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Not a question of pace but rhythm

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Thub:
So , ya, I know I am probably asking a bit of an esoteric question, but how do I make my writing read less bouncy and more rollingly

Here is the problem I am having.  The zombies are dashing across the field or climbing the ladder or groping through the bars on the window to get at my hero, but instead of reading in the rolling tone that an ominous event should have, "it reads like you are following the bouncing ball in a sing along."  I would rather it had the long rolling build of a bowling ball smoothing curving toward a violent end than a game of ping pong.

Does anyone have a suggestion for taking the bounciness out of my writing?

Are there any tricks for rhythm?


The good news is, It makes for a really quick read.

Shecky:
Gonna need an example.

Captain's Honor:
What about building suspense by writing down how your character feels during the chase?  Or even better take from the zombies point of view.  For example, on the chasing the field one.

They knew they had to get him.  It wasn't a matter of actual knowledge, but more of instinct.  Living flesh.  They hated living flesh.  To them, it was a disease, something to be eradicated at all costs.

Thub:
Here are a couple of examples.

Near the beggining:
     After a little work on my latest toy in the garage, a 1969 Camaro with more rust than paint, it was off to Jennet’s office in Midtown.
     Jennet Badeau is my favorite client.  Aside from the fact that she gives me more work than any other regular client in the city, always pays on time, and always leaves her door open and cracks a window whenever I am in her officeon account of my thing about closed in spaces, she is very easy on the eyes. 
     Jennet’s dark blond wavy hair is almost perpetually up in some kid of bun or pony tail which makes her look even younger than she is, and her smooth rounded features give her a serene, peaceful look with bright, warm brown eyes and little dimples when she smiles.  And at just over six feet with her heals on, she is taller than most of the men, judges and lawyers alike, she has to deal with.  For a tall woman she has curves that not even the most severe pantsuit could hide.  Basically she is a top notch babe, and yes, I totally have the hots for her.
     With Jennet, everything on the outside was camouflage.  I have only seen her in court a few times, and it is truly amazing…and a little scary.  That young, peaceful face and those cute little accessories mask the roid raging prize fighter out for blood that hides beneath.  I have seen her make full grown men cry without ever raising her voice, and I’m not talking about the dignified, quiet, single tear kind of crying either.  I mean men of success and power with dark spots on their two thousand dollar suites from all the tears, red faced with snot bubbles coming out of their nose from sobbing so hard. 
     The first time I saw her emotionally K.O. a defendant, it kind of spooked me.  Maybe spooked is the wrong word.  I was freaked out!  I had never seen anyone so totally tear a person down with such cold heartless precision before.   When the verdict was rendered, she walked right over to me and said “People ask me all the time if my name is French.  I tell them it’s Creole.  The truth is, I’m named after a horse.”  She shot me a dorky smile, made an “ooof” sound when she picked up a heavy file box, and just like that she was a regular person again instead of a vicious calculating megabitch.  As it turns out, she was telling the truth.  Seriously, I looked it up.  She's named after a horse.



Near the end
     The 327 v8 of my 69 Camaro RS rumbled down the streets of Washington DC parting the thick columns of steam billowing from sewer grates at 3:00 AM on a late November night and came to a stop in front of a building constructed on a grand scale with huge white columns and white stone that would have looked more appropriate in ancient Greece than in a modern American city.  As I pulled the key from the ignition, got out, and closed the door on 4000 pounds of barely contained American made power, the wind kicked up yesterdays discarded news paper blowing it past me as my leather jacket was caught by the same wind and began to wave around me like the short cape of a long forgotten but no less valiant knight.
     That was definitely how I would describe the scene if I somehow managed to live through the night which at the moment seemed fairly unlikely.  I probably wouldn’t mention the choking coughing sound the neglected pony car’s engine made for what seemed like an eternity after the door was closed.  There was no way I was going to tell anyone about the wind blowing over my mostly bare legs and through my workout shorts.  The very, very cold wind.  In retrospect I probably should have taken a couple of minutes to grab a few things before I took off on the 8 hour drive from Atlanta, but I hadn’t been thinking straight at the time.  A pair of pants and an uzi seem like a good idea considering what I was about to do.  Oh and some titanium chain mail would have been nice too, but those are the breaks
     I opened the majestic steed’s rusty trunk to take out the equipment I would need for a night of breaking, entering, snooping, and, if it couldn't be avoided, violence.  2 Mirrors,  1 huge Maglight flashlight with 4 D cell batteries, 5 Minimags, duct tape (it holds the world together), 30 of those flashing Braves LED pins they give out at the games, and one cut down Louisville Slugger. 
     As I turned toward the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, two more thought joined with the dozens of others racing through my mind.  Smithsonian National Postal Museum, and for an interactive stamp collection, this place has way too many stairs.

