Acing pacing in your writing

I’ve read too many books and watched too many shows where pacing has ruined a good story. So, here are some of my tips for getting pacing right:

1. Don’t take too long to get to the inciting incident

2. Keep it moving, but don’t rush

3. Avoid a sagging middle

4. Don’t fast forward to the end

5. Trust your characters

Look, exams have fried my brain. So, this isn’t the most well-formulated post I’ve made. But I hope that it can be helpful.

Reblog if you found these tips useful. Comment with your own pacing tips. Follow me for similar content.

People talk a lot about how reading is necessary for writing, but when you really want to improve your writing, it’s important to go beyond just simple reading. Here are some things to do when reading:

Note how they begin and end the story. There are a ton of rather contradictory pieces of advice about starting stories, so see how they do it in the stories you enjoy. Don’t only look at the most popular stories, but look at your more obscure favorites.

See what strikes you. Is it fast or complicated scenes with a lot of emotions? Is it stark lines? Pithy dialogue? What do you remember the next day?

Pay attention to different styles. It’s not just whether they use past or present tense, first or third person. It’s whether the writing is more neutral or deeper inside character’s heads. Do they use italics? Parentheses? Other interesting stylistic choices? Take the ones you like and try them out in your own writing. See what works and what doesn’t.

Keep track of how they deal with other characters. Do we see a lot of secondary character each for very brief periods of time or are there a couple that show up a lot? How much information do we get about secondary characters? Do they have their own plots or do their plots revolve entirely around the main characters? 

Count how many plots there are. Is there just one main plot or are there multiple subplots? Are the storylines mostly plot-based or character-based?  

Pay attention to what you don’t like. If you don’t like what’s going on in a book or even just a scene, note what it is. Does the dialogue feel awkward? Are the characters inconsistent? Does the plot feel too convenient or cobbled together? Does the wording just feel off? See if you can spot those issues in your own writing, especially when reading a completed draft or beginning a later draft.

(Great advice! I wanted to tack on other things I look for when reading)

Pay attention to how they introduce characters. Very rarely will it be all at once, and I guarantee the author went over the intro of each major character again and again while editing, so I always like paying extra close attention! Did the intro endear you to the character? Make you dislike them? How did the author impart that emotion?

Note instances of worldbuilding/info dumps, especially parts that don’t seem like worldbuilding/info dumps. Maybe the character mentions something offhand about a location you’ll see five chapters later. Maybe the internal dialogue makes a comparison to the character’s childhood. Was the information effective or did it leave you wanting more? Make note of anything that made you go, “ooh, neat!”

After you finish the story, try to find foreshadowing that you missed the first time through! It can be as simple as skimming and looking for phrases you know are important after finishing the story. Most authors add foreshadowing in the editing stage, so I tend to ponder how the story would read before they added it. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the story seems more magical for it and it’s just nice to appreciate.

What plot structures could the story fit into? We all know about the three arc stories, hero’s journey, etc. Sometimes stories can fit into more than one category. During the read and after, keep it in the back of your mind. Can you predict where the climax of the story will hit? Is it man v man or man v nature? Does the predictability (or lack thereof) add to or take away from the story?

 If you like your story, then that’s a good enough reason to write it. If you like the plot twist, the character, the trope, then that’s more than enough of a reason to write it. It’s your story, your own little world, and what matters most is that it’s a story you love.

for all you writers out there:

donjon has tons of generators. for calendars. for demographics of a country and city. for names (both fantastical and historical) of people, nations, magics, etc.

this site lets you generate/design a city, allowing you to choose size, if you want a river or coast, walls around it, a temple, a main keep, etc.

this twitter, uncharted atlas, tweets generated maps of fantasy regions every hour.

and vulgar allows you to create a language, based on linguistic and grammatical structures!!! go international phonetic alphabet!!!

— Michael Lewis

Commenting fanfiction is the easiest thing in the world once you start doing it. 

I leave a comment on every single fic I read. Sometimes when I read published books I go and leave a comment somewhere the author can find it. Granted, I literally majored in ‘leaving comments on fics’ (English Education), but once you start doing it it just becomes second nature. Now you’re gonna go to the Ozymandias school of leaving comments: 

Problem: I can’t leave kudos again.

Problem: I don’t know what to say :(

Problem: I’m embarrassed to leave a comment (what if I annoy the author?)

