The Call to Action: Some Strategies to Make It Big

The Call to Action: Some Strategies to Make It Big  

I was discussing a friend's manuscript, and I suggested she pump up the "call to action." That's usually in the first chapters, and is where the protagonist is given the incentive to act. It doesn't have to be a big high-stakes event, or some insistent demand, but I think a good "call to action" (Vogler calls it the "call to adventure," which is more intriguing!) can entice the reader to keep reading and also launch the story into the second act of rising action.

Sometimes the call is rendered a bit too subtly to provide enough motivation for the protagonist to get off her duff and get moving.  However, we don't necessarily need a Wizard of Oz style tornado call to action. It can seem minor and become more important later, or actually be minor but end up dragging the character deeper and deeper into danger. Point is, whatever the incentive is, it should be enough to motivate the character out of her routine and into doing something.

I came up with a few suggestions that might help power up the call, and give the reader a clue that conflict will be heating up.

1) Make it matter to the protagonist.  The main character is usually our surrogate in the story, so it has to matter to him/her for us to feel that it's important. I was just reading a pretty good book, a police procedural, that could have benefited from a stronger call to action.  The detective saw the central crime as just another murder of the 20 or so he investigates a year. There wasn't anything special about this murder, at least as far as he was concerned, and his "just a job" attitude made it easy not to get really invested in the conflict.

So what's different about this conflict event? Why is it a "call to action" that's more imperative than "get to work on time?" How can you show that either when the event is initiated, or as the character gets more involved?

2) Place it early. Don't make the reader wait too long. The call to action is the signal to the reader that the plot is getting underway. But it's also the event that tells the character to do something, to get started on the goal or overcoming the obstacles. In the classical dramatic schema, it's the end of the setup and the beginning of Act II. It means things are changing.
Even if you want to ease into the conflict-- it seems like just another murder at first-- think of having some little signal that this particular one is just a bit different, like the police commissioner calls right after the body is discovered in Chapter 1, oh so casually, to ask who caught the case. That way, when the victim is revealed in Chapter 3 to be the commissioner's mistress, the reader will experience a certain glee-- aha! I knew something was up!

3) Make it new. The police procedural never really overcame the "just another job" problem you see often in books where the protagonist's job is taking care of this problem. The call to action might SEEM routine-- just another murder for the homicide detective!-- but think about how you can pretty quickly make it more than just another job. Maybe the victim is the mayor's college roommate, or the evidence points to the police chief, or the modus operandi reminds an old-timer in the department of an unsolved murder, or.... What's different about this event? How is it not just routine? How can you show that early enough that the reader's attention doesn't wander off?

4) Make it demand some action. The "call to action" means the protagonist should act or react because of this, and not just the usual or routine (opening a file, stopping at the bank). What does the protagonist have to do in response to this event that's different than usual? Maybe he agrees to call the police commissioner back after the autopsy. Maybe he stays late to wait for a call from the Pacific Time parents about their daughter, and so misses the pickup at his kids' daycare center and gets into trouble with his ex-wife.  Or he has to call her at 5 pm and ask her to do the pick-up, even though it breaks his heart to hear her voice. The call to action should quickly disrupt this person's life and call for some unusual activity.

5) Use scene placement to show that however negligible this might seem, it's actually important. Anything placed at the end or beginning of a scene gains importance just from the position, from the pause that comes before or after, and from the sense that all builds up to this event or ripples from it.  So put it at the end of the first or second scene, or the end of the first chapter, and you'll give it some subtle emphasis.

6) Use another character to elicit some notion of "specialness".  The police commissioner is elaborately casual in his inquiry... too casual. The ex-wife remarks that the detective has always picked the kids up-- what's wrong?  The detective's partner passing by the desk picks up the file and mentions that this is the third "Brittany" killed this year-- weird, huh?

7) Don't be too gradual. This is my mistake every time. I think I want to make it entirely plausible, completely logical, and so I spend three scenes carefully setting up the interlocking clues that This Is Special. (I also keep telling myself to "bury" the big clues in the middle of other clues, so I have to create all those other clues, hence more scene detail, more scenes.) In the first scene, maybe the detective notices her charm bracelet. In the second, he has to call her parents to tell them that she's dead, and they weepingly tell him that she had a new boyfriend, someone important. In the third scene... you get the idea.  By the time the reader has carefully picked through the minefield of event, clue, detail, I might have lost her interest.
Stack.  Get more than one big moment into the "call to action" scene.  Start with the charm bracelet, have him call the parents, let the partner notice something-- all in one scene. Let the small event build into the larger revelation or realization that.... "this is different!"

8) Show the change soon. Again, don't be too gradual in the opening. (I think in the middle of the plot, you can probably take things more slowly and meticulously, but in the opening, you want to get underway.)  The call to action changes things not three scenes later, but right now. If you can make the change clearly a result of his taking this unprecedented action, all the better. As soon as he agrees to keep the commissioner informed, he gets caught up-- the commissioner is "casually" calling him the very next morning.

9) Show the character having to change-- that is, how does this skein of events make his actions and/or attitude different right away?  For example, he might be sort of flattered that the police commissioner is paying attention to him, but he knows that his captain won't approve, so when the commissioner calls, he lowers his voice and takes the phone into the hall so no one, not even his trusted partner, overhears.

10) Let this call to action open to a new world or a new opportunity.  Say the police commissioner is grateful to be kept informed, and invites the detective to his club where the mayor and the judges hang out. Or the trail of clues leads to Los Angeles and he has to board a flight and leave the frozen Midwest for the beach.

11) Notice what you set up in the call to action scene and use that later in the book, to deepen characterization or develop new conflict.  If you want him to get back together with his ex-wife, for example, in the end, how can you let the call to action and aftermath set that up? Like instead of just abandoning the kids at daycare (not conducive to later getting back with ex!), he uses this as an opportunity to call her, get her to do the pickup, and... this is the important thing... promise her in exchange a nice dinner out. That last in the chain of actions will set up the much later "date" that resolves the romantic conflict.

