Extending a scene? Pacing yourself.

[P.C Greene]

Ok, im having some trouble. I am writing my first 'Want-to-be-novel'. And am finding myself writing everything so fast. It's like, i can explain a whole chapter in one sentence. I seem to cram everything in so tight that when i re-read what i have written it looks awefull. Please could anybody give me some tips on pacing myself. It would really help me a lot, thanks.

[Sassee]

Don't summarize? :)

[Deirdre]

My first drafts are somewhere between a super-long synopsis and a manuscript. Sounds like yours are too.

I've tried fighting it, but it's actually more work than doing it in re-writing.

I tried writing my last novel "at the right length" in the first draft. Utter crap!

[JoNightshade]

Sounds like you might be telling the story rather than showing it?

[DeleyanLee]

Ok, im having some trouble. I am writing my first 'Want-to-be-novel'. And am finding myself writing everything so fast. It's like, i can explain a whole chapter in one sentence. I seem to cram everything in so tight that when i re-read what i have written it looks awefull. Please could anybody give me some tips on pacing myself. It would really help me a lot, thanks.

Sounds to me like you're writing the plot, not the story. Gotta get more layers and levels in there.

What's the characters feeling? Observing? Thinking? What motions are they taking as they move through the scene that give hints of their personality? What experiences or relationships in the past are influencing them at this moment? What does the major character hope to gain out of what they're doing? Why do they want that goal?

Do any of the characters have ulterior motives? What are they? What do they hope to gain and hint at how far they're willing to go to get it? What does your bad guys think of your good guys--and vice versa? Mere contempt or is there a layer of respect?

What's the room/setting look like? Get at least three senses into every scene (even if they're the same three senses every scene). What about the things around the characters can say subtle things about the world, the culture, or some kind of foreshadowing? Spend a sentence or so on these objects.

There's tons of little stuff that fleshes out a plot into a scene and into a book. Just gotta stop, think about it, and get it in.

Good luck to you.

[maestrowork]

Details.

It's okay if you write the whole chapter in three sentences. But now, look at those three sentences and see how you can add details and layers.

"He went to the parking lot, angry, and shot four people dead" -- great, now, perhaps describe how he got to the parking lot? Did he run? Did he drive? What was he thinking? Next, don't say "angry" but describe what he did -- did he kick a trashcan on his way? Did he grind his teeth? And finally, it would be SO much more interesting if you show us, in gory detail, how he shot those people -- who are those people, what were they doing, what were they wearing, etc. etc.

Pacing is all in details and the language and the sentence structures you use. More dialogue also moves the plot faster, and more narrative will slow it down, as do more details.

[jdparadise]

1. Keep writing everything as you are.
2. Go back when you have your outline (because that's essentially what you have) and expand it.

If 2 seems overly simplistic:

2:

a) Read a book that you really like.
b) Pick a scene that you like that does something similar to what you're trying to do (introduce the hero to his to-be girlfriend; climactic death struggle; introspective moment where the character studies his navel and contemplates the meaning of the word "pudding.")
c) Copy that scene out, word for word. As you're copying, -read- it. Try to understand what that author is doing, and why they're doing it--what the effect is on you as a reader and how the author got that effect.
d) Find the same type of scene by another author whose work you like, and do it again.
e) Do it again with another author, and another. They're all going to do the same thing differently. Figure out how each works on you as a reader.
f) Go back to the outlined scene you have, and figure out what you're trying to accomplish in your scene. Figure out how you can accomplish what you're trying to accomplish, given how other authors accomplish their similar things. Write it.
g) Repeat for another scene, and another.
h) Now sit down and write the whole thing out, using the outline (and deviating from it as things expand and the world and characters reveal themselves to you.)
i) Now read through it again and identify all that you did right and that you really like.
j) Do more of that in the parts you didn't like as much.

It's not the only way, and it might not be the "right" way, but it's A Way.

As you write more, you're naturally going to get better, so what looks great to you today is going to look awful in a year, and worse in ten... but you'll keep getting better as you keep working at it, as long as you -do- keep working at it. Keep reading, keep writing... you'll get there :)

G'luck!

[NicoleMD]

I tend to write the same way, so last week during my writing group I used this exercise to help me focus some. It was pretty helpful, and I actually came up with an idea for next year's Nanowrimo out of it.

Slow it down:
http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/www/exercises/m039029.txt

That site has a bunch of other cool writing exercises also.

Nicole

[ccarver30]

Ray's so smrt.

[Deirdre]

What I've discovered, because it may help someone.

If I find myself summarizing, it's because there's some reason I can't write the fuller scene Right Now. It may be that I haven't made a decision about some character, or the setting, or something else Very Important.

I've learned that happens later on in the book and not to stress over it too much. When I go back and re-read, I'll write down lists of the outstanding questions in each scene.

[Tirjasdyn]

lol this just happened to me.

Turns out I had the characters talk to each other (ie dialog) and all is well.

It's like those days where you know Teh is wrong but can't figure out why.

[PeeDee]

"He went to the parking lot, angry, and shot four people dead" --

That's a great opening line for a novel. Probably by a great pulp crime noir novelist. I'd read a book started like that.

