Pacing and Scene Selection

Craft & Skills Frank Morin 4 Comments

Today I want to talk about story pacing.

I’m currently reading one of those books that’s really gotten into my head and I’ve been thinking about why.  The book is Princeps Fury, book 5 of the Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera epic fantasy series.  I’m really enjoying the book and the series, although I need to finish it soon so I can get it out of my head and focus on my own writing.

Two things in particular have jumped out at me while reading this book.  First, it is a big fat epic fantasy, and yet it is paced more like a military thriller:  fast, unrelenting, with constant twists and escalations.  Second, every scene drives the plot forward, escalating the conflict or twisting the plot.  There’s no downtime, no reprieves.

For me it works, even though it’s hard to maintain such a pace for such a long book.  For my wife, it doesn’t.  She prefers stories where there are breaks in the tension, where the action comes more in cycles than in one long, continuous sprint toward the end.  She needs the periodic emotional rest or she finds a story overwhelming.

Different readers have different preferences.  As authors we need to discover what pacing our story requires.  Then we need to deliver it.  Some readers will like it.  Some won’t.  But if the story isn’t paced properly, no one will.

In a thriller or a fast-action story a hard-hitting, constantly escalating pace is required or there’s not enough emotional tension for the author to achieve the sought after experience for the readers.  On the other hand, some stories have different objectives.  Some epic fantasies explore the milieu (the environment, culture, history, and customs of the worlds they’ve created).  That’s fine too.  Many readers love this type of story as long as it doesn’t get too bogged down by all the side-tracks.

The pacing needs to be appropriate or the story dies.  A common mistake that can derail the correct pacing is including the wrong scenes.  Imagine a story like the movie “Die Hard” where, in the middle of the action, the hero John McLane decides to take a hot bath and drink some tea.

Wouldn’t work.

That example’s a bit extreme, but new authors often fall into the trap of including scenes just because they’re the next sequential step in the character’s journey, even if they’re just filler material between the scenes that really matter.  Experienced authors have learned to recognize those filler scenes that do nothing in and of themselves to drive the plot forward in any meaningful way.  They learn to cut those scenes and move on to the next important action.

For authors who do a lot of exploratory writing to “find’ the story, this can be a greater challenge because the very nature of that exploratory writing will result in scenes that are useful to the author but not to the finished work.  In subsequent drafts as the author is paring the story down to its core plot line, those scenes must be removed or they will drag a story down and ruin it.

I’ve learned this the hard way.  In the early drafts of one novel I wrote I included several entire chapters that, although interesting and well written, did next to nothing to drive the plot forward.  It was hard to recognize that they had to go because in a slightly different story they would have been perfectly appropriate.

Just not in the story they happened to be in.

I had to learn to ask the question:  “If I remove this entire scene, will the reader even notice?”  The answer was “No”.  I cut the scenes and no one blinked an eye.

On the other hand, in the same novel, I got a little carried away with trimming the fat and cut an entire POV and all of its related scenes.  Beta readers didn’t know what was missing but they sensed that something was lacking in the story.  I put the scenes back and readers confirmed it filled the gap.

It can be a tricky process, but it is vital.  We as authors need to make sure we understand what emotional journey our readers will be taking as they follow our characters through the torturous adventures we throw them into.  Extraneous scenes need to go.  Scenes that do not deliver the correct tension, pacing, or emotional beat have to go or have to be corrected.

What techniques have you developed for identifying scenes to chop?

How To Write Now

The Writing Life 2 Comments

Character: Myself
Goal: To finish my damned book
Motivation: The story needs to be told
Present circumstances: Mundane life
Back story: Wrote some nonfiction. Thought I’d try my hand at fiction.

Questions:
Will gangsters kill me if I don’t finish my first draft? No.
Will the balance of political power be affected if I don’t finish my book? No.
Will the world as we know it be forever changed if I don’t finish the book? Probably not.

I keep falling off the wagon.

This is because of an insidious form of procrastination – reading how-to-write books.

