Picking up the Pace
- At February 29, 2024
- By Roxanne Snopek
- In For Writers
- 0
Picking up the Pace
We all know the breathless feeling that comes from a story picking up the pace. Your heart is pounding, you can’t catch your breath, and the words can’t get into your brain fast enough? You’re reading a great scene and one of the things that’s affecting you is the pace of the story.
In media res
Pacing a scene appropriately is a tricky thing to master. Some scenes call for slower pacing. Today I’m discussing how to speed up your pacing. Literary types use the latin term in media res, which means into the middle of things. In other words, when writing your scenes for faster pace, “get in late, get out early.” What this means is that when it comes to a scene, you want to get to the heart of it as fast as you can. So, if you show someone opening the car door, walking up the sidewalk, ringing the doorbell, taking off their shoes, hanging up their coat… there better be a dead body in the kitchen. If not, then all that preamble is not necessary. It slows the pace for no reason.
On the other hand, if your character is dreading the conversation that will occur inside the house, then this will work—if you add enough internal monologue so that we can feel the dread. You need to have a reason for these prosaic actions. Otherwise, it’s just more ordinary life and we don’t need to read about it. I refer to this as “stage direction,” and often it can be reduced or eliminated.
Picking up the pace with sentence structure
Variation in sentence structure helps keep reader interest and improves pacing. Shorter sentences in scenes with a lot of dialogue, tension, and/or action, with longer sentences for narrative exposition. One simple thing to look for at the sentence level, is introductory clauses. Too many of these can slow the pace. Example:
- Because she was tired, she went to bed.
The action is she went to bed. That’s the active part of the story. Because the introduction comes first, the action is buried.
See how the action is more immediate with:
- She went to bed, exhausted.
Even shortening the introductory clause improves the pace of this sentence.
- Exhausted, she went to bed.
Another thing that slows the pace is double-predicate clauses. Example:
- She went to the kitchen, and she ate a sandwich.
The most important action is she ate a sandwich. If this is an ordinary inside-the-house scene, we expect her to go to the kitchen. If, however, she’s somewhere else—say, the home of the serial killer who’s tied her in the basement, unaware that she’s learned how to untie herself—then it’s crucial information that might propel the reader forward. Why didn’t she break a window and escape? Is she planning revenge? Has she formed an attachment to the killer? What’s that in her hand? A knife?
Choose active verbs
The “she went” part is also an example of how important verbs are for good pacing. Went is strictly data. Point a to point b. Think of how different the line reads if she staggered or tip-toed or drifted to the kitchen. And once there, she slapped together the sandwich or picked at it or inhaled it.
Quick hits for picking up the pace
My last tips for increasing pace: use contractions, especially in dialogue.
- Did like… becomes liked
- Did not… becomes didn’t
And watch for excess baggage verb clauses:
- Couldn’t help but think… becomes thought
- It wasn’t as if she didn’t want… becomes she didn’t mind
- Was trying to decide…. becomes decided
- Was planning to consider possibly later on going outside for a bit of a run… becomes (you guessed it) RAN
Obviously, these are guidelines, rather than hard and fast rules. There are times for more words. But in the midst of a tense scene, when seconds matter and your heart is pounding, less is usually more.
For more info on pacing, check out:
- Getting the Pace Right by Becca Puglisi at Writers Helping Writers,
- 7 Tools for Pacing a Novel from Writers Digest
- 13 Tips to Create Irresistible Stories with Powerful Pacing by Lynette Burrows at Writers in the Storm
Happy Hour Jan. 26
Happy Hour With Ruth & Roxy: Show Notes – January 26, 2024
Overview
In this Jan. 26 episode of Happy Hour, Ruth & Roxy discuss style, minimalists vs. collectors, how Ruth keeps connection with her “strays,” how Roxy keeps things that reinforce her identity… and they enjoy some lovely champagne!
Intro
Ruth has had a few days of cranky pants, which isn’t unusual for this time of year. Unlike the photo you see here, we’re under a dump of snow, it’s cold, and dark, but there’s still so much to be grateful for.
Celebrate Every Day!
First off, champagne: a lovely Veuve Clicquot gifted to us by our friend Pink Beverly! (Roxy speaks zero French but Ruth has enough that we can order good bubbles in Paris, which is all the French we need.)
