An Alarming Situation

Last Saturday, my cell phone rang at 8:10 AM. When I picked it up it read “Nancy Next Door.” 

Uh-oh. 

Nancy Next Door only calls when there’s something wrong. A coyote jumping into my yard. A fallen tree on our shared fence. A broken gate…that sort of thing. Naturally, I thought a tree had fallen since A. there are lots of trees in the woods and in my yard that are leaning in a bad way and B. after over a year, I’d finally fixed the fence from the last fallen tree. 

“Are you home?” asked my neighbor. I was not. I was five hours away, at the beach. “There’s an alarm going off in your house,” she said. “I don’t see smoke but it’s been going off for about 15 minutes.” 

No problem, I told her. I’d call my other neighbor who has a key to my house. 

It’s 8:20 or so on a Saturday morning, and my neighbor answers her phone and after hearing my predicament replies, “I’m not home.” She’d had a family emergency the night before and was at her in-laws’ house, checking in. She was 15 minutes away but still, I hated to ask her to drive over to my house. 

“That’s okay,” I say, “I’ll call my daughter.” 

My daughter lives about 20 minutes from my house. But when I call her, she doesn’t pick up. 

Saturday is her day off, I know that she likes to catch up on her sleep. Who knows if she’s even got her phone turned on? And I don’t want to call her husband because…well, what if they’re not asleep, if you catch my drift? So I can call my sons (both of whom live about an hour away and let's face it, they're not going to pick up) or call back my neighbor (with the key). I call the neighbor.

She doesn’t pick up, either. 

It’s now 8:30. My smoke alarm has been going off for at least a half hour, maybe longer. I’m pacing like a lunatic, wondering what to do when my cell rings and it’s my daughter. She listened to my message and she was pulling on her jeans and heading straight over to my house. Whew! 

I call Nancy Next Door who says, yep, the alarm is still going off. She still doesn’t see smoke. But now I am really alarmed. I suspect that the alarm she’s hearing is coming from my basement; I remember that I store paint and all kinds of other cleaning products down there. 

I call my daughter who’s just about at my house and tell her to be VERY careful. “Touch the front door. If it’s hot, just call 9-1-1.” I’m still on the phone with her when she gets to the house. “The door is cool but the smoke alarm is still going off,” she says. “Should I go in?” I tell her to open the door and determine if she smells smoke. And she says, “Mom, you know I still can’t smell normally. I may not be able to smell smoke.”

OH MY LORD. It’s been nearly an hour that the smoke alarm has been blaring! And at this point, like the Calvary riding up, my neighbor who has the key and her husband and full use of her olfactory senses walks up to my door. 

Now, the point to this re-telling is this: how goes the story you’ve been working on?

Because if you don’t have a gripping problem, a couple of interesting characters, and more than a few obstacles to provide a fair amount of tension (and a ticking clock is always good, too), then you don’t have much of a story. You might have some delightfully pretty paragraphs and such but readers need story. 

And P.S. the house didn’t burn down; it was just a faulty smoke alarm. (I’m partial to happy endings but your story can have whatever resolution you like.)

~Cathy C. Hall

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7 comments Cathy C. Hall, Characters, elements of story, pacing, resolution, setting, tension

The Mundane Doesn't Belong in Your Story

Our lives are filled with wonderful events, lively conversations, and meaningful relationships. But every day, we also encounter the mundane. In real life, there's routine. There's "hello" and there's  "good-bye". There are conversations with strangers that don't mean anything to our lives. Sometimes, these mundane occurrences show up in our manuscripts.

If you're writing a draft (especially a first draft) of a novel, short story, or memoir, you most likely have some mundane-ness in there. But in fiction (or your memoir), there's no room for mundane events, words, or conversations. If you include these, your pacing will be slow, and your reader may put the book down somewhere in the muddy middle.

Think about a well-crafted novel you've read or even a movie or TV show, where you think the writing is fantastic. Everything that happens in that story has a purpose. The main character does not have a random encounter with a man in the grocery store while picking out fresh produce unless something about that scene is important to the character's overall story and growth.