When I first took up fiction a few years ago it seemed like the thing to do. “What can you recommend on how-to-write books?”

But now it’s become a full blown vice.

More than one how-to-write book has told me I need to write at least a page a day. They say I’ll have a book at the end of a year.

Some of these same books have said I need to read a hundred books in my genre before I’m qualified to write in it. I don’t know how many I’ve read, and that nagging insecurity I feel must mean I should read some more.

But maybe I can make up the difference by reading “how-to” books.

Sometimes the only down time I have is commuting. So I try to tell myself that learning a bit more about craft and structure is a productive use of time, and my Kindle tells me how to develop deep, sympathetic characters that we care about – in its endearing robotic female text-to-speech voice.

I want to write! I’ve tried all the advice about carrying a mini-recorder and putting my notes in it! But I never get around to transcribing them, they are full of hems and haws and I only really get work done when I sit down at the keyboard.

I created a separate account on my computer so I can log out of my “work” self and have an an e-mail free environment where I only write. Kind of like how you have to move the boa from one aquarium to another before you feed it, so it doesn’t think the main cage is for food.

But there’s still a web browser. No writing gets done. I bite my hand anyway.

By now, what do I need to learn? I know I need a strong narrative drive! I know that my characters need a back story but that I shouldn’t include it! I know that the three act structure is both outdated and irrelevant yet critical for a book!

I know too well that I have to create strong sympathetic characters, and if they’re morally ambiguous, a great way to do this is to give them a dog or a wife or something that makes us care.

Heck, by now doesn’t everyone know that events in the story should flow organically from the motivations our characters have? Isn’t it obvious that characters become two dimensional when they are slaves to plot?

Of course dialogue is supposed to be a compressed form of high-quality speech, what that character’s best self could say. I wish I actually had enough dialog written so that I could read it out loud to myself and see if it flows!

I have many examples of the genre beats that my story might want to hit.

Don’t even get me started on the 10-plus hours of lectures that I have been listening to and re-listening to from a recent writing conference. I’m thankful I didn’t get all three days of lectures and only took home what I could capture with my two mini recorders.

I don’t want to hear another word about 1st 2nd and 3rd person, and the different ways writers try to explain the intimate and remote 3rd person. I am fed up with admonitions not to try 1st person contrasted with encouragements to do it. I don’t care if I don’t have a good reason to use 1st person! How about “I’m writing a book” – is that good enough?

I even know that all the rules don’t matter if you’re skilled enough, and that rules were meant to be broken.

(That said, I swear by all that is holy that the choice for me is adverb-free.)

What they’re all saying, the only advice I can’t seem to take, is to finish that first draft!

I guess better writers than I can revise yesterday’s notes to get in the groove for today. But for me, that’s two steps back with no steps forward.

I know how my story ends in great detail. I’ve already started it and written most of the first act. Really, the only thing sagging about my middle act is my persistence in writing it!

It’s pretty easy, really, right? Scenes are just vignettes of conflict. And my characters have goals they’d practically die for. They have such deep motivations! I mean, how else could it be? And all I have to do is write out a bunch of scenes and I have a book, right?

I’m going to try today, to turn over a new leaf, get back on the wagon, and get through this book.

Ok I have to generate the motivation myself. Somehow.

I’m imagining the situation. I have to write the book. There’s a loaded shotgun over the mantle. Did I put it there?

My future self is furious that we’re out of money and that I’m going to die penniless and obscure, because I never finished the book.

My future self takes Chekov’s gun and aims it at my head and says,

“Write. Now.”

Pesky Distractions and Writing Avoidance

Clancy Metzger The Fictorians The Writing Life 7 Comments

I admitted today, to my fellow Fictorians, that I am avoiding writing.  This is the first step to recovery – I hope.  There are many reasons I am not writing or not feeling creative in the least.  The suspected top items probably include:  too many other obligations (writing-related and not), my work space is disorganized and a disaster of clutter, and my writing is still lacking and critiques tell me so.

