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 →

Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery by Diane Holmes

My eyes!  My eyes!

How does great pacing so capture the reader’s attention that you can’t look away… even if you really don’t want to see what happens next? (It’s baaaaaad!  I can’t look away!)

Through every specific techniques, that’s how.

First, let’s talk about what the word riveting really means to the reader.  I believe a reader can only be riveted at the scene level, by action (including dialog) unfolding in real time.

When a reader is riveted, she’s captured by the story, hooked in a way that keeps her turning pages to see—not how the story will end—but what’s on the very next page.

The reader may be shocked at what happened in past scenes and worried about future outcomes, but to be riveted by a story requires that the current scene fully capture the reader’s attention RIGHT NOW. This holds for both stories that have a more languid pace and stories with a high-thrill, fast pace.

Riveting Techniques

1) Keep your characters off balance.

When characters interact with each other (or with the plot), it can be compared to dancing. There are steps that make sense, responses that are expected.  He says something, she makes a logical reply.  She does something, he counters.

The biggest trick to creating riveting fiction is to stop taking the expected next dance step.  Keep your characters and reader slightly off balance at all times in a way that is provocative, unexpected, and unscripted, yet totally believable and serves the story you’re telling.

If your character says to someone, “Good morning,” the boring response is an expected reply. Readers can skip that.  Instead, make the reply un-skip-able.

Possible replies to keep the scene off balance:

• “Don’t you start with me!”
• “You only say that because you like pain and suffering.”
• “You’re fired.”

Another example: If your character is holding divorce papers and approaching her husband, you expect that she’ll say she has the papers and hold them out.  He’ll probably be pissed off or sad or remorseful.  It will be a standard scene we’ve seen hundreds of times before.

Let’s look at off-balance alternatives:

• She puts the papers away and never mentions them.
• She turns away from her husband, walks over to the woman she knows he’s seeing, and gives the papers to her.
• She shows him the papers and says, “Do you think these will hold up?  After all, I know this isn’t your real name, is it?”

2) Make it clear that the very next word, the very next action matters.

How?

• By showing that your characters are paying attention. They’re worried.  They’re relying on what’s happening now to make choices and guidetheir  responses.
• By focusing the scene–what’s actually being discussed or what’s happening–on a key puzzle piece that belongs to the picture of your plot.

3) Focus on the fascinating stuff.

Even mundane details can be fascinating in the hands of an adept writer.  So this isn’t about leaving out the small, rich details that make scenes authentic.

Fascinating stuff is the stuff that readers want to know more about because the detail creates a powerful mental image, changes what they thought they knew, or gives them access to an unknown world.

4) Go somewhere important with your details.

If your details (dialog, action, prose) never ends up anywhere, if it’s just there for the sake of words, then your readers will feel tricked.  They thought you were telling a riveting story.  Instead, you were just chatting over coffee.  “Shooting the breeze,” as my Dad used to say.

Don’t put divorce papers in a story where the divorce actually doesn’t matter and the character doesn’t care.

Enough said.

And now for a few pacing questions to help you create riveting scenes. Continue reading You Can’t Look Away: Pacing & The Riveting Story →

Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery by Diane Holmes

Quick, think of a scene that has great pacing.  Got it?  Great.  Did you think of people fleeing for their lives?  Maybe a hero and villain fighting it out?  What about a car chase?

Okay, consider this: every scene, no matter how relaxed the characters, no matter how law abiding and ordinary the focus, can have great pacing.

It’s easy to confuse the concept of pacing with action, because those are the examples we typically talk about. But you can have great pacing in any scene.  Just as any scene can sag (no matter how much blood is being spilled).

Think of the quiet books you’ve read.  The ones that were not driven by the need to solve a murder or stop the world from exploding.  How does something so “slow” capture our attention as readers? Something kept you turning pages. What was it?

Now think of the mind-numbing action scenes where it was one punch after another, so you skimmed over it.

Yeah, action can be boring.

New, Fresh, & Unexpected

The answer to both the quiet scene that works and the active scene that doesn’t is that good pacing requires something new, fresh, and unexpected be unfolding right before the readers eyes.

What does this mean?

As soon as your reader understands what’s happening, imagine her or him putting a checkmark by that paragraph. “Got it!” she says.

If your next paragraph is more of the same, no matter how interesting, your reader will put another checkmark and say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it.”  If the next paragraph is the same, the reader won’t even bother with a check mark. She’ll roll her eyes a bit, and say, “Get on with it.”

This “get on with it” response—this is pacing failure.

What you really want is a response like, “Oh, really!” or “Oh, my!” or “No way!”

If we are in a chase scene, chasing alone isn’t interesting enough to create good pacing.  The next paragraph of the chase must contain something new, fresh, and unexpected.

