Apr 03 2009
How to Pace a Scene More Quickly
Hello, I'm an assistant editor providing writing advice. SN specializes in superhero writing advice, obviously, but most of the advice here applies to fantasy and sci-fi as well.
Action sequences and other intense scenes usually need to be fast-paced. Here are a variety of tips to help you pick up the pace.
1. Eliminate unnecessary description. In particular, scenery and atmospherics tend to slow down a scene.
2. Focus on shorter, simpler sentences. Long, flowing sentences with many clauses will probably tranquilize your readers.
3. Cut back on adjectives and adverbs.
4. Stick to what is actually happening. Not what happened ten minutes ago, not what the character thinks is going to happen, etc. Also, please avoid describing the hero’s plan in the scene that he actually carries it out. If you want him to reveal his plan ahead of time, have him do that ahead of time, during a less intense scene.
5. I recommend making your narrator disappear. Narratorial intrusions tend to slow down the story.
6. Keep the conversations as short and tense as possible. This is definitely not the time for chatting. Also, try to avoid using dialog tags like “Gary said.”
7. I recommend limiting the conversations to two (maybe three) characters. Using a smaller cast will help keep the conversation tight. A smaller cast will also reduce the amount of words you use to choreograph the scene. (If there are five characters in a scene, you’ll probably have to use a dialog tag after every line).
8. Please don’t have the POV character start monologuing. What the character is thinking is much less interesting and immediate than what he is doing.
9. Holly Lisle recommends that you pull your camera in close. When you use description and details, try to focus on something microcosmic rather than about the atmosphere or scene as a whole.
How do you write a fight scene that makes the narrator disappear with and without a narrator?
Some narrators are more intrusive than others. For example, the narrators of Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler) and Terry Pratchett tend to be so intrusive that it’s almost like they’re a character in the story. That can be very effective, but generally not in action scenes. During an action scene, I’d recommend making the narrator less of a presence. When the narrator has a personality that makes him stand out, that usually slows down the pace. For an action scene, I’d recommend going with something a bit closer to a movie script. John does X, the villain does Y, the setting reacts by doing Z, etc.
I still don’t understand.
Hmm. Perhaps someone else could better explain what I’m trying to say.
He’s saying don’t have the narrator be a person. Just let them tell what happens. I don’t think you have a problem with this, David.
Lemony Snicket /was/ a character in the stories. It’s just that when they’re about to mention his name somebody interrupts.
Yes! I think I actually write action scenes right. One of my little brothers says girls are horrible at writing action scenes.
Hmm. I think you might be missing a word there, Luna.
I suspect pace will be one of my toughest issues in writing Showtime. I want a lot of things to happen over the span of 7- 8 issues, so I’ll have to pace it just right. Being a first-time writer, I already know how much editing I’ll have to do.
I know I am, B.Mac. I’m using my parent’s computer now and their cybersitter thing blocks some (perfectly acceptable) words. I’m not losing any sleep over it though.
Luna, you never talk to me anymore. How’s you been, love?
Here’s another example of when I would use ‘lol’.
I’ve been on Easter Break. I’m fine, thanks, aside from a wonderful stuffy nose and homework to catch up on.
I got a new story idea, but it isn’t about superheroes. I guess superhero stories aren’t my forte anymore. But I can still post here, right?
It’s about a girl from the Lsai race. I’ve already written four books (novellas, if I were to be honest, but I want to put three of them together like LOTR to make a novel) about one Lsai man and his adventures/misfortunes through the years but considering that
***SPOILER***
I killed him, his son, and his wife off in my last unfinished book attempt, I started another story about a Lsai girl of no relation to him. But the story is set in about the same year he gets killed.
Anyhow, moving on–how are you guys? How are your stories and comics coming along?
Oh–B.Mac, the word was ‘girls’. Their cybersitter also blocks out ‘accidentally’ and ‘women’ I think and … well, really words typed every day.
You can still post stuff unrelated to superheroes here, even though it will not be suffused with superpowered awesomeness. Still, I think we’ve done pretty well for Brett and Holliequ even though they’re working on fantasy novels that aren’t superhero-related… yet! I can still hold out hope for rewrite.
I’m committing myself to a deadline of having my resumes out the door by Friday and my nonfiction query out the door by Sunday. So far, on the query, all I have left is the table of contents and the sample chapters left to do.
Well, if someone’s destiny is to save the world or they end up saving it even if they didn’t want to at first, wouldn’t they be a superhero? What exactly is the definition of superhero? Because if it is someone who goes around doing stuff for ‘the greater good’ (or just because they love fighting) and sticking up for people and they end up saving the world or something–then yeah, most of my main characters are like superheroes even if their abilities are common for their race.
Queries scare me. I’m kind of–note the ‘kind of’–good at stories, I guess (I don’t want to belittle myself or get a big head). But not at pitching-my-book-to-publishers query letters and the like.
I don’t have a good definition of “superhero,” but here are a few common characteristics.
