[authorme] PUBLISHING EMERGING WRITERS, NOVEMBER, 2014
- From: Bruce Cook <cookcomm@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Newsletter <authorme@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2014 07:16:05 -0600
You are receiving this periodical because you marked a request on a
website in the www.Author-Me.com
<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.author-me.com%2F&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA&k=7c8b1a0a-cc7b-42e6-aca1-c704e9ccff0f>
group
(or Akinyi's websites). To view an html version, please go to:
http://www.author-me.com/newsletters/NewsNovember2t014.html
<http://www.author-me.com/newsletters/NewsOctober2t014.html> If for any
reason you'd rather not receive this periodical, simply write an email to
cookcomm@xxxxxxxxx and write the words "no more" in the subject box. Thank
you.
WELCOME TO SUBSCRIBERS TO THE APKY NEWSLETTER
Visit our new project on Peace! www.wwpo.orgComment Boxes on
Author-me.com. *If you have published on author-me, check the comment box
under your text.*Blogs and Comments on AuthormePro.com:
*Check the new WordPress/AuthormePro blog at www.authormepro.com/wp
<http://www.authormepro.com/wp>*
*In this issue... Goldilocks!*
============================================================
*THE GOLDILOCKS PRINCIPLE OF PACING YOUR NOVEL*
by *A P VON K’ORY*
When I sold my first novel, BOUND TO TRADITION trilogy, to my German
translation publisher, one of the comments I got back from the
editorial team was: "The pace for this novel was perfect – never too
fast nor too slow."
I was surprised, because I'd never thought much about pace. Certain
things come easy to every author, and other things come hard. Pace
comes easy to me. When a paragraph or chapter drags along, I somehow
sense it when editing and revising. Most writers do, especially when
you read your own work as a “reader”.
What is pace?
It's the amount of time you spend on each part of the story. The
Goldilocks Principle applies to pace – it should be neither too fast
nor too slow, but just right. There isn't any tidy little rule you can
memorise to define what the perfect pace is for a story. A general
rule is to vary the pace to suit the tension in the scene. So most
often, you'll want to zip through the boring parts of the story and
take more time on the exciting parts. That seems very strange, right?
If you're showing a high-speed car chase, surely you'd want to make it
read fast, wouldn't you? Which means using fewer words, right?
Yes and no.
Yes, you want it to read fast. But no, you don't want to spend fewer
words on it, you want more. There's really no paradox here. Think of a
football game in which one of the players makes a huge play, dodging
first one defender, then another, all the way down the field, finally
dancing into the end zone for a score. What happens next? You can bet
your manuscript that the networks are going to show the whole thing
AGAIN, this time in slow motion, dragging out every twist, turn,
footwork a la Ronaldo, and all the way down the field. Showing it in
slow motion takes a lot longer, but it doesn't cut the pace. It
INCREASES the pace.
Why?
Because when the play ran at normal speed, you missed most of the
action. You saw a fellow running with the ball and you saw others
missing to stop him. It all went by in a blur so fast that you
couldn't take it all in. When they ran it in super slow motion, you
saw every little move, every tensing muscle, the bunching and flapping
of the shirts and shorts, facial expressions and the movements of the
muscles. You saw the defence response fooled and beaten. All the way
to the kick, ball sailing through the air, the goalkeeper’s twists and
turns to stop the score, and finally the ball hitting that particular
part of the net, perhaps (and more exciting) hitting whatever part of
the posts first before sailing into the net. You saw every block,
every weave. You saw the last desperate flying ball just an inch from
the keeper’s fingers or a breath above his head to land the score.
And then the normal pace resumed.
It took ten times as long to see it that way, but this time, YOU SAW
IT ALL. You saw every action, every reaction, in beautiful, sharply
cut detail. That's what you came to see or turned on your TV to watch.
In your novel, the moral equivalent of super-slow-motion involves
*spending far more words than you normally would, but using much
shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs*. You alternate rapidly
between what your point-of-view character is doing and what his
opposition is doing. If your paragraphs are normally three sentences
apiece, they might drop down to two sentences or one.
If your sentences are normally ten words apiece, they might fall to
five words. Or three.
Or one. Or, in dialogue, by certain omissions.