Where to Look for the Mundane in Your Writing:

• Dialogue: If you're anything like me, your dialogue is full of lines and words that don't move your story forward. Even if you're a natural at writing dialogue, yours might still be full of greetings, everyday questions like: how are you, "inside jokes" between characters that are clever but don't move the story forward, or a conversation your characters have had more than once.
• Life routine, especially getting ready and going to bed: When writing, we often take a while to get to the story we need to tell, and that's okay. I believe that it's better to delete 25 percent of what you wrote the day before than to have nothing on the page to delete. But we often start stories and chapters in the wrong place, and this is where everyday, boring life can slip in. We don't need to hear about a character's daily routine of waking up and getting ready for work. Readers understand that your character did not go to bed in chapter 2 and show up at the gala at the beginning of chapter 3, without nothing happening to her all day long. We don't need to read about her getting ready unless something happens that is purposeful, that adds to her overall story and character growth. If, for example, she is OCD, and it literally takes her twelve hours to get ready for the gala and readers need to see this to understand the character--then these events would NOT be mundane. 
• Transitions: Transitions are places where your characters are going somewhere, like a family gathering, or getting ready to do something, like participate in a protest. Usually there's some needed preparation in the novel, but we also include how the character got to his car or the bus, drove to the event and had a conversation with his family or a stranger, and walked up to the event. Look at these sections carefully. Do you need them? Or will your novel work better if you put one transition statement like: After rushing through traffic and jamming out to the Rolling Stones, Freeda finally made it to the protest, now more than ready to stand for what was right. She grabbed her sign...

When revising your draft, look at every scene you wrote carefully. You need details to set the scene. You need dialogue to reveal your characters. But, you also need to look objectively at what details and dialogue you chose and make sure they're not slowing down your novel. Sometimes, this is hard for us to see in our own writing. So, remember, a good critique group or content editor can help you with this task and get rid of the mundane.

Margo L. Dill is a writer, editor, and teacher, living in St. Louis, MO. You can read more about her on her blog at http://www.margoldill.com. Consider taking her next WOW! novel writing course, which begins on November 3. More details here. If you would like to find out about Margo's personal writing coach or editing services, please see http://www.editor-911.com.

Edit photo above on Flickr.com by Matt Hampel. 

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4 comments dialogue, fiction writing, Margo L. Dill, memoir, novel revision, pacing

Pacing: Fast or Slow, Make the Adjustments Your Story Needs

Recently, my critique group noticed that one person's chapter just seemed to be dragging. That was an unusual problem for this particular writer but there was no doubt about it. Although dialogue was clever and his main character still captivated us, it just felt slow. We spend some time discussing how to speed things up so I was already thinking about the topic when I saw this post by K.M. Weiland.

First things first, lets start with three ways to speed things up because what we were discussing in critique group were scenes that drag:

1. Cut as much narrative and description as possible. This isn't to say that you should write as if the story takes place in a vacuum but this isn't the place to wax rhapsodic about the carpet or the drapes.
2. Make your dialogue tight. When are characters speak, sometimes they have a tendency to go on and on. Make sure every word, phrase and sentence is essential. Cut the dialogue that doesn't move the story forward.
3. Add a time element. You can give your story a sense of urgency if a particular task must be carried out by X time. One second later and . . . BOOM.

Just as important as speeding things up is slowing things down. This is most often a problem when we are writing a high-impact high action scene. How do you make a fist fight last for two or three pages? Or we are writing one of those important squirm inducing scenes. If this is a your climax or other pivotal scene, you have to give it the weight of a length. Do this by slowing things down. Here are three ways you can do this.

1. Vary your sentence structure and make sure you have some complicated or compound sentence. Don't just write subject verb object. Add in some dependent clauses.
2. Add some internal dialogue or internal narrative. What is going through your characters head as he fights the villain? What does he think each time he lands a punch? This doesn't have to be lengthy but make it matter. This would be a good time to show his regret that it has come to this.
3. Be sure to add some description. Yes, it is going to have to be description that matters but what do you notice about the room as you are waiting to be fired? What catches your eye about the protagonist who has made your life hell? Include details that set the mood and reveal something about the characters.

Pacing is a pivotal part of fiction writing. If it is too fast for too long, you will wear your reader out. If it is too slow, you will bore them. Learn to adjust things as needed and make your writing sing.

--SueBE

To find out more about Sue Bradford Edwards writing, visit her blog, One Writer's Journey.

Sue is also the instructor for Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults.

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4 comments dialogue, narrative, pacing, plot, Sue Bradford Edwards

The Writing Days Of Our Lives

I should write for a soap opera.