 My plan.  I have a week before this post is due, so let’s do an experiment together.  I will try a variety of things to alleviate said problems and report if they are helping – on a daily basis.  I know you won’t see any of this until the week is up, but go along with me and we’ll see if it doesn’t help me and possibly you at some point in the future.

 Monday – Harsh critique has me depressed, but I have now admitted I have an avoidance problem happening, so this will be my attempt to correct the situation.  I want to take a nap, go to the movies or read a book. Obvious avoidance tactics…. And I succumbed.  I ended up taking a nap, watching a movie, reading and indulging in food therapy.  It was ugly.  But, I’m feeling less depressed.

 Tuesday – So far, still being distracted by other obligations, but I really do have to wrap up the minutes for my online board meeting.  So, working on that.  I’m second banana for my local Utah Romance Writers Conference coming up in October.  I got a lot done on the conference program and on the minutes, but no writing.  Still hopeful.

 Wednesday – Epic fail on the writing again.  More board meeting, more minutes, more program.  But, the minutes are done and the program is 75% done.  Had an evening field trip in relation to the upcoming conference, too.

 Thursday – Honestly, I don’t know what happened today. I did some reading.  Lots and lots and a painful amount of emails, as usual.  I had a powwow with my critique partner about the problem with my plot.  We came up with some thoughts.  Discussed going back to work on another story that I’m more clear on.  Ran some errands, did dishes and stuff.  Alas, no writing.

 Friday – My mom was off today, so we took advantage of her three-day weekend to plan a list of outside honey-do’s that we need to get done before summer disappears.  Something like thirty tasks, some small, some bigger.  Then we checked our storage room for supplies, shopped for the rest and started knocking out this list.  No writing.  Do I sound like a broken record?

 Saturday – More Honey-do list work with an afternoon break for a class and a meeting I had to go and then back to work on the list.  I am so tired.  I’m thinking maybe I need to just bully my way thru on the current writing whether it’s crap or not and just finish it.  I can fix it after.  At least I was thinking about it today. Sigh.

 Sunday – The Honey-do list got more than half crossed off.   Work around the homestead – 1 / Writing – 0.

Monday – My post is due today and it’s a new week.  Last week may have a been a bad week to try and fix this problem, but I did make some headway.  I got other tasks done that I needed to (writing, non, and around the house) and I feel more like stuff is off my plate so I can focus on writing.  I know I should be writing every day even if it is only for fifteen minutes or something.  Does my blog count?  No more excuses.  I will write no matter what!  Having thought about it all week and waffling on how to proceed, I give the current work two hours.  If I can’t write on it, I’m changing to a different story.  I still need to clean and organize my writing space.  I will dedicate one hour a day to getting it sorted out.  I have hope for this week.  Fingers crossed, ya’ll!

Writing to Music

Matt Jones The Writing Life 9 Comments

While surfing a few writing boards, one topic that I see appear quite often is the subject of music.  Usually it’s someone asking what music a writer listens to while writing, and how it affects them.  In other cases, I’ve seen people list a few bands and almost ask if it’s ok to listen to it while writing.  My answer has and always will be, if it helps you write, do it!

Neil Gaiman states pretty elegantly in the liner notes to his music cd “Where’s Neil when you need him:” “music was always part of the writing process — different music for different stories.”  Brandon Sanderson wrote in in his blog: “Music is a large part of the writing process for me. Listening to particular songs, with particular beats, can really get me into the writing mood, sparking images and ideas in my head. I depend on it in many cases to make me write when, sometimes, I don’t feel like it.”  Sanderson, when asked specifically what he listens to, he goes from classical, Metallica, Daft Punk, etc.

Personally, I listen to rock when I want a fast paced scene, and classical or Celtic when I want a softer feel.  I try to match the beat to the rhythm of the scene.  Look at the music you like and look at your scene.  Whichever genre or song you think best matches how you want to write, use it.  You don’t need permission, you just need to write!