Again, you're in control here. You're the one who determines what the event is, and how it first appears. You can turn up or down the emphasis. You can move the initiating event earlier or later. You can use dramatic or understated prose. You can select detail that adds to the suspense or narrows the focus. You can show the ripples of the event on the character's life and the setting.  Challenge yourself to use the tools you've got to make this event a real call to action, for the reader as well as the character.

Alicia

I'm trying to (finally) re-start the website, so I thought maybe I'd start up the blog too. (Pause for cheers. Pause. Pause.... Cheers, please?)

Have recently been interested in looking for ways to braid the internal or interactional plots into the external plot (or reverse).
Terms:
Plot (an important sequence of events and changes that starts very early in the story and ends late in the story, that is, not a subplot, which will start later and probably resolve earlier and be less than central).
Most common main types of plots:

1. Internal plot (how the main character changes or confronts some emotional/psychological/life issue during the story)
2. Interactional plot (how the main character's relationship- including possibly romance- with another character or group-- like family-- changes in the course of the story)
3. External plot (how the main character-s confront and resolve or fail to resolve some external problem in the course of the story)

Not all stories have all three of these plots, and some stories will relegate one or two of them to "subplot status (like when the protagonist frees the hostages, and along the way, decides he will go ahead and attend the family Thanksgiving after all).

But if we have two of these or all three, we generally "braid" them in some way so that the reader can experience them together, if not in every scene, then in most scenes. In that way, the events of one plot affect the next event of another plot. Example: She's about to leave for the airport when her mom calls and begs her to come home for Thanksgiving, that Dad promises to behave and not bring up the past this time. She is upset by this and misses her plane, and when it leaves without her, she realizes that her luggage is on it, including the jewelry she was supposed to deliver to Mr. Big.

Etc. That is, each plot affects the other in some way-- not just once, but over and over in the story. This should be not like parallel train tracks, but more like a braid, then.
NOT:







The plots don't run parallel to each other, but are braided, intersecting in almost every scene.

An example I just saw was in Granite Flats, an absurdly fun mystery series set in 1962, where three pre-teens solve mysteries (including big international spy dramas) while negotiating early adolescence.

Both of the boys are sort of in pre-teen love with the girl Madeline. But she finds herself liking Tim. In one scene, for mystery-plot reasons, she and Tim trick the bank into giving them access to a safe-deposit box (where they find something significant-- you can tell which plot intrigues me the most, as I recall every glance between them, but not the point of the external mystery).
Their parents find out about this deception, and (correctly) assume neither would have done this alone-- that it's the pairing of the two kids which lead them into bank robbery.
So in the next scene, the parents ban them from seeing each other (much misery ensues, including Romeo and Juliet references-- they're studying that in English class).

So the external event of finding the clue in the safe deposit box leads to an interactional consequence -- their incipient romance is stifled (though of course, in the way of teen romance everywhere, restriction only makes the love more intense... so good!).
The cause-and-effect keeps going on-- because they aren't allowed to speak, their little detective agency goes defunct (and all of this has an effect on Arthur, the other member of their trio). So they cannot pursue the implications of this clue they just found.

What are some more examples of scenes or scene sequences where two (or three) of the plots intersect and cause changes in both? This is such a good technique for making your plot individual (it's not just another mystery, but also a love story), and also for pulling the reader along.

Alicia

Scene endings and sub-genres

We've talked before about Jack Bickham's brilliant exploration of scene-ending "answers"-- that is:

Does she get her scene goal?
No.
Yes, but (something unexpected also happens)
No, and furthermore (something even worse than failure happens)
(Notice that "yes, she gets her goal for the scene and that's all" isn't one of the answers... why not?)

So I mentioned this to a student (Lindsey), and she took off running with it, pulling out some of her favorite books in her subgenre and analyzing the ending. She writes romantic comedy/chick lit, and she found that the successful books in that subgenre she examined tended to have most scenes end with "yes, but." Yes, she got her goal, but something unexpected happened!

Lindsey thought this scene ending might especially be useful in a comedy (so "yes," that is, it's light and generally the characters are going to get what they want, but also "but" to disorient the character and create conflict and additional plot events).

I notice that "danger" books, like adventure, suspense, and thriller, might have mostly "no, and furthermore" scene endings as they take the character (and reader) into progressively greater risk and disorientation.

What do you think? "Disorientation" is key to both of those, notice.  Why? To keep the character (and reader) on her toes.

That's something to keep in mind if the book seems static or the pacing is slow. Maybe we have too many scenes ending "yes" or "no," without the additional thrust added by the unpredicted "but/furthermore."

What about your type of book? Do you see anything notable about scene endings?

Off to check scene endings in fave books....
Alicia

The Pacing Triad

There are more paces than just "fast".  Let's start there. When authors talk about pacing, they often mean, "How can I make this book go as fast as possible?" The first question, however, should be, "What pace will help me give my readers a better experience?"

After all, readers who like a Henry-James-like contemplative approach don't actually WANT your book paced like The DaVinci Code.

So what pace is right for your book? More on that in another post, but right now I want to talk a bit about a technique that can help create a different pace. That's what I call the "BAR" method.

Build up.
Action (or event).
Reaction (or emotion/aftermath).

This is a typical sequence for a pacing/event unit. (Pacing is all about how many events you have and in what period of time/pages.)  We will, of course, have a bunch of these in a book, maybe 15 in a fast-paced book, or 5 in a leisurely-paced book.

First you do the buildup, whatever decisionmaking, investigation, exposition, and/or consideration has to happen before the action or event.  Like if Sadie is (in the coming action) going to find a clue, the buildup might be where she figures out what she needs to know, and decides to risk arrest to get it. This is about anticipation, preparation, consideration.

Second, there's the action or event-- what happens. This is the most essential part of pacing as it's how we calibrate pacing. A thriller is "fast-paced" because it has a lot of actions and events coming quickly. A more contemplative or leisurely paced novel will have fewer actions in the same amount of time. The action or event is something that a character does (or happens to the character) that changes the course of the story. So this would be where Sadie breaks into the office and steals the old typewriter and finds the letter on the old typewriter ribbon. (Typewriter ribbons were really cool clue-locations.)

