by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Sometimes in my stories, I want to pick up the pace, especially to move the mystery along. I’ll quickly move through a scene, summing up something that’s happening–a party, a walk that several friends are taking, a picnic–to get to what I think of as ‘the important part’…whatever that might be at the time.
One of my editors at Penguin would frequently type notes in Track Changes at these spots: “Could you expand on this scene and let the reader see this happening? I think they’d enjoy being part of it.”
The truth is that showing takes time. It takes time to write and read. But my editor was right: there are parts that I shouldn’t rush through as a writer, even when I feel the pace of the narrative needs to pick up.
For a while, I just gave completely in. Let’s say we’ve got a carnival going on as a good set-up for our protagonist to be able to casually speak to another character in the story (this character supplies information of some sort for our protagonist).
If I’d originally felt like the story were dragging a little, I might have said something like:
The carnival was fun and exhausting at the same time. The bright lights, the barkers’ calls, the heavy food combined to make John ready to head home. Although he wouldn’t have wanted to miss the highlight of the evening: when he beat his best friend at the strongman game.
John was finally making his way toward his car when he was surprised by a bitter voice behind him.
That sort of wraps up the carnival in a couple of sentences before moving into a dialogue with a catalyst character.
This is a good example of a spot where my editor might have asked me to elaborate and bring the reader into the carnival. Before, I might have done that by writing a page or more as to what John and his best friend did and saw, did, and ate at the carnival. To make sure this wasn’t skimmed by the reader, I’d have provided some character development along the way, or maybe developed a subplot at the same time.
Now I’d (usually) handle it a different way. I still want to move the mystery along. But I’d want to let the reader experience the carnival, too. It would go more like this:
The carnival was fun and exhausting at the same time. The bright lights, the barkers’ calls, the heavy food combined to make John ready to head home.
“You look worn out,” said Peter.
“I think I’m ready to call it a day.” John patted his pockets to find his car keys.
“Which is fine, but not until we play the High Striker. You know, the strongman game.”
John sighed, shoving his keys back in his pocket. “Even though I was just saying I was tired?”
“The perfect time for me to win!”
Another few quick lines could be added to show John winning the game and heading back out.
By interspersing dialogue and exposition, readers can get an inside look at the action surrounding the protagonist and feel part of the scene, while I move things along. It took me a while to learn to balance these elements.
How cognizant are you of pace in your story? Any other tricks to edit for pace?
Tips on balancing pace with reader inclusion in a scene: Click To TweetPhoto credit: B Gilmour. via Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-ND
That’s a good way to mix the two, pleasing both the reader and your editor.
Alex–Sometimes a compromise is the best solution!
This is really useful, Elizabeth, as all of your tips are. It takes time to strike that balance between moving the story along and inviting the reader to ride along. It helps me to to ask myself how caught up I am – whether I’m interested as I write. If I am, I hope readers will be. If I’m getting too ‘workmanlike,’ I slow down and re-think. Make sense?
Margot–Good point. If our story is boring *us*, that’s not a good sign!
Excellent tip! Nobody ever said this writing gig would be easy, right? If they did, I missed it :)
Carol–Definitely not easy! And I learn at least one new thing every day.
Most of the times when my pacing is off, I can tell something is wrong with a scene, even if I don’t know exactly what it is that’s bothering me. And it often takes a couple of weeks of playing around with the scene before I finally realize it’s the pacing. Either I tried to scoot past a scene too quickly to get to the “good stuff’ or I was guilty of trying to expand a scene too much when I should have just trimmed it down to a quick summary. I’d save a lot of time if I had some sort of pace alarm that would point these things out to me immediately.
Ken–Do you write in series? I think after a book or two in the same series, I get a good ‘feel’ for the series pace and I know when I’m off. Not always, though! I’ve got a lot of narrative in the current book I’m writing and I’m going to have to do an edit for pacing later.
I’m still working on my first book, so I don’t have to worry about a series yet.
Ken–Maybe if you read it aloud? Or, sometimes, I can even tell if pace has slowed if there’s too little dialogue. That may sound odd, but those pages of exposition, for me, mean that I’m probably putting something off as I’m writing.
Hi Elizabeth – I try and balance history and ‘my story’ within the post … and if it pleases me then I think it’ll be ok with my readers … sometimes I think this is awful, but I have to post it … then ‘everyone’ says it’s wonderful …
Even though you’re story telling here … it’s so appropriate for so many things – when we talk to people we can glazing over … and so adjust our conversation …
Balance in life in general .. is give and take – cheers Hilary
Hilary–You do a wonderful job and you’re an excellent judge of what will please your readers!
Good point about the conversation and boring our audience! I also try to do this with public speaking…if I see anyone starting to fall asleep, I change topics. :)
Love this tip, Elizabeth! Thanks for giving us a great specific to mess around with.
Kathy–Thanks for coming by!
Pacing is tough for me! I’m learning (thanks to my excellent CPs) but I often find myself babbling on when I shouldn’t or being completely babble-free … also when I shouldn’t :)
Jemi–That’s a great reason why CPs and editors are so useful! I think pace is one of the hardest things for writers to edit for in their own stories.