Why? Because in the last six months, my life has become one. Need proof? Try these storylines:

• Our grandson was taken by his biological father, who refused to tell us their location. Oh, he was pulled over by law enforcement an hour after the incident, but because of language in a parenting plan, he was allowed to whisk away our four-year-old grandkid. Luckily, the grandson came home a month later. (In soap opera land, that storyline would've played out for years.)
• My mom, who has a rare form of cancer, has been in and out of the local hospital, as well as our state university's medical center. It's been a battle - and she has a fantastic attitude about it all - but why can't doctors find a cure and rush into the hospital room like they do on TV?
• One of our daughters announced she was getting married. No problem, except it was a month before the nuptials were scheduled. Thank goodness she has a large circle of family and friends who made the miracle happen.
• We took a road trip half way across the country. In a moving van. Across the California desert (yes, we nearly ran out of fuel), through the Arizona heat and cold, moving my sister back home. No Thelma and Louise, just me and the husband, taking turns driving the 26-foot truck, about 12 hours a day for three days. Good news: we survived.
• In the span of three days, two family members passed away. One lost his battle to disease. The other died too early (age 40) from a medical condition that hadn't affected him for years, but we're still waiting for autopsy results. 

Can't you see them all playing out? If I hadn't experienced these last six moths and lived through every gutwrenching moment, I'm not sure I would believe it, but it's true.I felt like I was Liz Chandler from Days of Our Lives, suffering from amnesia, walking around in a daze. Or, at the least, it felt like  I was trapped in the movie "Groundhog Day," where every day started over like a bad dream.

And in the midst of it all, I juggled family responsibilites with writing, and at some point, something had to give. Mainly, I put writing aside so I could make it through the day.

Now that things have slowed to a somewhat normal routine, I look at those crazy, hazy days of summer that slipped into fall and I realize that there are some great writing lessons that can be put to use.

Like:

• Details. If I replay certain days or certain segments of a stressful day, I can recall every detail and see it play out. I can recal the smells and sounds and colors of everything around me. That ability definitely helps writing become fine-tuned, adding a layer of specifics that boost a storyline.
• Characterization. I had the opportunity to observe a lot of people in multiple situations. I made sure to note their reactions, their attitudes, their beliefs. Observing others can add new life to a character in your latest book or story. Sit back, watch and be amazed.
• Pacing. When you step back from a situation, you realize the pace of life and how a specific incident gains momentum and then lapses into those still moments of lull, waiting for something to happen, the other shoe to drop. Momentum and pacing drive storylines.
• Determination. I vowed that I would face each of these challenges head on, no distractions, no excuses. Translate that to your writing life. Nothing can stand in the way of a writer who wants to complete a project. 
• Faith. Even when the world feels like it's caving in around you, look for the silver lining. It's there. I'm not sure how I would've survived had if I didn't have a strong sense of faith.

So on those days when you feel like the world around you is one big drama, tune in and use those moments to create a stronger story.

Be Bold. Stay Young. Celebrate the days of your writing life.

By LuAnn Schindler

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3 comments adding emotional details, LuAnn Schindler, motivation, pacing, sensory details, soap opera, storyline, writing from experience

Pick Up the Pace: Establishing Rhythm in Fiction

Anton Chekhov wrote: "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."

Solid advice, especially for fiction writers. It doesn't matter if you write flash, short stories, or novels, establishing rhythm and setting the pace from the first word on the page will involve readers and progress the story.

In fact, Chekhov advised new writers to toss the early pages of a draft. Why? Because too many writers fail to get to the point. Instead, they offer backstory overload and unnecessary narrative.

The result? Underdeveloped pacing. Lack of rhythm. No flow.

Pacing reveals necessary details. Unloading an info dump in the opening pages not only turns off readers, it kills the story. Four common pacing error ruin a story. Is your fiction guilty of committing these pacing sins?

1. Info dump. Writers spend too much time listing minute details that do not advance the plot. Instead, writers need to reveal details that show character motivation. The "why did she do that" answers make a stronger impact.
2. Missing in action. Many stories begin with paragraphs (or pages, in some cases) that give background information. Readers need to be on the same page as the main character, as far as knowledge is concerned, but that does not mean readers need to be inundated with background information. Instead, cut to the action. That's the heart of the story.
3. Top-notch material. Once you've completed a draft, make sure every word counts. Does your draft suffer from adverb overload? Do adjectives paint a vivid picture? Do all scenes advance action? If not, grab the red pen and start cutting.
4. Sentence structure. Writers, especially beginners, develop writing patterns. Look at each sentence. Are they all the same length? Do they sound similar? Does rhythm vary? If not, rewrite sentences. Vary length. Vary beginnings. Use fragments or single word responses for effect.

Pacing moves readers through the story. Compare it to Goldilocks and The Three Bears. If pacing is too slow, readers grow bored. If rhythm is too fast, readers feel like they're bouncing off the pages of your work. But when the flow is right, readers are engaged.

And that's the ultimate goal!

by LuAnn Schindler. Visit LuAnn's Writing on the Wall

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Leave a Comment editing fiction, fiction, LuAnn Schindler, pacing, word rhythm