If the character is wounded and running for his life, the next paragraph cannot just be more of the character being wounded and running.  It must contain something fresh.

If the scene is about a mother and daughter talking about their day and how the mother is going to make dinner, the next paragraph needs to contain something fresh & unexpected, even if it’s “quiet.”

Behind scenes that work, even quiet scenes, is a framework built out of new information.

And now for a few pacing tips and tricks to bring something fresh to your scenes. Ask the following questions at the paragraph level,  the “unit of action” level, and the scene level. Continue reading Pacing and the Thirst for Something Fresh (Blood Optional) →

Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery by Diane Holmes 

It’s interesting to talk to writers about pacing, because the answer you very often get is, “Write in shorter sentences!” 

This answer is the equivalent of answering the question, “How do you get a reader’s attention?” with the pithy reply, “Use a bigger font.”

Ah… gee, thanks.

I’ve made it my mission over the last few years to gain deep insight into pacing–what works, what doesn’t, and why. (Hint: Always have a mission.  It keeps you looking young.)

9 Advanced Techniques in Pacing Your Novel (that you won’t hear anywhere else)

I’ve come up with a unique take on pacing, and in the following 9 Fiction-Zone articles, I’m going to share everything I know.

These 9 insights create a definition that radically changed how I view pacing in my own work.

Most people define pacing as “going faster.”  Here’s my definition:

Fresh &

Riveting

Stuff that Matters (consequences and emotions)

Happening in Real Time (even if it’s just learning about something)

That Causes Immediate Reaction

With an Unknown Outcome

That Changes the Game

For at Least One Character

And the Reader.

That Looks Obvious

Yeah, but it’s not.  Because there are tricks to each of the 9 elements.  It’s all comes down to…

1. Perspective,
2. Involvement,
3. Scale, and
4. Sincerity.

I’m going to show you how to apply these tricks and techniques to transform your stories.

Take the Pacing Test:

Think of the scene in your current manuscript that you believe has the best pacing…

–> Where would you rate this scene on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “almost comatose” and 10 being “the best example of pacing ever!”

–> Do you think it has good pacing because of the scene events, your writing, or the meaning of the scene?

Bookmark this site, so you don’t miss the 9 Pacing Techniques.  And follow me on Twitter @pitchuniversity and FaceBook to be notified of the latest post.

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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

In Part 1 we discussed how motivation is not the same as emotion, and the character’s emotion in a scene may have little to do with the grand “story goal & motivation” and a lot to do with what just happened in the previous scene.  And now… Part 2.

Is Your Character Emotionally Fickle?

Two places where your ability to create 3D characters intersects with your ability to craft dynamic & powerful scenes are…

• How your viewpoint character embodies a focused emotion that makes sense in the scene, and
• What (if anything) causes your viewpoint character to shift her or his emotional focus.

Your character walks onto the “scene stage” with a certain emotion at a certain intensity. I call this the Character’s Emotional Set Point.

6 Ways to Avoid Fickle Characters

Here are six things you need to know about your character’s emotional set point to avoid fickle characters.  (Oh, no!  Not a fickle character!  The horror of it!)

#1 Probably stating the obvious here, but the emotion/intensity needs to make sense to the reader.

#2 The emotional set point shouldn’t be forgotten or dropped during the scene at any time. “Oops, I forgot to be grief-stricken about that pesky murder of my wife, because my neighbor is at the door, and I really want her recipe for Marshmallow Surprise… so happy!”

#3 A character’s emotional set point can change intensity or change to a different emotion entirely, but never without a reason that makes sense to the character and the reader. “So, happy, wait… now I’m really frustrated so just roll with me on this, wait, I’m so alone…..”

#4 The reason for change usually needs to have heft, otherwise you’re telling the reader that (a) the original emotion wasn’t important, (b) the character is easily swayed by every emotional “wind” that blows through and is, thus, shallow, and (c) the new emotion can’t be trusted.

#5 The emotion needs to be showcased against the character’s scene goal (and what actually happens in the scene). If your character is feeling hopeful, then we need to understand and experience that emotion in the context of the unfolding scene. It is not something that waits in the car, while the character is busy.

#6 If you haven’t specifically looked at your character’s emotional set-point and how it’s impacted throughout each scene, you might have written a fickle character. Time to de-fickle your book.

To Do:

• Track the emotion throughout the scene, front to back..
• Compare the emotion in the narrative to the emotion in the dialogue.
• Look for places where the emotion is missing or not clear.
• Make sure changes happen in a believable way.

How do you maintain your character’s emotional integrity?  Share your insights with me!

—

Diane writes two columns for Freelance-Zone:

• Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery and
• Marketing-Zone: Marketing-Zone: Marketing Yourself and Your Book.

She’s also 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.”