We’re celebrating a bit of good news in Roxy’s writing world. (She’ll share more details as they come to light.) She talks about how, as an emerging writer, she learned to celebrate even the simplest of milestones. Today we celebrate another leg up but it’s all part of the journey and feeds into our “use the good dishes everyday” philosophy. Celebrate the little things along the way because the journey IS the goal.
Happy Hour Style
Ruth is working on decluttering her closet again… or still… and one guest we’ll invite for
a future podcast will be our friend Caylea, who will do a “closet edit” for us. Caylea is a
delightful human inside and out and we know you’ll love her as much as we do. Check
out Style by Caylea to see what we’re talking about.
Ruth and Roxy are both fans of clothing from a clothing boutique in Nelson, BC, called
Vibe Apparel. Their stuff is gorgeous, and ordering is way, way too easy at
So, neither of us is likely to get our closets really pared down… we accept it.
The Power of Language
Roxy’s youngest daughter reminded her this week to be careful how she speaks to
herself. Language matters! When we trivialize ourselves or make jokes at our own
expense, our brain doesn’t recognize what we’re doing. All it hears is “I’m not that great”
or “that fabulous accomplishment is just a way to keep me off potato chips.” Wise lass.
This echoes what Ruth’s friend Maryse writes and holds workshops on. Check out
Maryse’s expertise on this topic. There is tremendous power in words.
Ruth’s friend Tammie from Kentucky (Ruth has a lot of amazing friends) taught her to
say “I love you” to the people in her life. (In fact, to Ruth she says: I love you, sweet
pea!) Tammie is clearly a wise woman because that’s a pretty great thing to say and
hear, isn’t it? The energy that comes from these words is exactly what we need more of
in our lives.
Happy Hour Gratitude
We’re so grateful for you, listeners! Your letters and comments are sunshine to our
souls – keep them coming! We will be posting the ones we have approval to share on
our blog.
Stay Connected to Ruth & Roxy
Check out our website
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Send questions and comments to: [email protected]
Please rate and review the podcast – it helps other people like you find us
And finally, please subscribe, so you never miss an episode.
Thanks again for tuning in and until next week… what do we want?
Rock Stars
- At January 22, 2024
- By Roxanne Snopek
- In For Writers
- 0
Rock Stars
I’ve been publishing novels in the women’s fiction (which sometimes includes romance) genre since 2012. And that makes me a rock star. That’s right, romance authors are rock stars. Don’t believe me? Read on, gentle reader! (Thanks to author and friend Jeannie Moon at Five Harbors Literary for the awesome graphic!)
From MACLEANS, April 26, 2015, by Emma Teitel:
When American filmmaker Laurie Kahn set out to make Love Between the Covers, a documentary about the women who read and write romance novels, she was struck by how often she heard the same story. It wasn’t a tale of beefy bodice rippers or love at first sight; it was a story about snobs.
“I can’t tell you how many people I interviewed,” says Kahn, “who told me that people will walk up to them on a beach and say, ‘Why do you read that trash?’”
One Man’s Trash
Apparently, where lovers of romance novels go, contempt follows. Sometimes it’s subtle contempt—a raised eyebrow from a colleague, or a snarky comment from a friend (usually the kind of person who claims to read Harper’s on a beach vacation). Other times it’s more overt, even potentially damaging.
When Mary Bly (pen name Eloisa James), an academic and New York Times bestselling author, began writing romance, she was advised to keep her fiction writing secret or risk not making tenure at the university where she worked.
Sexism in Publishing
For some reason, argues Kahn, perhaps because its subjects are female, romance novels are perceived as fundamentally silly, when other popular “genre fiction”—namely, fiction by and for men—is not.
“Nobody,” she says, would walk up to “a man reading Stephen King, or a mystery or sci-fi novel” and scoff. And she’s right: Stephen King is a prodigious talent… right up there with romance novelist Nora Roberts. Yet Roberts has been the butt of jokes—a universal default example of “bad writing,”—while male contemporaries with far less talent get a free pass.
Consider the Source
Perhaps, as the graphic says, it’s a woman thing. If the majority of these books are written by women and read by women, and the majority of people knocking these books haven’t read them… maybe it’s not about the books.
Maybe trashing romance novels is more about trashing women.
Read the full article at: Why romance novelists are the rock stars of the literary world.