Third, there's the reaction or aftermath. That's where the character (and/or the world of the story) reacts to the event, shows the emotional or actual change because of this event. So Sadie gets back to her apartment and reads the typewriter ribbon and realizes it implicates her own mentor, and she is plunged into doubt and despair and can't decide whether to turn this over to the police, or protect her mentor.

Now those three elements can be each in a separate scene of more or less equal length, or separate scenes of different lengths, or just passages within a scene. But I think -- just speculating here- that if we want to make the pace of a book something or other, we can do this by manipulating the relative length of these elements.

Let's say we want a more methodical pace that's suitable for a police procedural. We might amplify the Build up section to show the careful consideration Sadie goes through figuring out what she needs to, why she needs this clue, whether she ought to commit a crime to get it. Or conversely, for a suspense thriller, we might want to expand this passage to build up the suspense, the danger involved, the threat to her life and career, the looming darkness that is the villain-- before she does what she has to do. Fear, suspense, threat have to be created in the reader by the build up to an event. But of course, that creates a slower pace.

Or maybe we want a fast pace for an adventure book. In this case, the build up might be pretty short, just enough to set the stage for the action. Then the action scene might be long, exciting, and richly detailed, very physical to give the reader a visceral experience. So in this case, there wouldn't be a lot of Sadie debating the morality of breaking in-- She decides to do it and just does it, but we get a full account of all the obstacles she encounters and the last-minute interruptions and the near-miss security guard patrol, and the slippery feel of the folder in her fingers.... Expanding the action passage to a greater length than the other two elements will lead to a more adventurous pace.

But then, what if we want the reader to feel emotion, to identify with the angst and triumph and despair of the character? Then we might spend the most time on the reaction or aftermath, where the character deals with the impact of what she's done or learned or experienced. Romances particularly I think often need long aftermaths to create the depth of feeling and the potential for interaction that deepens the love story. So in this case, Sadie might be rocked by her sense of betrayal by the mentor, remember all the times Mentor helped her do her math homework, and plunge into a despair because he is the only person she trusts, and now she might have to betray him. (And she has to call that hunky but arrogant police detective.... Romance!)

Anyway, no rules here, but if our story doesn't have the appropriate pace, it might not be a problem with the plot or characters, but rather just a matter of manipulating this BAR sequence so that the most important element to our pacing choice is emphasized by being longer than the other two. I don't mean making the action scene 15 pages long in a fast-paced book (long scenes will slow down the pace), but rather making it the longest of the three, so maybe we have a paragraph or two of build up, five pages of action, and two paragraphs of reaction.

What do you think? Look at your own stories. What sort of pace are you hoping for, and what kinds of passages or scenes go on longer?
Alicia

Scene Length

Someone emailed a question seeking guidance for how to determine the best length for scenes. She said her CPs were complaining that her scenes were too long, and she wasn't sure why they were making that comment.

Scene length is tricky because each scene is different. There's no set template for scenes or even for types of scenes. But if people are saying, "Your scenes are too long," that might mean they're literally physically too long, or it might mean there's a pacing issue within a scene that is a more or less appropriate length. These are related problems, of course, because if a scene goes on for 5k words and all they do is check their calendars to see when they're both free for coffee, chances are the length problem stems from a pacing problem.

How do you know when it's a pacing problem? Pacing problems occur when the story elements are not given an appropriate amount or type of attention in the text. To diagnose a pacing problem, start by identifying the important story elements in a scene. The more important an element is, the more space it should occupy on the page. (This assumes you're not trying to hide an important detail in plain sight, as sometimes happens with mystery clues. In that case, minimize the amount of page space granted to that detail.) Less weighty details should occupy less page space.

However, there's more to it than just the amount of page space. We also have to look at the type of narrative element being used to reveal the story element. So, let's say the story element is a bit of action -- someone does something in the physical world of the scene. Action is usually faster paced just by its nature, but it's possible to slow it down by revealing the character's physical movement through dialogue or exposition instead of through action.

Right then, Aaron pulled the trigger. (action)


"I am pulling the trigger right this second," Aaron said. (dialogue)
Aaron realized this was the appropriate time to use a pulling motion against the trigger. (exposition)

So, we've said that important story moments require more space on the page in order to carry their own narrative weight, but in this case, the longer the sample sentence gets, the slower the pace gets. What makes it slow down? Instead of directly conveying movement through action, it's being translated into another element, and the reader will have to mentally translate it back from dialogue or exposition to actual physical movement. This creates a drag on the pacing.

So, pacing is a complex issue that requires careful appraisal, and the general principles of pacing and length sometimes work against each other. That said, we can still formulate some very broad ideas about how long a scene should be.

Broad Idea #1:
If a scene is built around action and dialogue, it can be a bit on the long side.

Broad Idea #2:
If a scene is built around description, interior monologue, or exposition, it can be a bit on the short side.

These first two broad ideas work from the equally broad ideas that action and dialogue are faster (so you can have more of them before they feel slow), but description, interior monologue, and exposition are slower (so you should scale back on them to prevent a pacing drag).

Broad Idea #3:
The more the reader's emotions will be engaged, the longer the scene can be.

The reader's emotion can result from sharing the characters' emotions (as in a fight scene or a love scene), or it can occur from scene tension (as in a scene where the reader is on edge about what will happen next).

Broad Idea #4:
Modulate both the pace and the length of scenes.

Unless you're writing something meant for serialization and have strict format requirements, use a mix of lengths and paces to avoid a repetitive tone in the text.

Theresa

Foreblogging the comment

Sierra Godfrey said...

I think this is a really important post because of how subtle these things are.

My question though: in your scene outline, you have "4. She gets mad at him for waiting to tell her, and they talk it out."

If you rearrange the elements to that he tells her his news AFTER the loving and affirming, she's still going to get mad, and they still need to talk it out. What did I miss? It still ends on resolution. What did you do to solve that?

Edittorrent said...

Sierra, good question-- I think the chapter should end with what he tells her about the death, and maybe her immediate mad reaction. She can end with "Why didn't you tell me first?"

Or something else-- "This is just like you, refusing to tell me until you got what you wanted." So the chapter ends on conflict.