Problem: I don’t know how to express myself/my experience 

This? This is an amazing post. This is the Captain Awkward of commenting posts—it addresses all your fears directly and gives you actionable scripts for each one.

yeah i can’t speak for others but if you Cannot Words but want to comment on my fic, finding a bit you really liked, copypasting it into the comment window, and labeling it something like ‘wow’ or ‘best’ or ‘this’ or w/e goes a really long way

I use chains of <3<3<3<3<3<3 or heart emojis when I can’t make words work but want to show my appreciation

Tip Tuesday | Setting Writing Goals

Hello my fellow readers and followers!  Another Tip Tuesday coming at you.  I was thinking about doing this one a little later in month but maybe people are already thinking about 2020 writing goals.  Maybe it’s just me. Just me?  Okay then.  Well when and if you decide to set some writing goals, here are some tips on what to do.

I am going to go through the process of setting SMART goals for writing in 2020.  I will use some of my own personal 2020 writing goals for example.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time bound.  This is a way to help focus your goals and hopefully achieve them!

1. Specific.  You goal needs to be specific and clear.  So let’s give an example of a vague goal.

Vague: I want to write more.  This is everyone’s goal as far as I can tell, but what is “more”.  Is more an entire novel?  Is more an additional story a year?  We need to define more.

Specific: I want to complete all my outstanding series and requests. That is a goal that is clear and specific.  I know exactly what I want to accomplish and I can define it.  

2. Measurable. Jumping off from the last point, is your goal measurable?  Meaning can you quantify it, do you have a way to determine your progress or completion.  

Not Measurable: I want to write more. Yes the goal above is also not measurable.  Because what is more?  More is not defined.  A  measurable goal might be “I want to write 250 words a day” or “I want to post one story/chapter a week.”  Those are measurable, you can quantify if you have completed it or not. 

Measurable: I want to complete all my outstanding series and requests.  Again this measurable.  I currently have one outstanding series and 25 requests.  I can measure my progress.

3. Achievable.  Is your goal attainable?  Is it realistic?  Don’t set goals you can’t reasonably meet.  If you can only write one day a week because of your job and other obligations not set a goal that you will write 5 days a week.  You are setting yourself up for disappointment.  

Not Achievable:  I want to write a full length twelve book bestseller series by the end of January.  I don’t care how fast you type, you can’t do that.

Achievable: I want to finish my current series by the end of January.  I have about four to five chapters left to write and I have fixed my plot problem (in my mind).  I can realistically write four to five chapters in a month.

4. Relevant. Is it a worthwhile goal?  Is it the right time for this goal?  So if you are moving across cross country, starting a new multichapter series may not be a relevant goal.  Follower goals may not be not relevant. Note/Like/Kudos goals may not be relevant.  Figure out what is really important to you.

5. Time Bound.  Is there a deadline or due date for your goal?  It is important to set deadline so you can remain focus on your goal.  

Not Time Bound: I want to finish my outstanding requests.  When are you going to finish it?  Next month? Six months?  The whole year?

Time Bound: I will finish my outstanding series by the end of January. When do I plan on getting it done?  End of January. Time bound.  Boom.

Quick Tips:

Until next Tuesday!  

Donation Page Open!

Hi hi!  Okay, so no expectations here, but if this blog has ever helped you with your writing conundrums and you’d like to make a donation, you can now click here and be able to do that.  Absolutely no pressure, but if you’re feeling generous… 😋♥️

- Mod Joanna  ♥️

The Job

Tradecraft

Other

write for the audience you want, not the one you’re afraid of

write to delight the audience you want and piss off the one you’re afraid of

Write for the audience of yourself and trust that there’s other people out there who are just as weird as you are

When you keep getting easily distracted while writing:

Another thing I love in fiction is when dialogue immediately echoes the same phrasing used in the narration. It can be startling and funny.

Ex.:

As they made their way back to the car, Farad felt the prickle of eyes upon him. He looked around and spotted the culprits—perched on the roof of a van, a gaggle of dour-faced teenagers was watching them judgmentally.

“Don’t look now,” he whispered to his companion, “But a gaggle of dour-faced teenagers is watching us judgementally.”

This can be used as a great character establishing trick too, eg.

What the fuck,  she thought, and then because she was never the sort of person to sit on her feelings, said aloud “What the fuck?”

It works great the other direction, too.

“Fuck yourself dead, you half-blazed, fully-degenerate asshole!”

The half-blazed, fully-degenerate asshole in question declined to do so, and instead threw herself bodily at the other woman with the full intention to claw her to shreds.