Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery by Diane Holmes

I was recently talking with Hollywood Story Consultant Christopher Vogler, for an article over at Pitch University:

The Story Master’s Journey by Christopher Vogler (free bonus chapter!)

Now, if the name is familiar, there’s a reason for this.  He’s kind of a legend for his ground-breaking work bringing the power of myth to screen and novel writers with The Writer’s Journey, now in it’s 3rd edition.

As a Hollywood Story Consultant for Disney, Fox2000, and Paramount, he’s worked on some of the biggest movies of our time.  The Lion King, Courage  Under Fire, I Am Legend.  You may have heard of them.

When the subject of pacing came up, he told me the following story.

Christopher Vogler: I work mostly with screenwriters and had to deal with a pacing issue on rewrites of THE FIGHTER, on which I worked with one of the screenwriters, Scott Silver (8 Mile). 

The script was EXTREMELY dynamic, with high highs and low lows on almost every page.

The overall effect was “aesthetic exhaustion.” An audience would just get worn out from trying to ride that roller coaster.  

I worked with Scott to find  major turning points, so that the script would build up to a high point for three or four pages before taking a darker turn for a few minutes.

It gave the audience a chance to enjoy and share in the hero’s triumphs before the next twist in the road.

I love this advice for two very important reasons.

#1 Characters do not need rest.

There is a strange piece of advice that writers repeat to each other that goes, “You can’t have fast pace all the time; you have to let characters rest and build in slow-paced scenes.” 

I know this, because Inevitably, if I give gentle critique feedback that a scenes is dragging a bit (because the characters are sitting around making idle chitchat, with no goal), the scene is defended strongly using this logic.

But listen to what Chris says.  It’s not that scenes should be slow/boring or be designed to give your character a Snickers break. 

No.

Your scenes should build to the big turning points.  The high highs and low lows are end destinations.  You don’t just leap from devastating low to another low low, to an incredible high, and back again. 

And you certainly don’t take a break off from the story.

You build scene upon scene in a way that propels your story forward.

Awesome.

#2 Pacing is created within a scene and across scenes.

We writers often focus on scene creation and scene rewrites, but audiences and readers experience the dynamic of a story unfolding and building into larger turning points.  And these turning points build into a larger experience called Your Book (or Movie).

Readers don’t care about the scene unit nearly as much as we do.  They care about what just happened to the characters, what’s happening now, and what might happened in the story future.

Because the story is going somewhere.

Because there’s a meaning to be made out of what happens.

Because you’re telling them as the writer that what they read (or see) is important and matters when it all comes together.

Because of a hundred different reasons.

So when we think of pacing, let’s try to think of story pacing and not just scene pacing, okay?

Good.

And if you’re interested in learning more from Christopher Vogler, check out his new book.  Or join me at the November 2011 Story Master Conference.  I’d love to meet the Freelance-Zone Peeps!

This article is the 6th in Diane’s craft-of-fiction-writing series on Pacing:

1. How to Be a Pacing Genius
2. Pacing and the Thirst for Something Fresh (Blood Optional)
3. You Can’t Look Away: Pacing & The Riveting Story
4. Shot Through the Heart: Threat, Consequences, and Emotions Equal Pacing
5. BONUS:  Don’t Hold Back – Pacing Advice by Literary Agent Donald Maass
6. BONUS with Hollywood Story Consultant Christopher Vogler
7. The “Oh, Crap!” Factor: Pacing in Real Time
8. Bam! Pow! Wham! Good Pacing Causes Immediate Reaction
9. Situation Critical: Pacing’s Need for an Unknown Outcome
10. Game Changers: Pacing, Plot Twits, and Reader Engagement
11. Pacing that Matters: It All Comes Down to Characters
12. Your True Opponent: Pacing’s Race to Outwit the Reader
13. 9 Pacing Techniques, 1 Scene on Fire

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Diane writes two alternating columns for Freelance-Zone:Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery and Marketing-Zone:Marketing-Zone: Marketing Yourself and Your Book.

She’s the Founder and Chief Alchemist of Pitch University – “Learn to pitch your book from the AGENTS and EDITORS who make their living at it.  Learn.  Pitch.  Sell.”

Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery by Diane Holmes

I spoke with Literary  Agent and Writing Instructor Donald Maass about his new 4-day Story Masters workshop with Christopher Vogler & James Scott Bell. 

(I’m currently doing a series over at Pitch University on this workshop, which comers to Houston, TX November 3 – 6, 2011.  I’ll be there, so say hi if you’re there too.)

Of course, I took the opportunity to ask him a couple questions about my Freelance Zone passions (this series on Pacing, and my current Marketing-Zone series on Author Branding.)

So today, I have a bonus for you on Pacing.  Here’s what I asked  Don….

Diane:  One of the hardest things to discern as a novelist is how your scene’s pacing translates to the reader.  Can you give us an example of the best rewrite you’ve seen to correct a pacing issue?

Donald Maass: Absolutely. 

Historical mystery writer Anne Perry several years ago wrote a stand-alone historical novel, The Sheen on the Silk, set in a late century of the Byzantine empire.  The first draft dragged.  You could have said pace was an issue, but I could see that the author was holding back. 

I told her to add 75,000 words. 

That did the trick.  With so much extra room—really, freedom—the author let loose.  The story soared.  The delivery manuscript came in almost exactly 75,000 words longer.  The pace of the story was terrific.  There was far more material but also higher tension throughout.  What was on the page now mattered.