Then the next chapter, they can have the argument and she can decide that he is who he is... but then something else happens, and so her decision is not at the end of the scene, and so isn't an ending, and so there's no sense that this is the actual resolution. I can have a lingering sense from her that this still bothers her. But soon the bad guy is going to find them, so the lingering disquiet will be somewhat underground.

Thanks for helping me think this through!

On Further Thought:

Chapter One:

1. Re-meet, dancing, a bit of romance.
2. They make love and re-affirm their affection.
3. He sings (he's a musician) a song that's just for her, and she realizes she still loves him, not just as a friend.
4. He tells her why he has found her, what he has to tell her (that another in their group has committed suicide, apparently because he can't deal with the anxiety of the constant threat of the bad guys).
5. She gets mad at him for waiting to tell her, maybe says some angry stuff. (This might be better starting the next chapter?)

Chapter Two:

1. They argue.
2. She gives in because she does love him, and he is who he is, etc.
3. They discuss it, and realize there's something weird about this suicide.

Chapter Three:
1. Start investigating?
2. Attempt on their lives?

--

See 2 #3-- because they make up, they're able to talk through the death details, and realize something's weird. That's causal, and I like to do that, the accumulation-- they have to make up at least a bit to collaborate on the discussion, and that leads to the investigation, which leads to the attempt on their lives.

A

Thoughts on pacing-- nothing brilliant

Pacing is really a measure of how frequently important plot events happen in your story, how closely occurring they are. So in a fast pace, these events come more often and closer together than in a leisurely pace.

A few caveats:

1) Plot events that affect pacing are usually external, that is, important things happening in the external plot. This is one reason you’ll often find a fast pace in a plot-driven (non-character-driven) book.

2) Fast is not the only pace. There is “a leisurely pace” and “a measured pace” too, and those are good paces. But this isn’t genre-dependent so much as sub-genre-dependent—that is, within the “crime-novel” genre, the pace of a thriller is usually fast, while the pace of a suspense novel is usually more measured.

3) Why? I think that novels that are meant to inspire particular emotion—that is, horror novels, romance, suspense, and comedy—might need more time BETWEEN events to nurture the emotional response to events. In fact, that emotional response is often just as or more important to the story than the event itself.

Adapting your story to the sub-genre’s conventional pace is probably helpful in selling it.

The most important events for pacing are those turning points we were talking about, because they are the events that chart the path of your plot, and are the ones that determine when and in what direction that path changes. But between those major events are other events, and these are creators of pace too. Generally, the more events you have between turning points, the faster your pace will be. Some other considerations:

1) Placement is important. When you place a pacing event at the end of a scene—right before the scene ends—you are signaling to the reader that it’s important. The short pause—the white space, the change in time and setting—that usually comes with a scene change reinforces the importance and drama by giving the reader a moment to think about it.

2) So the purpose of the end placement might differ depending on the pace, and that might also modify how the event is presented. The goal of this in a fast-paced book is to give the reader incentive to quickly turn the page to find out what happens. That is more likely if the event poses a question, like “Will he survive that fall off the cliff?”

But if you want to create suspense or some other emotion, you might want the reader to linger there in the “old scene,” perhaps even re-read that last paragraph or two and relive the event before moving on. So in that case, the event might end on a some seeming conclusion: “He’s dead.” Or it might end with an emotional revelation or expression: “I can’t fight it anymore. I love you.” Obviously, causing the reader to stop and think and re-read will slow down the pacing… but that’s not a bad thing for emotion novels.

By the way, notice that the ending placement is a signal to the reader that “this is important!” If you want the reader to note the event but move on without really marking it, as often comes up in a mystery, where do you place the event? In the middle of the scene.

3) One feature of suspense-scening (and I don’t just mean in suspense novels, but any novel, including comic novels, where you want the reader to mark an event and respond to it, but without the drama and frenetic need to know—when an event’s repercussions might take place over the next several scenes, or be suspended for a few scenes) is that the event is often deceptively trivial. That is, it might just seem like a secret admirer has left Joanie a romantic gift, but the reader (if not Joanie) might sense that there’s something vaguely threatening in the gift. This can be accomplished by presentation.

First, placing this at the end of a scene tells the reader it’s important. Also, you can vary the language and selection of descriptive detail slightly to hint at something darker, something beyond Joanie’s own puzzled pleasure (one of the flowers in the bouquet is dead, and she notes this and pays it no mind, or she sets the bouquet on a desk under the window where can be seen a gathering of rainclouds, or she runs to get a glass of water to add to the bouquet and the faucet is stuck). The reader will note this and be emotionally affected, but not know exactly why—that creates suspense. (Remember, comic scene structure is very akin to suspense scene structure, because both rely on postponement to create emotion but also the suspension of emotion which will explode later.) This will lead to a more measured pace, as you build up the emotion in the reader over several scenes.

4) In contrast, in fast-paced thrillers and adventure novels, you want to make those scene-ending events unmistakably dramatic, so that the reader has no doubt that This Is Important Right Now. Again, placement at the end will help accomplish this, but that’s not enough. You need perhaps more dramatic language and description around it, maybe even dramatic pronouncements like, “He was the last man she wanted to see,” or “Mark didn’t have any choice. He had to stop that explosion.” This is somewhere detail really matters, so write the scene and the event, then go back and think about whether you want the light translucent or glaring, and if you want him to jam his hands in his pocket or grab that hammer, or if the object is described as smooth or bulky. Your choice of details can actually help the reader know whether to linger here or pelt onward to the next scene.

5) For real drama (a turning point or a cliffhanger), create an event that poses the question and then have a chapter break; that is, place this not just at the end of a scene but at the end of the chapter, so that reader feels that frenetic frustration as the white space at the end of the chapter becomes an obstacle to Finding Out. That is a mark of fast pace—that the reader wants desperately to Find Out.

6) With a fast-paced novel, you do probably want to answer that question or complete that action or show the reaction soon—definitely in the next scene, maybe in the first part of the scene. Why? Well, the point isn’t to frustrate and enmesh the reader, but to keep the reader moving on, so there should be an expectation of another event, another question, another cliffhanger, coming up quickly. So resolving the previous scene’s question makes way for the next one.