1. Most superhero stories are set in present-day Earth, or perhaps a futuristic Earth, but almost never the past. In contrast, fantasy stories are set mainly in the medieval era.
2. Superhero stories, more so than fantasy stories, tend to develop the hero’s ethos in more depth. What’s he fighting for? Why fight? For example, Spiderman lives and dies by the idea that the powerful are responsible to help the weak. “Truth, justice and the American way” was Superman’s mantra until fairly recently. Why does Eragon fight the emperor? Because he’s evil, I suppose.
3. The climax of almost every superhero story is an epic battle. This is also largely true of fantasy, but usually not mystery or romance.
4. A superhero typically sets himself apart from the people he’s protecting with a distinctive identity, which usually includes an unusual costume and name. Fantasy heroes may have a title, but they almost never use that in lieu of their original identity.
5. Superheroes typically have a secret identity. A fantasy protagonist may take on a disguise or a fake name at one point, but it’s very rare for it to be a recurring feature of the character. When a fantasy character has a recurring secret identity, like Zorro or Robin Hood, he’s probably pretty close to a superhero.
6. I feel that superheroes, on the whole, are more likely to choose to be a hero. It is very rare for a superhero to be chosen by destiny or a prophecy or anything like that. Even when a superhero gets his powers from an accident completely beyond his control, like a radioactive spiderbite, it’s his choice whether he wants to do anything with it.
With regards to queries, Luna… in almost every case, no one is as hard on a good writer as he is. So I understand why you might say you’re “kind of good;” usually I feel like I’m kind of good.
However, a publisher probably won’t get excited about an author that pitches himself as kind of good. When you write your query, I recommend pitching yourself in terms of “this is why you should think that I’m good and that my book will work.” If your evidence is solid, then they will get interested.
So, for example, here are a few pieces of evidence that are available to first-time novelists…
–a dynamite proposal, something exciting and clear. Ideally, it makes the reader ask “why haven’t we done something like this before?”
–a reasonably popular website. If you have even a few thousand regular readers, that will suggest that your writing has some appeal and marketability.
–experience in publishing or a professional writing job (writing for a newspaper, a magazine, etc).
–you’ve been published professionally in another medium… for example, if you were writing a medical thriller, getting published in a medical journal would help.
Besides poor concepts and queries, I think the main reason that beginning authors get repeatedly rejected by publishers is because they (incorrectly) think that they only need to build an audience once they get published. No!
Hmmm … see, for my character (who is now dead) named Rinec, he seems like a hero to me even though he doesn’t have a secret identity or capes. At first he was an anti-hero and hired himself out as a mercenary after giving up on finding his parents’ killer. Then he became kind of good and then his first wife was murdered by Sieko or something (forgot the guy’s name), so he killed the guy and blew up a bunch of his bases on the planet.
He returns home, and six months later Sieko’s son, Eiqner/’the Eiqner’ attacks the Lsai planet to finish what his father started (his dad wanted to kill all the Lsai because of some grudge I will try to explain in the prequel) and for killing his dad and Rinec becomes one of the last Lsai. And then there’s three other books but I don’t want to go into the plots of all of those…
Anyhow basically he fights whoever the heck he wants to but it ends up being because he doesn’t want innocent kids to die like his families do and he’s rather reluctant the last three because he is so tired of always fighting. But then it ends up that in the last book he finds out it is his destiny (or maybe a family members’) to find the Lsai and become their leader, kill the Eiqner, and rule the galaxy. Only, of course, he dies. So it would have to be his daughter. It’s confusing, but it makes sense at the same time, if you read the stories. Think Riddick from Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick–at first he does it just because he wants to get off the planet and all that, then he ends up doing it because of other reasons, and then he saves Earth after finding out that it was his ‘destiny’ and he chose to follow it.
… aaaaand I lost where I was going with this.
Sorry. :/
It had a point and I forgot what the point was. And I realize after re-reading the post that the entire thing is really confusing.
So, I guess my question(s) is/are, do you read much, do you have time to read, and would you be willing to read my stories to get a better understanding of what the heck I am talking about?
Oh, and the other question would be is it possible for me to post links, because I forget if we can or not.
Sorry–I didn’t mean for my long and confusing post to scare away repliers. :/
Luna asked: “So, I guess my question(s) is/are, do you read much, do you have time to read, and would you be willing to read my stories to get a better understanding of what the heck I am talking about?”
“Do you read much?” I don’t read published fiction as much as I should. I do, however, read about 20,000 words of nonfiction and unpublished material (blogs, manuscripts, online journals and magazines, comic scripts, etc) per week.
“Do you have time to read?” Sure.
“Would you be willing to read my stories to get a better understanding of what the heck I’m talking about?” Sure. You can either e-mail it to me at superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com or I can give you a review forum. I’m not well-versed in the sci-fi market, though.
“Is it possible for me to post links?” Yes, but if you post more than one then it’ll get held up in our spam queue until I release it. That usually takes less than an hour.
Oooh. Okay, thanks B.Mac.
I think I’ll email them to you.