Here’s an example from the first book of my DARK DESIRES trilogy. (To
explain the background, Moni and Marie are best friends, Marie has
just broken up with her boyfriend Roman, Susanne/Susi is Marie’s
younger sister, and Northern Light’s is Marie’s curio shop):
*Moni had given her the cat at lunchtime. She simply walked into Northern
Lights, bearing the cat in its basket and then hauled in a month’s supply
of Sheba. Susanne was all gone on the cat and cooing while Marie eyed Moni.*
*Moni said defensively, “You’ve taken to holing up here or in your flat,
love. Here’s some female company, since you avoid even having lunch with
me.”*
*“Then you should have brought me a puppy.”*
*“You’re not particularly fond of dogs, I remember,” Moni cocked her head.*
*“What’s her name?” asked Susanne, her faced buried in the cat’s fur.*
*“She’s open to options. Personally, I love Sheba. Just so Marie doesn’t
deviate from its favourite menu. And that’s been its name since
kitten-hood.”*
*“How do you know its favourite menu?” asked Marie.*
*“Let’s call her Romana,” said Susi.*
*“The pet shop,” said Moni.*
*“Have you gone mad?” screamed Marie at Susi.*
*“Okay, sorry, sis. Ginger, then?” The cat was.*
*“Got to scram, love,” Moni gave Marie pecks on cheeks. Marie kissed the
air around her girlfriend’s cheeks back, and Moni headed out. *
*“Bye Moni,” waved Susi. “Ginger?” she repeated to her sister.*
*“Ginger has whiffs of competition. I’m blonde. Sheba.”*
*“She goes for exotic competition,” Susi informed Ginger/Sheba.*
*Marie picked up a teddy-seal key holder and threw it at Susi, both
shrieking.*
*“I want a worthy competition!”*
*Ginger remained Sheba.*
Notice how repeating the Big No-No “*said”* changes the pace. And
without going into all the details about Moni worrying about
girlfriend Marie’s recluse nature, deciding to do something about it
by going to the pet shop to buy Marie the cat, then choosing the cat’s
age and gender, and then going to the supermarket to buy the cat food,
and finally bringing all that to Marie at Northern Lights, all the way
to giving the cat a name, I’ve compressed the scene tight. I’ve
brought all that into the reader’s mind in clipped dialogue and
abbreviated explanations.
(By the way, avoid such long sentences as the one above!)
You can't keep that up very long, of course. That would be crazy. In
the same way, it would be crazy to watch an entire football game in
slow motion. You want to ramp up the pace only for the high-tension
scenes, where the stakes are high. Slowing down the pace works the
opposite way. Longer sentences. Longer paragraphs. Fewer actions and
reactions. More interior monologue, longer dialogue.
Why does this work? It's really very simple. The reader reads fiction
hoping to have a Powerful Emotional Experience. Inside a scene, you
provide this by showing actions and reactions between your
point-of-view character and the other characters. Every time you show
your POV character reacting to the other characters, you have a chance
to provide an emotional hit point to your reader.
If you have short actions and short reactions (using short sentences
and paragraphs), then you score emotional points with your reader
faster. If you lengthen out the actions and reactions, then you score
fewer emotional points. Naturally, it only makes sense to speed up the
pace when the tension is high. If you try this when the tension is
low, the story is going to drag. (Imagine showing the team's pep-talk
huddle in slow motion!) There are an infinite variety of paces you can
use as you work through each scene. You speed it up and slow it down,
possibly several times in the scene.
How do you know when you've got it right?
That's easy. You've got it right when it feels right. Fiction is about
creating a Powerful Emotional Experience in your reader. Tweak the
pace until you're doing that, and your reader will feel like
Goldilocks.
Glorious pacing, fellow writers!
============
To subscribe to this newsletter, click here
<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.elbowspace.com%2Fsecure%2F20080202163451129073&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA&k=dac58b84-13f5-4557-b9ce-e02129c12687>
…
Publishing Emerging Writers
Novemober 2014 (No. 1511)
Publisher: Cookcomm
Bruce L. Cook, 1407 Getzelman Dr..
Elgin, IL 60123 USA
Submissions and comments to cookcomm@xxxxxxxxx. Links are welcome. To
receive monthly e-mail copies of this periodical, go to:
https://www.elbowspace.com/servlets/cfdC?xr4=&formts=2008-02-02
<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.elbowspace.com%2Fservlets%2FcfdC%3Fxr4%3D%26formts%3D2008-02-02&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA&k=8a02682d-2501-44fa-c2be-0c6fc35f68bc>
16:34:51.129073
To review our archive of past issues, go to
www.Author-Me.com/newsl
<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.author-me.com%2Fnewsl&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA&k=7d10947a-8211-4e11-b5ad-d4de9fdf5c8b>
ist.htm
AuthorMe.com is dedicated to the memory of Dr. David C. Cook III
AuthorMe Professionals (Germany) - www.AuthorMePro.com
<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.authormepro.com%2F&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA&k=1207e3cc-70ca-4286-c142-51da71d37cfa>
Innisfree Journal - Greg McBride, Editor - www.innisfreepoetry.org
<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.innisfreepoetry.org%2F&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA&k=4febf84a-9a68-4e8a-c793-532097627015>
Enskyment - Dan Masterson, Editor - www.enskyment.org
<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.enskyment.org%2F&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA&k=5f53ada8-77dc-4524-8969-624618f0324a>
For the new Sudan - www.SudanLit.com
<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sudanlit.com%2F&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA&k=6d598714-40cd-4f08-bbe9-eea562791e75>
For India - www.authorindia.com
<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.authorindia.com%2F&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA&k=fa7a47df-f7e0-41e0-cbde-04b632745a4f>
Reserve Books - www.reservebooks.com
<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reservebooks.com%2F&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA&k=2af8c6d9-428d-4157-c03d-8976bb6f1fc3>
Our Booklist - www.reservebook.
Other related posts:
- » [authorme] PUBLISHING EMERGING WRITERS, NOVEMBER, 2014 - Bruce Cook