Oh, you’re probably noticing an opportunity here—if you want to pull an end run, a reversal, a trick, play with this. Say at end of Chapter 14, someone is arrested for the murder. You can keep the reader reading past this seeming conclusion first by having the arrest happen at the end of the chapter rather than the beginning of the next, that is, the arrest is the question, not the answer. Also you can play with the convention (and signal that This Isn’t It) by suspending (postponing) the actual consequence, by waiting till the start of the new scene not to resolve this (protagonist breathes a sigh of relief) but to plant doubts (protagonist is haunted by the one thread that wasn’t wrapped up). That sets up the dread in the reader that something is wrong, that this isn’t finished… but she’ll have to keep reading to find out.

Okay, those are just some thoughts. Notice I’m not focusing much at all on what the events ought to be, rather more about placement and presentation. That’s because I think those are key to pacing, and fortunately, are easy to manipulate. We are fortunate that we have readers well-trained in “story grammar,” who respond with gratifying swiftness and accuracy to structural cues. So, as always, figure out what works for you when you’re reading—what makes you frantically flip that page, or linger and re-read—and apply that knowledge to your own story. Pacing isn’t really about WHAT happens, but how whatever happens is presented, and while your muse and id and dark inner demons might dictate the what (and many thanks for that!), your conscious mind can be in control of the how.

Let’s think of “deceptively trivial but actually important” events for the measured pace, and maybe some “question-creating events” for the faster pace. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Alicia

Some thoughts on sentences and pacing

I'm teaching a class on pacing, and got to sentences, and had some thoughts on how to make sentences serve your pacing:

The English language is dependent for meaning on sentence order. (Other languages depend more on other markers, like case and inflection.) If I have an ungrammatical messed-case sentence like:
Me and him went to the store.
You know what that means, even if "me and him" are actually the objective case—they are in the subject position (before the verb), so you don't have a moment's confusion. So think about using the order of the sentence to convey your meaning and propel the reader forward.


Pacing is about far more than sentences, of course. But I can offer some techniques that will help you use sentences to move the reader in the direction you want the readers to go-- towards greater understanding, towards some important realization, past some important clue you want to put there but don't necessarily want them to notice. If you want to propel the reader towards something or to create suspense, you can aid in this effort with sentence construction.

Let's start with a couple terms from Prof Brooks Landon:
The cumulative sentence-- the purpose of this is to accumulate and transfer information in the most clear (and in fiction, "good" -- however you define "good" in this context-- exciting or elegant or entertaining or amusing) way. Usually this means a clear and direct main clause (what Landon calls "the kernel") and modifying elements, and the meaning comes from the cumulative effect-- the gathering of the different bits of information. What's important to note is-- you do not have to put all these bits of information into the main clause, nothing like:
This beautiful exotic vista, a variegated Persian carpet, covered the purple-gray ancient mountain ridge and rustic deep valleys.
You can have a direct main clause and add modifiers as needed.

The suspensive sentence—the purpose of this sentence is to withhold information, at least that most important moment to the end, creating tension, suspense, and (maybe) comedy. So it might start with a main clause, but keep building with modifiers, and end with a bang, like:
She dressed carefully, sliding into a silver slip dress, pulling on shimmering thigh-high stockings, stepping into high heels, and slipping her derringer into her bra.

Both of these sentence patterns are useful in improving pacing, but you can probably see that they're probably each appropriate in different situations. The cumulative sentence is great for conveying information, for getting a lot across quickly. And the suspensive sentence is great for withholding information as in a punchline, so it might be good to set up the conflict (why does she need a gun if she's going to a party?).

Now let me talk about a few things that will make the sentence propel the reader forward. First, as Landon points out, the sentence should usually aim forward in time. To me, that means –

1) Don't puzzle the reader with indicators that take them out of time, like "before" and "two weeks earlier" and "once". As much as possible, make the sentence proceed chronologically when you want the reader to get through the scene and read on without stopping. Here's what I mean:
Before he entered the room, John knocked and waited for her to ask him to come in.
See how the "before" could confuse the reader? It's not chronological. It sends the reader back:
1) He entered.
2) No, first he knocked and waited.
3) Did he enter then? We don't know for sure. ("Before" sends the reader back to the beginning to find the end action, plus you don't actually SAY he entered.) but AFTER is usually chronological--
After he knocked, he heard her call for him to come in, and he entered.
(Okay, boring, but you see the chronology follows the sequence of the action.) When the sentence moves in the forward direction, it propels the reader forward. So only use the backward sentence construction which goes the opposite time-direction when you have a good reason—don't do it accidentally. (Flashbacks of any length are likely to send the reader backwards, and so interfere with that propulsion forward.)

2) Try and make that main clause pretty direct. As long as the main clause is clear, you can add a lot on (the cumulative sentence), modifying phrases and adjectives and adverbs which add to the meaning, without confusing the reader. What's a clause—a subject and verb combination. The main clause usually contains the actor and action of the sentence, the he or she, the main thing that happens. This does NOT have to be the most important thing (the derringer in the bra!), but maybe it can identify the central person or thing:
She dressed carefully,
If this is clear, then the reader won't stop and wonder and go back and try to figure the sentence out. Clarity is important to pacing (you don't want the reader stopping), and that's especially important in that main clause.

3) When a sentence is designated "too complicated" or "too long," the problem isn't usually number of words, but a burying or breaking of that main clause. So if you want to be clear, if you want to propel the reader through the scene, simplify not the whole sentence but that main clause. The first way to "clear" is to make sure that there's little separating the subject (which can be a –phrase-, not just a word) from the verb. So be careful of "appositives," which are modifying phrases that follow the noun, like:
Her older brother, a long-time resident of Paducah, edited the local newspaper.
Appositives break up the flow of the sentence by keeping the actor (subject) from the action (verb). A clearer sentence might put the modifier first:
A long-time resident of Paducah, her older brother edited the local newspaper.