[seun]

And finally, it would be SO much more interesting if you show us, in gory detail, how he shot those people -- who are those people, what were they doing, what were they wearing, etc. etc.


The emphasis you put on how interesting it would be to show the details of the deaths made me laugh and feel disturbed at the same time. :D

[Carrie in PA]

1. Keep writing everything as you are.
2. Go back when you have your outline (because that's essentially what you have) and expand it.

I would second this. When I am in that stage, it's because the rest of the story is trying to spill out and I can only type so much. Get it all down and expand it later.

[jodiodi]

I'll third the advice to just keep going. Get the story down first, then go back and add texture and detail. Sometimes it's more important to get it out of your head and on the screen (or paper), than to craft every word perfectly the first time around. Without the story clogging up your mind, you can think about what you're writing and expand.

[zornhau]

Does your chapter have actual conflict in it, or one move in the game?

[Ava Jarvis]

I have the same problem --- I'm still in short story mode.

For me, I turned my first two chapters into a writing exercise to work out the scenes. What I found out is

- Yeah, telling and not showing. Telling is very much a summarization technique.

- Figure out what I want out of the chapter, at a higher level than "X shoots Y." Where does the chapter start and where does it end? Perhaps it starts with X tracking down Y, and ends with Y getting taken away in an ambulance. That's a short enough time period to fit into a chapter.

- Figure out what needs to happen to get from the starting point to the ending point. X tracks down Y --- how and maybe why? Where is Y? Does Y move around? Where does X find Y? Does Y discover X and there is a chase scene? How does X corner Y? What does X think when he's ready to pull the trigger? Who discovers the scene and notifies the ambulance (heck, is it X)?

- Chapters are allowed to have multiple scenes, in which case chapters are just a way to group closely related scenes into one story telling unit. "X shoots Y" can be one such unit, and "Y dies" another one, and "W starts on the trail of X" yet a third. Such units should be tied together in time and location as much as possible.

- In each scene, follow events as logically as possible, add detail, and prefer show over tell. If you write "The night was cold and rainy", there are other ways to promote that into show with detail. For example, "Rain poured out of the gray night skies as if God was dumping a pitcher of ice cold dreck across the city. Water gushed out of the old gargoyles of the church, overflowed gutters across C-street, and dropped into the manhole covers on Bradley Avenue. I was soaked to the skin, every part of me cold and wet, as I waited by the old tobacco store for the mark to come out of..." Note that these sentences aren't just pretty detail; they also move the plot along in interesting ways, more interesting than "it was cold and rainy."

[John61480]

Just remember when adding details that the next thing to happen in the scene doesn't read as a jarring, "now where did that come from?"

I always try to incorporate detail and I always get to the point where I want to move on with action or something and when I reread what I wrote, it seems like it took to long to get to that action. So what happens is that as a reader, they get wrapped up in the details that they forget what's supposed to be going on in the scene. I've had to watch myself a few times and have cut as much as two paragraphs of detail.

However, I have been stumped from time to time recently, trying to find ways to add details when I just can't. Those days are hard when I'm trying to reach a word count quota.

[Chasing the Horizon]

This was something I struggled with when I first started writing as well. First I wrote too short, then I wrote too long with too much detail; it took me a while to get a feel for pacing scenes. If you don't already have an outline of the story, then you probably should continue writing a short synopsis of each scene so that when you sit down to actually write the scene you can concentrate on the quality and not have to worry about what should happen next. I always do a scene-by-scene outline before I start actually writing.

An experiment you could try is to imagine that your scene is part of a movie with no voice-over narration allowed. You must communicate the entire scene exclusively through your setting, dialogue, and action. No internal thoughts, no 'telling' of any kind. This isn't how you'll want the final scene to be, since one of the biggest advantages of books over movies is that they can tell the POV character's thoughts, but it's a good exercise to get you in the habit of showing instead of telling. Once you have the movie version written out you can go back through and layer in your character's thoughts. Eventually you'll be used to showing instead of telling and be able to bring all the elements together naturally on your first time through the scene.

Anyway, that worked for me. Good luck and keep practicing :)

[P.C Greene]

Sweet, i got a lot of great feedback from this thread and it all helped a lot, thank you ladies and gentelmen.

[jdparadise]

Anyway, that worked for me. Good luck and keep practicing :)


That's a great exercise, Hope! I'm going to try that on a scene before I start D2 of my WIP, just to see what happens. Thanks!

[wayndom]

IMO, you should feel lucky that your writing is going so fast. Sounds to me like you're trying to keep up with the speed of your own ideas, and that's a good place to be (overflowing with ideas). You can always fill in the empty spaces or cut out the irrelevant ideas later. One way or another, you have to write down the whole story before you can start revising, rewriting, polishing, or whatever it takes to make a finished novel.

Maybe you're writing down an outline and just don't know it.

In any case, if, when you're finished, you find yourself with a 35-page novel, I don't think you'll have trouble figuring out where to flesh out the story. If you do, just compare the way it's written to a novel by one of your favorite authors, and it should become clear.

My rule of thumb is, never worry about the first draft. No one is ever going to read it but you.

[wayndom]

The emphasis you put on how interesting it would be to show the details of the deaths made me laugh and feel disturbed at the same time. :D

Everyone slows down and looks when they pass an accident...