3 Reasons Don’s Pacing Example Rocks

#1  Pacing is a way of viewing story, not a gimmick.

It’s about a deeper story that matters, a story where the author really let’s loose.  This is why pacing isn’t just about “write shorter sentences,” which is what I often hear, when I ask other writers about pacing.  Pacing speaks to the heart of story.

#2  Write bolder not “faster.”

Pacing belongs to the brave writer, the unflinching hand.  Small, quiet scenes and large, explosive scenes can both have excellent pacing.  You do this with bold writing, a daring story, and the guts to write the WHOLE thing, not a pale imitation.

#3  Stories and storytellers are meant to soar. 

It’s not enough to write the scenes.  It’s not enough to master the mechanics.  And it’s never enough to be average. 

Seize the day, my friend.  Grab your story and take it to the heavens.  Blow the doors off your soul.  Let your passion yell, “Hell, Yes!” on every page, because even you didn’t know you were capable of writing that much truth.

That sense of soaring?  It’s the taste of great pacing.

So many scenes and manuscripts just skim across the top of the story, the character exchanging lines that even they know are fake.  You can feel the pace drag already.

But scenes (and pacing) that soar?  That can earn you reviews like this for The Sheen on the Silk:

“As the danger, betrayals, and dead bodies mount, Perry conveys an earnest message about obsession, sacrifice, and faith at a dazzling crossroads of East and West civilizations.”

— Publishers Weekly

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This article is the 5th in Diane’s craft-of-fiction-writing series on Pacing:

1. How to Be a Pacing Genius
2. Pacing and the Thirst for Something Fresh (Blood Optional)
3. You Can’t Look Away: Pacing & The Riveting Story
4. Shot Through the Heart: Threat, Consequences, and Emotions Equal Pacing
5. BONUS with Literary Agent Donald Maass
6. The “Oh, Crap!” Factor: Pacing in Real Time
7. Bam! Pow! Wham! Good Pacing Causes Immediate Reaction
8. Situation Critical: Pacing’s Need for an Unknown Outcome
9. Game Changers: Pacing, Plot Twits, and Reader Engagement
10. Pacing that Matters: It All Comes Down to Characters
11. Your True Opponent: Pacing’s Race to Outwit the Reader
12. 9 Pacing Techniques, 1 Scene on Fire

—

Diane writes two alternating columns for Freelance-Zone:Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery and Marketing-Zone:Marketing-Zone: Marketing Yourself and Your Book.

She’s the Founder and Chief Alchemist of Pitch University – “Learn to pitch your book from the AGENTS and EDITORS who make their living at it.  Learn.  Pitch.  Sell.”

Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery by Diane Holmes

Stuff That Matters

My Mom is a skimmer.

When she reads (and she has 70 years of reading experience), she’s seen it all, read it all, and re-read it if it’s any good.

So, when I hear her give an exasperated sigh and start flipping pages, I know what’s happening. She’s skimming.  (She also reads the ending first, which I try not to hold against her.  But it’s hard….)

It would be a mistake to think the writing isn’t any good. She’s not responding to the beauty of the sentences, the “goodness” of the prose.  What she’s saying with her sigh is that, “What I’m reading doesn’t even matter!”  And by matter, she means “to me or the character!”

This is a clear demonstration of pacing failure, because good pacing is about stuff that matters to the reader and especially to the characters.  What you want is to write story in every scene that simply can’t be skimmed.

The Reader’s Digest Pacing Test

My mom introduced me to Reader’s Digest Book when I was very young, and I was an avid reader by 5th grade.

Reader’s Digest used to select bestsellers and books of note, cut a couple hundred pages (leaving “just the good stuff”) and publish several of them bound together into one gilt-edged Reader’s Digest edition.  Ah, the nostalgia!

But this perfectly describes how my mother thinks all books should be edited.  Just cut out the parts she has to skim anyway. The parts where her attention wanes and she feels rather put-out with the writer (no matter how well known!).  The parts where the pacing sags.

If my mother ruled the publishing world, there would be a Reader’s Digest edit of every book ever published.

So here’s the test:  Would Reader’s Digest cut out this page, scene, or section to create a digest version?  You’ve just identified your pacing issues.

My mother’s here visiting me now.  She just read a Jeffery Archer book for the second time, and I asked her, “So, did you want to condense it for Reader’s Digest?”

“No!” she said, surprising us both.  “There’s nothing to cut out.  It was all good.”

And those, dear writers, are beautiful words, don’t you think?

It’s all good.

The Good Parts

So let’s talk about how readers identify what NOT to skim and the Stuff That Matters.

Even if they don’t quite know why a story is working, to a reader (or my mom), Stuff that Matters has an element of..

• Threat,
• Consequence, &
• Emotion

Threat

There are many faces of Threat.  Here are some:

• Change that is fraught with risk or exposure
• Interruption that overpowers or derails the character’s current goals and demands attention
• Any action or situation associated with worry that “this could turn out baaaad”
• Anticipation of an unwanted (and uncontrollable) behavior or situation
• Real or implied danger (emotional, physical, spiritual, or mental)
• Volatility, loss of equilibrium and status quo.
• The unknown, secrets, and lies.
• Vulnerability and the presence of innocence.
• A challenge to safety.
• Fear, panic, & worry in others.
• Knowledge of an unpleasant meaning inherent in an action or outcome.
• Conflict.  All sizes and shapes.

But threat is not enough to create good pacing. Continue reading Shot Through the Heart: Threat + Consequences + Emotions = Pacing →