chapter or two into shape, you should be better off when it comes to writing/pacing/editing them yourself (and in your head).

anyway. that's my two cents, and whether it's value for money...well, i can't say. but best of luck :)


--- Quote from: terroja on August 28, 2006, 04:11:31 AM ---
The downside is that sometimes--especially in the longer chapters where a lot is happening--this pace can be exhausting. I wrote a 4000 word chapter the other day (4000 words for a chapter is positively epic by my standards) and no matter how I tweak it, I can't make it read like it wasn't written by an overzealous crackhead. By the 1000 word mark, every sentence is crashing into every sentence the follows. Reading it feels like running a marathon where the hurtles are all placed three inches apart.

Is there any way I can fix the pacing without making the chapter boring by my own standards? 

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Cathy Clamp:
I know you withdrew your initial concern, but one of the things I use to help me with pacing is to think of the book as a "made for TV" movie. I don't know if this'll work for you, but it does for me. Each chapter is a scene in the overall broadcast. At the end of the chapter, there's a commercial break. The goal of the chapter end is to ensure that the reader turn the next page (or in the case of a movie, return to the set after their bathroom/snack break.) My overall goal is for the reader to NEVER put down the book until it's done.

IMO, the pacing is wrong if there's an opportunity for the reader to put down the book. Whether that reason is because it's going at such a breakneck speed that they need to catch their breath, or it's moving so slowly that they can pick it up again at a different time and not lose the flow.

In a fast moving scene, you might consider the commercial break in the MIDDLE of the scene--at a "cliff-hanger" spot where they don't know what will happen next, rather than ending with resolution of the momentary crisis. Make 'em think, "Oh, just a few more pages before I turn out the light... I just want to see if the car goes over the cliff."  Then you've got them for good.  ::)

If the pace is moving too slow, then speed it up with a "temporary crisis" that has nothing to do with the plot--very much how Jim suggested in his blog entry about the "swampy middle". Some movement forward, whether it has to do with the primary plot, is often enough to get things moving. I just added in a bit where one chapter felt swampy so I had a furniture delivery show up when the heroine is exhausted and wants nothing more than to go to bed. She'd forgotten about the delivery in the press of the crisis. But it was a bad spot for the READER to hit the sack and I got to beef up a secondary character through a two page conversation (that tied into later events and added a "da-dum" ending on the chapter.)

Just a few random thoughts...  :D

Darrington:
I know my reply won't be nearly as in-depth as some of the other great ones presented here, but I thought I'd add in a word or two from my experience.  I used to have massive issues with pacing (I've gone to the other side of the spectrum since at times) when I first started out writing.  I was going through things too fast, some of that 'show don't tell' stuff. Some. Ha.  Lots.  Anyway.  I ended up fitting more detail into the scene, describing surroundings and thoughts and such (okay, now I realize I'm going into the same information as some of the others on here), and that helped pace it a bit more.  Of course, now I can get stuck in adding too much detail into some scenes, and make it drag on forever.  And the sad thing is, I still on some level believe it's necessary, in some of my writing at least, to include that...

Anyway, there's some of my thoughts on the subject.  Even if the issue's been resolved already, thought I'd just chime in. :)

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