4) The main clause doesn't have to start the sentence, but there's no doubt that sentences that start close to the main clause have greater directness and propulsion. The reader doesn't have to read far to know what is going on, what is happening. So be really careful about putting much in front of it. The biggest mark of an unsophisticated writer, I find—the thing that alerts an editor or agent to the "newbie" status—is a lot of introductory participial phrases. What works in front of the subject? Markers of time and space, like "In April," or "A few miles from town." The reader might need that information to understand the rest of the sentence. (Also see dependent clauses below.)
5) So put the "cumulative information" in phrases and clauses after the main clause, and see how that impels the reader forward. You can actually have very long sentences without sacrificing much clarity if you have a main clause followed by modifying phrases, like:
He never thought he'd love someone like her, a reform-school graduate, a convicted felon, an orphan, a wild child with wild hair and a crooked grin, someone who had never been loved before.

No matter how many modifiers you add on there, the reader can follow—but the modifiers probably all ought to modify the same word (here it's "her"). And with the main clause first, the reader knows what the modifiers mean. What would the impact be if the modifiers came first:
A reform-school graduate, a convicted felon, an orphan, a wild child with wild hair and a crooked grin, someone who had never been loved before: He never thought he'd love someone like her.
(The colon is needed because otherwise it might seem that HE is the reform-school graduate. Trust me on this... it's too complicated to explain. )

6) Sometimes in suspensive sentences, the main clause will have that "most important thing" and be at the end—but the suspensive sentence shouldn't be your primary construction. It should be reserved for when you want to have that "punchline," at the end of a passage or a scene, maybe. It's more of a conclusory construction. Most of your sentences should probably front-load the important element, in the main clause.

7) Now the main clause is going to be an independent clause (can be a sentence on its own). That'll have the main action. But what if you have more than one action and subject? The compound sentence combines TWO independent clauses (with a comma and a conjunction), like "He spent most of his time at work, but sometimes she enticed him away." When does that work? Well, the compound sentence is an effective way to accumulate not just information but action (or feeling), because it makes room for two clauses of pretty much equal importance. Just don't clutter this up with introductory phrases or interruptions (like appositives). But trailing modifiers (at the end) are probably going to help the reader "surf" onward.

8) Dependent clauses (When I was young) can be useful for imbedding lesser but still important action or feeling in a sentence, and won't detract much from the clarity of the main clause. Dependent clauses can be either before or after the main clause, and you might try it both ways to see which one works best:
When I was young, I was in a punk band called Latex Novelties.
I was in a punk band called Latex Novelties when I was young.
(Theresa, remember that band? Used to play at the Jazz Kitchen.)

With "time" dependent clauses (when, since, after), I usually put the dependent clause first—the reader should probably know ahead of time when this action takes place, so she doesn't think, "Alicia was in a punk band last year?" (I was never actually IN a punk band. :)

9) While dependent clauses (like this one :) are useful and don't slow the sentence down much, "relative clauses" really do over-complicate and decrease the pace. Technical stuff here—dependent clauses usually modify the verb (they say when or how something happened, so I was (when I was young) in a punk band. But relative clauses (the ones that begin with "that or which or who" usually) are adjectival, modifying the noun:
Huckleberry Tucson, who was the sheriff of Mullenberg County, dug deep into the dirt, looking for clues.
The terror, which grew with every moment, felt like an octopus strangling her life.
The problem with adjectival modifiers, especially these relative clauses, is that they are "bound" modifiers, stuck to the noun—to be grammatically correct, they should be adjacent to the noun... and yet, unlike dependent clauses, they can't go in front of the noun—they can't actually be moved at all:
Who was the sheriff of Mullenberg County, Huckleberry Tucson dug deep
into the dirt, looking for clues.
I bet you've already figured out how to make that a propulsive, working sentence—reduce the clause into a phrase by getting rid of the clause subject/verb==
Mullenberg County sheriff Huckleberry Tucson dug deep into the dirt, looking for clues.
See how that propels—the sheriff... who is that? The question is answered as soon as it's posed—Huck. The cumulative sentence anticipates and answers the reader's immediate questions.
If you find these relative clauses, reduce!! Relative clauses are (because they restrict—that is the prime function of relative clauses) legalistic, and you really don't want your scene to sound like a legal brief. :)

10) Don't forget the one-word modifiers, the adjectives and the adverbs. These can truly change the tone of your sentence and sharpen the picture or character for your reader. So:
The old man wandered aimlessly through the deserted streets of town.
Some writers will say never to use adjectives and adverbs, but you don't have to go with that. The result is often either minimalist prose (not appropriate for so many stories) or far more complex modifiers (like phrases and clauses) which can load down the sentence. Always try to reduce, from clause to phrase to word, but experiment— go with what feels and sounds best while giving the reader the clearest meaning.

11) There is no reason to feel like you have to cram too much into one sentence. That's a good reason for starting with that main clause, because then you can make sure that everything that follows relates specifically to something in that main clause. If a sentence feels too long and complicated, go through and see if it will be easier to read as TWO sentences. Experiment!

12) In the end, what matters is meaning. The sentence should MEAN the right thing. If you aim first to make the sentence mean something, then you can embroider or add or subtract. But don't think in terms of words here, but meaning. Too many writers are obsessed with "hiding" the subject of a sentence, putting something, anything, in front of that "he". Yes, it's nice to vary sentence openings—but that is not your purpose here. Get the meaning right, and think about what the reader needs to know and when the reader needs to know in what order—and your sentences will be varied.

To keep the reader reading—to keep the pacing going—make your sentences clear, purposeful, and informative. Also make them propulsive, heading in the direction of the end of the scene. Try not to make the reader circle back or read over—make them keep reading by aiming forward and not back or around.
Alicia

Stacking events

Watching The Godfather, always a pleasure, and such a healthy family activity for the holiday! :) Something I notice is how action is stacked so that there's not a lot of letup in tension. That's something we can do in fiction too. You don't need to have a separate scene for every event-- you can put two related events in the same scene, especially if you end the scene with one of the events.

The point of no return for this film is actually a sequence of events that cumulatively make it impossible for Michael to go back to his former neutral position. First, as he's marrying the Sicilian girl he has met in exile, his little sister is having her own marital drama-- her husband is beating her, and she calls her big brother Sonny to help. As he is impetuously driving to help her, he is mowed down by gunmen (the abusive husband set this up to get Sonny killed).
Then, in exile, Michael hears about his brother's murder, and is told he must leave the area. As he is preparing to leave, someone puts a bomb in his car, but his new wife has decided to surprise him by driving the car up to meet him. She is killed in the explosion.

