Ready, Set, Action!

If you're interested in learning how to pace your story, you might take a look at The War I Finally Won, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s sequel to The War That Saved My Life. 

The pacing is worth studying to learn how a writer sustains a reader’s attention from page to page. 

Notice the way Bradley relies on strong, active verbs and short, rapid sentences:

Coming out of the ether was harder. My right leg was pinned, trapped. I couldn’t move. I broke into a sweat, struggling to pull myself free. I’d been caught in a bombing, buried in rubble. I couldn’t move my leg. Then somehow I was trapped again in the dank cabinet beneath the sink, in our old flat in London. Mam had locked me inside. The cockroaches—

Bradley also introduces a strong, underlying emotion that gets under the skin of the reader in the same way it gets under the skin of the character. (Can you identify the emotion?)

Here are a few more examples of the way Bradley uses short sentences, active verbs, and an underpinning emotion to drive the story’s pace: 

The galloping horses made Butter wild. He wanted to race. I held him tighter while he fought me, snatching at the bit. Sweat streaked his sides. I braced my hands against his neck. “Stop it, stop it, “ I said to him. “You idiot, behave!”

 The passage continues: 

We came to a ditch full of water. Ivy plonked into it and waded through. Butter hesitated, then leaped. I flew with him, up, out of the saddle, miles from the saddle. He landed on the ditch’s far side. I kept going. 

And it finally reaches its conclusion:

I dropped the reins, pulled my arms in, and took the fall on my shoulder like Lady Thorton had said. I rolled across the grass, unhurt. Butter pranced in place, his feet tangled in the dangling reins. He’d break the reins next, the wretched pony. I scrambled to my feet. 

Again, you can see how Bradley relies on active verbs, short sentences, and an underlying emotion. How would you describe the emotion in the passages excerpted above? Fear? Loss of control? Shame? 

In the following passage, you can see again how the pace moves within the passage itself from a relatively calm moment to sudden fright:

A week or so later, all of us except Lady Thorton, who had gone early to bed, were sitting by the fire at night, listening to the nine o’clock radio news. Suddenly someone hammered on the door. Susan leaped up. I leaped up too. A telegram, at this hour? 

It was Fred. He gagged, groaned, and vomited in a wide arc across the floor.

You can pick out the verbs—sitting, listening, hammered, leaped, gagged, groaned, vomited.— and can see that no word is used half-heartedly. For Bradley (and her readers), it’s almost always full-steam ahead, although you can see that she slows the story where it’s important to go deeper into the emotional challenges a character might be facing.

If you want to capture your reader’s attention, too, and hold it on every page, just remember to focus on the verbs that you select for your sentences and on the length of those sentences. 

Not every sentence needs to be short. Mixing up the length of sentences can offer an interesting rhythm to the pace. It gives the reader a chance to speed up or slow down, according to where the character is emotionally in the story.

And when you combine the emotional undercurrent with active verbs and short sentences, you'll have created an undertow that your reader cannot resist… a sure-fired way of persuading your reader to dive into your story and stay there. 

For more info about pacing in a story, visit: 

https://writersedit.com/fiction-writing/7-quick-tips-for-mastering-pacing-in-your-story/

https://www.writersdigest.com/improve-my-writing/7-tools-for-pacing-a-novel-keeping-your-story-moving-at-the-right-pace

https://blog.reedsy.com/pacing-in-writing/

https://www.writerswrite.co.za/5-essential-exercises-for-pacing-a-story/

Catching Your Breath Underwater

You can barely stop to catch your breath when reading Alex Flinn's Breathing Underwater

It's not just her pacing that keeps you turning the pages. It's the deft way that she interweaves scenes from the main character's past and present, as well as offers multiple perspectives into his character, that draws you underwater, deeper into the story and into the character's dilemma.

Flinn grabs her readers from the start with present-tense scenes of sixteen-year-old Nick Andreas as he enters the juvenile justice system, faces the judge, and finds himself sentenced to community service. He's also required to attend anger-management classes with Mario and keep a journal to better understand himself and the violent way that he mistreated Caitlin, his former girlfriend.

Right from the opening scene Flinn provides strong clues that Nick poses a danger:

I've never been in a courthouse before. But then, I've never been in such deep shit before, either. The metal detector screams when I walk through, and a security woman tries to check my pockets. I pull away.

"These what you want?" I dangle my keys an inch from her nose, getting in her face. She backs off, scowling. I throw them into her yellow plastic basket and walk through again.

This guy is trouble... and Flinn shows him not only in trouble but causing more trouble before he even makes it to the courtroom at the start of the story.

Second, Flinn includes telling details from Nick's journal entries. It's through his journal that Flinn shares the back-story leading up to the present story, with Nick describing his infatuation with Caitlin, exploring their relationship, trying to understand his anger, his controlling behavior, his jealousy, his self-esteem issues.

The journal entries reveal a more vulnerable side of Nick and allow us as readers to feel sympathy for him as he lets his guard down. With each entry, we begin to move past Nick's anger and discover the emotional wound that serves as the source of his current crisis:

When we were kids, Tom and I used to tell people we were twins. I wished it was true. My father would go on the warpath, and I'd head for Tom's. Did his family wonder why I came over so often? I tried not to care.