Suilan:
OK, here it goes. Brace yourself.


   
--- Quote --- After a little work on my latest toy in the garage, a 1969 Camaro with more rust than paint, it was off to Jennet’s office in Midtown.
--- End quote ---


1) Don't play the Hunt-for-the-verb game with the reader. In this sentence, the verb is the 21st word! It needs to be somewhere near the beginning. (Mark Twain used to make fun of the German language for being "impolite to their verbs" by putting them last in subordinate sentences...)


2) Put the action into verbs. NOT "a little work" but "He/I worked"

(-ing phrases aren't the solution here. They can be useful occasionally, but be aware that they make the described activity sound very minor. "After working on" does not sound much more "active" than "After a little work on.")


Possible revision: Until noon/For the next few hours I worked on my latest ...


3) Avoid impersonal expressions like: it was off to. Make the acting person subject of your sentence. Use strong, precise verbs.

Possible revision: ... then I cleaned myself up and hurried over to Jennet's office is stronger & more precise than "He walked over to Jennet's office."


Characters need to be seen acting. They can't do that if their actions are described in nouns, -ing phrases, or impersonal expressions starting with "it" or "there was."


--- Quote --- Jennet Badeau is my favorite client.  Aside from the fact that she gives me more work than any other regular client in the city, always pays on time, and always leaves her door open and cracks a window whenever I am in her office on account of my thing about closed in spaces, she is very easy on the eyes.
--- End quote ---


4) "Aside from the fact that" -- Avoid empty set phrases like these. Lawyers might talk like this; writers shouldn't. The sentence loses no content whatsoever if you delete this phrase, but gains clarity and directness.

Same with: "on account of my thing about closed in spaces"

change to: because she knows I hate closed spaces.


5) Important actions or statements should never be buried in subordinate clauses, nor in long sentences (like here.) Give important ideas a short sentence on their own, so they can shine.

possible revision -- Oh, and she is very easy on the eyes.

 
--- Quote --- Jennet’s dark blond wavy hair is almost perpetually up in some kid of bun or pony tail which makes her look even younger than she is, and her smooth rounded features give her a serene, peaceful look with bright, warm brown eyes and little dimples when she smiles.  And at just over six feet with her heals (heels) on, she is taller than most of the men, judges and lawyers alike, she has to deal with.  For a tall woman she has curves that not even the most severe pantsuit could hide.  Basically she is a top notch babe, and yes, I totally have the hots for her.
--- End quote ---


6) Get the details right! Two details about her description (first sentence) seem impossible to me. A bun makes a person look older, not younger. If she wears her hair in a bun, how can it be wavy? Imho, not even in a pony tail can it look wavy.

7) Don't use the name "Jennet's" when you can use the pronoun: Her.

8 ) Avoid too many adjectives, as in: dark blond wavy hair. Possible revisions: "Her wavy blond hair" (this order!) or "Her dark blond hair"

9) Sometimes, "is" is just the word you need, but description of a person or place can all too quickly sound passive/static, so try to liven it up by using stronger verb than "to be" such as "fell down to her shoulders" or "cascaded down" or "framed her oval face" or something like that.

(Warning: Do NOT replace ALL "to be" verbs with other verbs. The result can become quite unreadable. As with all things, it's the dosage that counts.)

10) Avoid expression like:  a little, kind of, almost, very. They weaken your sentences and sound like sloppy writing. Say what you mean, not what you "almost mean."


--- Quote ---  She shot me a dorky smile, made an “ooof” sound when she picked up a heavy file box, and just like that she was a regular person again instead of a vicious calculating megabitch.
--- End quote ---


11) Tell things as they happen -- in correct order.

She first picks up the file box, then makes an oof sound, right? It sounds awkward the wrong way round.

12) "make an oof-sound"

three problems here: i) It sounds like elementary school writing (sorry. The rest doesn't, so it really is out of place.) Find a real English word for what you mean.

ii) Show, don't tell. Show us through description that the file box is heavy, not by telling us that it's heavy. She could sway or pant or whatever.

iii) The pov-character can't really know it's heavy. OK, it's a file box, but HE isn't experiencing the heavyness himself, so telling us it's heavy is also a glitch in point of view.

13) Tighten your prose. Be straightforward. Don't use five words when one can do the job. A verb is more powerful than a wordy construction where the action is hidden in a noun. Stephen King says about the process of revising (quoted from memory), "Imagine you get $100 for each word you cut."

She shot me a dorky smile = She smiled.

14) Strong nouns are better than weak nouns. Strong nouns don't need adjectives. Adjectives weaken strong nouns. Megabitch is a strong noun. It should stand on its own.



Hope some of these suggestions help. Good luck with your revision!

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