All this happens in about 10 minutes of film time, and the power is intensified by the compression. This isn't for every part of the story-- it's more effective when we've already gotten to know the characters and understand the situation, so we aren't confused by the rapid-fire of events... and we can keep up emotionally and anticipate how the events will affect the characters.

So if you have a string of events that feels too attenuated, consider having one lead to the next... but in the same scene for greater force.
Alicia

Moving them around

Jwhit said: "At the beginning of your post you mention that moving a person around is needed, but I've received crits that suggest those stage directions aren't necessary and slow down the story pace. Thoughts?"

I guess I say... you need as much as you need. :) The reader needs to know when movement has taken place, when there's been some change in position. It is disconcerting to be inside and suddenly outside. (Of course, in a deepish POV, that can be fun.
(Long introspective passage, then--) Sarah glanced about and realized she was outside. When did that happen?

But unless the action is important (like in a fight scene), you don't have to choreograph every step. That's why I say to go for "inclusive" terms, usually in the predicate, which are describing progressive action(She crossed the street) and adverbs like "as" or "while" that indicate continuing minor action while something more major (like thinking or talking) is taking place (As he scrubbed the pot, he remembered restoring the Sistine Chapel...).

I dread to say this, but it's all in the context. :) That is, the purpose of the passage and what else is going on will determine the depth of detail about minor action. But the reader does need SOMETHING, especially since every single reader you have will have grown up on film and tv and needs some visual verbal marker of setting and elapsed time and the character IN the setting. I recently critiqued a manuscript that was dialogue and introspection, almost nothing else, and I was so alienated -- I couldn't believe these characters were anything more than words on paper, because they obviously didn't exist anywhere else. You don't want that. They need to touch base with the environment. And I think if you can get INTO their bodies and minds as you write, you'll feel more where that base-touching needs to be. Then if critiquers say it's too much, cut back on the in-between details and use the more inclusive terminology, and heck, describe it in the POV character's way. If he is determined to get to the front of the crowd, but people keep stopping him, the obstruction would be uppermost in his mind. He wouldn't be able to think about existential matters as he shouldered through the crowd-- he'd have to pay attention to his surroundings and his movement therein. So the narrative should probably follow that at least enough to give the reader a flavor of it, and then use a narrative bridge (if you get bored with shoulder, intrusive person, more shoulder), like "It was another five minutes of cordial intrusions before he finally got to the stage." That shows the passage of time AND the passage through space without too much detail.

What experience should the reader have? If you want it to feel like the character's, try to replicate the character's experience of this moment or series of moments. But we all zone out on our experiences, we all remember the highlights and not the boring stuff, we all summarize when we're retelling. So you can do that... as long as the reader doesn't get jarred, or gets jarred only as much as the character.
He looked around and noticed that he was in California. How'd that happen? Last thing he remembered, he was leaving Vegas, and he'd just put on the White Album CD. He'd forgotten how long that album was. Catchy tunes too. He wondered how fast he'd been driving.
Show the journey the way the character experiences it, I guess? Try that. When the character is concentrating on every step, concentrate. If the character is moving automatically, show that too. But show it somehow-- don't just not narrate the change in time and place. That's disconcerting.
And always be ready to cut back in edit. You'll be a lot more into the process of the scene when you read it over, and have more of a sense of what the reader needs. Just focus on cutting away the extraneous, the pedantic, the picky (unless that's important somehow, like you need to be picky here to bury some clue in all the detail).
Alicia

Sequels and Scene Pacing

I just read Alicia's last Q&A post and have to chime in. You can add me to the "not a big fan of sequels" column.

I have two additional points to make on this topic. These don't contradict what Alicia has said, but are mere elaborations.

First, a mechanical application of Bickham's rule for scene, then sequel often results in a too-introspective story. Not all actions require analysis. As a general rule, I think we need this kind of analysis when the motivation for the character's next action requires some set-up. In other words -- not sequel, but prequel. And the amount of prequel should be in proportion to how much the character must change and grow in order to take that next step.

In other words, stop thinking about what just happened. It's over. Been there, done that. The only thing that matters now is what happens next, and you have to lead the reader to it without either boring them or undercutting the conflict.

So that's my first thought. My second has to do with Dan Brown. (Stop groaning, all you purists. There's a good technique lesson here.)

When The DaVinci Code hit big, everyone I knew who'd read it -- including people who read, on average, one book every decade or so -- made the same comment. "I couldn't stop reading. I kept thinking, one more section, one more chapter, but then I'd read the next part and still couldn't put the book down."

Hmm, thinks I. What's behind all this frantic page-turning?

I asked my writer friends who had read the book, and got a range of answers related to the short length of the scenes and chapters, the constant sense of danger to the characters, and the plot itself. But when I finally read the book myself, I noticed that Brown breaks the convention of treating scenes like self-contained units which begin and end in predictable places.

A complete scene unit usually follows this basic pattern:

• scene goal
• character action in furtherance of the goal
• character meets obstacle
• obstacle creates complications
• complications force decisions
• decisions lead to new scene goal

And then repeats itself, over and over, with minor variations, until the large scale conflict is resolved. Goal, action, obstacle, complication, decion, goal, action, obstacle, complication, decision, goal, action, obstacle, complication, decision, goal, and so on....

Under the Bickham model, a lot of emphasis is put on the moment of decision, enough so that he seems to recommend treating it as a standalone unit, perhaps in conjunction with the next goal. So the actions are clumped:

• action, obstacle, complication
• decision, goal

And repeat themselves in this fashion until the end of the book.

Because most people appear to think of scenes as some group of actions beginning with a goal and ending after that goal has been attempted (with whatever result), this Bickham model makes some intuitive sense. Put the active things together in one unit, and the analytical things together in a separate unit. Scene cuts and chapter breaks can fall naturally either before or after one of these units.