Third, Flinn shifts the focus (just slightly) to Nick's relationship with his father, a man who abuses him emotionally and physically. In this journal entry you can feel the tension between father and son:

The sound of ice cubes greeted me. In my father's house, ice cubes are air-raid sirens that send me diving for cover. I searched for an exit. There was none. Usually, I missed happy hour, my father's version of dinner at home, but he was early, I was late, and worlds collided. My father swirled his glass. I tried to look casual--impossible--and walked past him.

Fourth, Flinn develops Nick's new relationship with Mario, the leader of the anger-management class, as a way of revealing the first hints of his tentative growth toward a new understanding of himself:

After class, I gather my stuff, hanging back so I'm the last to go. When everyone's gone, I approach Mario. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead.
"That day on the bridge, when I slapped Caitlin..."
"Yeah?" He turns to give me his full attention.
"I was afraid, okay? I was afraid she'd leave me."
Mario nods. "I know you were." He starts to reach his hand out, then takes it back when he sees my face. "It's okay to be afraid, Nick."

And Flinn develops, as well, his new relationships with others in the class, especially Leo, who serves as a foil to show how much Nick has changed since he was with Caitlin... and who lets him finally see and understand how badly he had mistreated her:

At five after, I'm still waiting. I remember when we discussed lateness in class. I'm annoyed with Leo but not furious. Would I be madder at Cat? Losing it, maybe? No. Not really.
Maybe.
Probably.
No time to consider. Leo's black Trans Am cruises to a stop. When I get in, he says, "Sorry we're late. Someone got held up at the drugstore." He turns to the guilty party, Neysa, sitting beside him. "That's your story, right?"
"Leo..." she says.
"Leo..." he imitates, gunning the motor.
"Why are you acting this way in front of--"
"What way?" Leo demands over the tires' squeal. "You're the problem, not me."
"I'm sorry," Neysa examines the floor mat.
"I'm sorry," Leo mocks. "I'm sorry I'm always late. I'm sorry I'm a lying slut. I'm sorry I--"
"It's okay," I tell Neysa. "I don't think it matters if we're late." Leo, I ignore. Why is he acting like this? Why is it so familiar?

And, last, Flinn shows Nick finally coming to terms with his feelings for Caitlin, feelings so strong that by the end of the book they prompt him to violate the court's restraining order to speak to her so that he can finally apologize for his earlier behavior:

"Caitlin?"
"Who's this?"
"It's me." Then, quickly at her intake of breath, "Don't worry. I'm not trying to get you to take me back."
"Will you stop calling me?" she says, over my words. "Please. I could tell--"
"Go ahead. Call the police. Have your boyfriend amputate my face. I deserve it. I deserve it. Just listen a sec, okay?"
I take her silence as agreement. Out front, someone's mowing the lawn, and I say, "Look, I know you couldn't like me anymore, not after what I did. I know that now. I just..." Why is this so hard? "I'm just sorry. I thought I meant it before, but I didn't know. I mean, it's like apologizing for stepping on someone's foot. You say you're sorry, but you don't really understand how bad you hurt them."

As you can see, Flinn juggles these multiple scenes and shifting perspectives in dramatic ways, offering different angles into the story and generating mounting suspense in the reader's mind in the form of the all-important question: how will all of these different perspectives connect and resolve themselves?

If you haven't taken a look at Breathing Underwater, try to find a copy... and study Flinn's work closely for how to craft a multi-layered character as well as a fast-paced, satisfying story.

For more information about Alex Flinn, visit her website: http://www.alexflinn.com/

P.S. - Wordswimmer will be taking a break until June 10th in search of new sources of inspiration. You're invited to leave comments to this and other posts, and I'll post them on my return. Thanks for stopping by... and keep swimming!

Pacing Yourself

When you're writing, do you start off at a sprint after diving into the water?

Or do you wade in slowly, letting the water reach your hips before leaning into a steady stroke?

Or, perhaps, you prefer to combine different speeds, sprinting until you’re out of breath, then slowing to a crawl before regaining your strength and sprinting again?

And when you’re reading... are you conscious of the pace of the story? Are you aware when the pace picks up... or slows down? And do you notice how the author sustains the pace?

Kathe Koja, the author of Straydog, Buddha Boy, Blue Mirror, Talk, and Going Under, is a master of pacing.

In Buddha Boy, she not only draws the reader into the story by raising the stakes for the main character in chapter after chapter, but she uses a kind of breathless narrator to increase the pace when necessary.

How does Koja construct such a fast-moving pace?

Take a look at this example from a particularly gripping passage in Buddha Boy, which I finished earlier this week feeling as if I'd just come sprinting to the finish line:

I heard about it before I saw it, from John Kindel in Algebra, It was in the bathroom, man: stuck like trash in a urinal, wet and filthy and spoiled and “If I find out who’s responsible,” said Snell--standing arms crossed at the front of the room, his voice shaking, he was so mad--“when I find out, that person is going to be in trouble. And if you,” his hard gaze like a laser, moving one by one around the Art room, “if any of you know who did this, know and don’t tell, then you’re just as guilty as that person. And just as cruel.”