There are a ton of grammatical errors and stuff (where commas are, all that good stuff) just to forewarn you. And I learned about ‘voice’ of course, from you (a ’smarter’ character may tend to stay away from contractions) and I didn’t know about that when I wrote the books/stories.
Ok. Before I look at these, could you tell me what your goal is? (Do you hope to get these published someday? Do you have something else in mind for them? Etc).
Oh–I’d like to get them published someday, definitely.
How would you write a scene where a massive battle is going on with as many people, for example an army.
I haven’t written many battle scenes, but I generally show the overall atmosphere and then choose a couple of characters to focus on. Say there was The Great Battle of the Garden Gnome going on, and Alice and Bree were fighting in it. A short scene would go something like this.
“There was the smell of blood and death emanating around the battlefield. Alice raised her sword and rushed at an orc, swinging hard to put as much force behind the blade as she could. Bree was stood further away with her leather sling and several sharp, heavy rocks ready to throw into the fray”.
A longer one would be like this:
“As fires raged on and threw their smoke over the area, the two armies fought in a tug-of-war that would see one becoming supreme and the other being enslaved. Bree picked up a rock with a sharp edge, shoving it into her sling and swinging it around to prepare it for use as a projectile. She let it fly, but it only went a few metres before landing at Alice’s feet. She was currently stuck in battle with a centaur, and though her nose was broken and a huge scar ripped across her face, she had the upper hand.”
Pretty crappy examples, but I hope you get the idea.
I’d recommend breaking the battle into smaller chunks with some bits of information interwoven that show how the battle is going elsewhere. For example, if you were writing a book about the battle of the second Death Star, you might cut in between the Imperial flagship, the Rebel flagship, Rebel ground forces and maybe 1-2 low-ranking ships. As the Imperial ships attack, we might pick up some scattered radio messages like “Dammit, it’s those muppets again! Send reinforcements to the shield generator.”
Could I have a review forum? This site seem useful and I want to try and work on my writing.
Hi, Dinhilion. I’ve set a review forum up for you here.
Hey, B. Mac. Am I right in thinking that there are times you should pace a scene slowly?
You could pace a scene slowly for dramatic or emotional effect, or to give the reader a space to breath after an intense action scene, maybe introducing readers to a new location or character, etc.
However, it is very rare that a story is paced too quickly. It depends on the audience, but the danger in any slow scene– particularly one at the beginning– is that the publisher’s assistant gets bored. If that happens, rejection is rarely far behind. In contrast, the danger of an opening scene that’s too fast is that it might be a bit hard to follow. It’s easier to clarify an exciting scene than to make a slow scene exciting.
In particular, scenes that drag at the beginning of a book tend to suggest that the story isn’t going anywhere. If you’re a publisher’s assistant that has two days to reject 99 out of the 100 manuscripts on your desk, you don’t have the time to give each book fifty pages to prove itself. Hell, you don’t even have the time to give them twenty pages. If the book is slow, the publisher’s assistant is just going to pitch it and move on.
A slow start is what nearly killed me at the beginning of this book, Shadow of a Dark Queen I’m reading. It was pretty boring for about the first 40 pages.
Ah, right. Thanks, B. Mac. I think I’m doing well with my scenes.
Would it slow down an action scene if the (female) villain flirts with the hero, a la Spiderman/Black Cat or Batman/Catwoman, while fighting?
I think so. I feel the romantic banter would substantially detract from the seriousness/intensity of the combat.
Then again, this might just be a personal preference. I’ve never understood the attraction of romantic tension between a hero and villain. I feel that Catwoman’s appearances are generally underwhelming and Poison Ivy’s role in Batman and Robin left a really bad taste in my mouth. By the end of BAR, I was kind of hoping for my own dose of fast-acting poison to make the pain stop.
If you’re planning on going down this route, I’d recommend making least one of the combatants dishonestly exploit the romantic angle to gain a combat or informational advantage on the other. Otherwise– if you have two characters that are genuinely kind of interested in each other– I think that their fights will be pretty lackluster. I suspect the stakes will be low if they aren’t going for the jugular.
Well, technically speaking, she’s only flirting with him because she’s the bait. She’s sort of an assistant to the Big Bad, and she’s flirting with him just to redirect his thoughts, so that the Big Bad gets to pull off the heist while the hero is busy. She will express her disgust at the hero to the reader, while the hero is somewhat interested with her, and she decides to exploit this.
Bat man and Robin received the worst reviews of the batman film
and i have to agree they gave the role of batman to a clown i mean come on he cracked jokes and oneliners and sucked they tottaly took batman away from his roots with that film
now Mr freese was a great villen good motive and such but with batman the way they made him he wasent able to be the best he could be i felt he could have been better if batman was darker
i hope my rant makes sence lol
Yeah, David is spot on. Batman and Robin was the worst Batman movie ever. And Mr. Freeze had terrible, cringe-worthy puns:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRH-Ywpz1_I
i just watched that then i seen the best bit in batman and Robin
it was the credits hahaha