But if you're Dan Brown, you know that the moment when things are worst is the moment when readers are most interested. And when are things at their worst? During the obstacle, or maybe the complication. So he places his scene cuts and chapter breaks in the obstacle, or sometimes in the early part of the complication. His pattern, then, is:

• complication, decision, goal, action, obstacle

Or,

• finish previous complication, decision, goal, action, obstacle, start of complication

Which means that all the boring head stuff, the slower paced stuff, is buried in the middle of his scenes, and all the fast, OMG-what-now stuff falls right at the moment where a reader would normally put the book down -- the scene cuts and chapter breaks -- but in this case, must keep reading. Because really, who can put the book down when bullets are flying and the hero is trapped in an upside down sarcophagus and the bad guys are right!! there!! --

-- and what? we're cutting away from this scene now? Holy crap, the reader thinks, don't leave me hanging --

-- so we read the next line, which takes us to the other good guys, the authority figures or semi-good guys. (Brown triangulates his storylines -- good guys, semi-good guys, bad guys.) And damn it all if we didn't leave the semi-good guys this--><-- close to some disaster at the last scene cut. Which Brown kindly reminds us of, and then races us through to the next obstacle, before leaving us hanging -- leaving us hanging again! Are you freaking kidding me?--

-- And now we're with the bad guy, who is going to do what? No way! He can't possibly be so evil as to-- cut again! Leave it hanging! What exactly is that bad guy doing?--

-- But the first line of the next scene reminds us of the last disaster to the hero, and the bullets are still flying, and the hero is discovering he has a very dry roommate in the sarcophagus, and how the hell can anyone ever put a bookmark in the book? One more page, just one more page, and then we'll put the book down and go to sleep.

Yeah. I stayed up all night reading it, too. And yes, I agree with all the criticisms -- in particular, the women characters are badly drawn -- yet I still had to read it through in one big gulp.

All of which is to say, play with your sequel material. Minimize it where possible, bury it in unlikely places if you want the emphasis to remain on the action, and never forget to save the Dan Brown books for a night when you can skip sleeping.

Theresa

Buried Dialogue Is Not Buried Treasure

Before we get into the meat of today's topic, I want to take care of a little blog business.

First, let me say thank you! The response to this little blog has been overwhelming. Alicia and I are gratified and a little shocked by the way people are spreading the word. It's wonderful!

We take that to mean this blog might be useful, and that's what we were aiming for: a useful, practical source for bite-sized technical information. To that end, I've added a sidebar poll. If you think one topic or another might be more useful, please vote for it and we'll see what we can do. You may vote for more than one topic. The poll closes on New Year's Eve, so we'll start the new year by taking a look at what folks are most interested in learning.

If you're on a feed reader, you'll have to go to the actual blog to vote. Click here:
http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/

Now, let's talk about what I promised to talk about a few days ago: dialogue buried in the middle of paragraphs.

The Fad For Fast

Alicia made a valid point about paragraphing being, in some respects, a voice issue. There's a bit more to it than that, because paragraphing has a profound effect on pacing.

In decades past, books were long and meaty, and paragraphs could easily fill entire pages with dense blocks of type. Currently, the preference is for fast-paced prose and a lot of white space on the page. It's not that either way is wrong. This isn't a matter of right or wrong but a matter of effect and control.

What effect do you want to cause on the reader? Do you want your reader to sink deep and savor the prose? Or do you want to leave them breathless, turning pages as fast as their eyes can manage?

General rules:
More paragraph breaks create a faster pace.
Dialogue reads at a faster pace than other narrative elements.
Confusion will slow a reader's pace to a crawl.

So, let's say this is your paragraph:

Mary set the table with her grandmother's china and the porcelain candlesticks Jason had bought for her at the flea market last spring. A crisp white linen tablecloth and simple white napkins provided the perfect backdrop for the red and gold dishes. She stood back to observe the effect. "Perfect. It must be perfect," she muttered. Candles, should she light them now or later? She wanted everything to be seamless, so effortlessly beautiful and romantic that he'd have no choice but to give her that ring he'd been carrying in his coat pocket for the last two weeks.

In theory, we could go to press with a paragraph like this. In practice, we would break it up like so:

Mary set the table with her grandmother's china and the porcelain candlesticks Jason had bought for her at the flea market last spring. A crisp white linen tablecloth and simple white napkins provided the perfect backdrop for the red and gold dishes. She stood back to observe the effect.

"Perfect. It must be perfect," she muttered.

Candles, should she light them now or later? She wanted everything to be seamless, so effortlessly beautiful and romantic that he'd have no choice but to give her that ring he'd been carrying in his coat pocket for the last two weeks.

Because dialogue carries a special emphasis in the narrative, readers tend to scan it a bit differently than they do non-dialogue. The quotation marks off-set the dialogue and serve as a bold signal to our eyes that the contained lines are different from the surrounding prose.

When the quotation marks appear in the middle of a block of type, they're not as visually pronounced. We'll still see them, but we'll see them differently than if they were also offset by a new paragraph indent. The dialogue will be downplayed simply because it's buried in the middle of a block of text.

In fact, skimmers -- those readers who only read dialogue and the first line of every text paragraph -- will probably miss the buried dialogue altogether. Even those who read every line might be lulled into glossing over the buried dialogue.

This can create confusion. If an important nugget is buried in the dialogue, something more critical than a woman mumbling about dishes, will it create enough of an impression on the reader to be remembered later?

Genre fiction right now is swinging toward faster prose, and that means offsetting your dialogue instead of burying it. But when would you want to bury it? When a character is revealing something very reluctantly. Or when you want to hide a clue in plain sight. Any time you want to diminish the impact of something, dialogue or non-dialogue, you bury it in the dead center of a long paragraph.

These days, when I get a submission full of long, dense paragraphs, it usually signals that the submission won't be right for us. We tend to see this kind of blocky writing in connection with other problems -- overwriting, pendantic notions of female sexuality, lack of control over the narrative.

This is why I beg to be spared from big paragraphs with dialogue buried in the middle. Not because it's a technical error akin to a comma splice or a dangling modifier, but because these kinds of paragraphs generally signal a manuscript that will be a bit overstuffed and out of control.

In other words, if you're not burying your dialogue to create a deliberate effect, you're probably better off not burying it at all.