Amazing, right? And how did Koja do it... keep the pace sustained so that we had to keep reading that passage? (If you didn’t feel that you had to keep reading, please explain what didn’t work for you, ok?)

Here’s what I think. First off, a minimum number of periods. Look at the passage: not one until the fifth line. And then again at the end. Two periods for, what, maybe 120 words? You keep reading so that you can finally take a breath... but, no, you cannot take a breath until that period appears.

Of course, it’s a sustained, controlled breath, not a breath that’s out of control, because Koja mixes in different perspectives... the narrator’s; John Kindel’s (with the italicized comment: It was in the bathroom, man); and Snell’s (the art teacher’s) voice, with his rhythmic vocal pattern emphasized with italics, and pauses between the quotes that offer descriptions of how he looks as he’s speaking.

And then, of course, there’s the dramatic content of the scene itself. Something has been ruined, desecrated, to create such a disturbance. Something valuable, as it turns out, a work of art by one of the story’s main characters, and we don’t even get the artist’s reaction here... just the reaction of his teacher and the other students in the class... as reported by Justin, the narrator, who happens to be the artist’s friend... or, rather, is struggling to decide if he wants to be his friend.

Here’s another example of pacing in Buddha Boy, when Justin is confronted by bullies who are upset that he’s hanging around with the artist, Jinsen, and warn him not to spread rumors about what they might have done:

In the hall, digging in my locker, a minute or two before the bell and “Hey,” from right behind me: McManus, hands in his pockets, head cocked to one side. “Hey, Justin.”
Lots of people, passing by; but no one saw, no one stopped. The rest of the crew--Magnur, Hooks, Winston--stood a few paces back, like dogs on a leash, a pack of dogs. Waiting.
McManus stepped closer, closing in on me. “You’re not spreading any rumors,” he said, “are you? Because I’ve been hearing some. About me. So if you have anything you want to say to me, you better say it right now.”
I could hear the blood in my ears, my heartbeat, rising; I stood silent in that sound, wondering what they were going to do, if they were going to do it now or wait for later. Finally, when I didn’t--wouldn’t--speak, McManus said, “I hear you’re hanging out with that freak Buddha Boy. I don’t think that’s such a good idea either.”
My own voice then, low and dry, as if it came from someone else: “You hear a lot of things, don’t you.”
And he reached out, fast, so fast past me to slam my locker door, slam it with all his force, if I hadn’t jumped it would have caught my fingers, crushed my fingers and “I hear everything,” he said, and walked away.

Again, Koja creates tension with dramatic content and pacing.

Notice how she gets the reader breathing fast, starting off the scene with the unconventional punctuation and phrasing... eliminating the subject, using action words--digging, cocked--and a kind of machine-gun-like blast of images: hall, locker, bell, “Hey,” hands, pockets, head, “Hey, Justin.” Fast-paced, using commas, and “and,” and colons to create an almost MTV effect with language.

Then, bringing in the drama: McManus “stepping closer”... “closing in on me.” You feel the tension building... and then the question, about spreading rumors, which raises the tension yet again (because we know the answer)... and, again, the unconventional beats of the sentence. “Because I’ve been hearing some. About me.” Getting the pace again to move quickly, almost at breakneck speed, because we want the narrator to get out of the situation unharmed, and we don’t yet know if he will.

Then, the narrator’s response... which takes us inside the voice speaking, lets us see the world from inside the narrator’s skin, and to feel his fear, too frightened to utter a word ... until he somehow finds the courage (as if it came from someone else) to reply to McManus.

And then the moment the scene’s been building toward, like a rubber band snapping, McManus whipping past the narrator to slam his locker door on his hand... and would have if Justin hadn’t pulled back in time, not because he was so quick to see the danger, but because he jumped back out of fear.

Again, in that last paragraph, Koja has used to great effect commas, short and crisp phrases, and words like “fast,” “slam,” “jump,” and “crush”... to move the reader forward at a heart-racing pace.

Anyway, Koja’s someone to study if you want to learn about pacing... and how to construct dramatic tension in your story.

Take a look at Buddha Boy, especially the last few chapters, which were almost blurry because I had to read them so fast.

By then, I knew Jinsen’s work of art had to play a role in the ending, but, even knowing that, it didn't matter because it was Jinsen's response that was at stake... whether he'd lose the poise and determination and resolve that he'd shown throughout the book.

For more on Kathe Koja and her work, visit her website at: http://www.kathekoja.com/

And for more on pacing in fiction, take a look at these resources:

“Techniques to establish Pacing” by Gerry Visco at Writer’s Store: http://www.writersstore.com/article.php?articles_id=7

“Pacing and Narrative in Fiction” in Fanfiction:
http://fanfic.theforce.net/articles.asp?action=view&ID=34

“Pacing” by Dan Gleason on WritingClasses.com:
http://www.writingclasses.com/FacultyBios/facultyArticleByInstructor.php/ArticleID/11

“Pacing” by Vicki Hinze in Fiction Factor: http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/pacing.html