Grammarly Deets #5

Do you write poetry? Song lyrics? Play drums or other percussion instruments? Of course, if you do any of these you know how important beat and rhythm are. What I'd bet you weren't aware of is how significant it is in writing. Yep. Beat and rhythm. Some will call it pacing. That's a loose translation at best, but it will do to explain this post on writing. It doesn't concern grammar, no. (If you were wondering.) However, it is very essential you master this skill. 

You might read books on writing that will describe the peril of monotonous dialogue, line after line of he said, she said, where no descriptive tags are interspersed. You add a "he took a sip of his coffee" here, or "she hesitated, worried he may not admit the truth" there, and suddenly the reader feels he's been transported into the story, experiencing everything. Much more interesting, right? Of course you don't want to tag every line of dialogue. That's slowing things down too much, and quite frankly it gets annoying to the reader. 

Another piece of advice will address pacing. Nothing worse than a plot bogging down with slow, arduous and painful detail. There must be variety. And it starts with sentence length. That's where I'm taking this post. The beat, rhythm and pacing of your sentence structure. 

Take a look at this paragraph: 

Mary stepped to the door. She opened it to find Jack. She froze and couldn't speak. Her eyes spoke to him instead. She waved him inside. They sat in the living room. Neither one started the conversation.

The pacing is quick, but the monotony of repeated word length and structure doesn't lend itself to originality or prose that sparks a reader's interest. So, let's mix it up a bit. Again, think beat, think rhythm.

Mary stepped to the door. When she opened it to find Jack, she gasped. There weren't any words, nothing would fall from her lips. However, the anger inside screamed a tirade of questions. Where had he been? How could he desert her like this? She stared for another minute. Finally, stepping aside she waved him in. They sat in the living room. For several awkward minutes, neither of them spoke. 

Okay, maybe not the greatest example, but I'd bet you noticed the varied sentence structure and length. Also, I included some inner thought to deepen the character's voice. The first paragraph is rather boring. Think of a drum beat thumping out tap, tap, tap, tap, all in an even rhythm. The second paragraph mixes up the beat. Now your drum is sounding great. Tap, tap, tatata, tap, tatap. Or something like that. (I apologize. I'm not a drummer!) 

Taking it further, note that pacing dictates the action of the story, whether it should be fast or slow. When a scene needs to be fast-paced, for example in a fight between two characters or during an escape from the bad guys, repeated short sentences do the trick. When the action slows down, like in a romantic scene, you can lengthen the description, draw it out with those long, complex sentences. It works. Keeps your readers engaged and wide awake, not knowing what's around the corner ... that is, the next page! 

Beat, rhythm, pacing. They are essential ingredients to great writing!

Enjoy your weekend, and as always, happy writing!

Grammarly Deets #4

I found a quote last week that suits this week's topic. It pretty much covers all points of writing, and how you should divide, share, and conquer! It goes something like this: "Most of your novel should be Action and Dialogue. Description is the dessert. Interior Emotion provides the spice. Interior Monologue is the salt. A little salt goes a long way."

This post is specifically about the details you include in your action, dialogue, description and so on. I'd like to focus on that. Stephen King advises writers to provide enough of those details to make a great story, but always leave the reader something to imagine, to figure out for himself. Reading is an active exercise, not passive, as you should know. You must keep readers guessing, predicting, imagining, and drawing conclusions. That's your objective. You settle for nothing less. (Oh, boy ... those English teacher habits seep out of me on occasion, like now!)

Besides maintaining balance and proper proportion, your story details should be relevant. Otherwise, the story becomes boring, overwhelming, even confusing. And worst of all? The plot slows to a crawl. So slow, a turtle could pass it up in a race! Oh, yeah. That reminds me of yet another piece of advice, a la Stephen King, of course. At all times, and I do mean all, you should be thinking of the plot. The actions, dialogue, inner thoughts, etc. in every way should drive the story toward the plot's resolution and the ending. Your words need to have purpose. It's as simple as that. Okay, maybe not simple to do, but who said writing was easy? 

That's it for this week, folks. Keep on writing, and above all else, enjoy!

I'm Stuck Between a Rock and a Murder Case

Right now, I'm stuck. It happens. Hopefully not too often. And if somebody can give me some creative mojo to wiggle me out, maybe I'll become "unstuck". They are those moments I've backed myself into a corner and can't seem to find my way out. I hate that. It gives me a major headache. So, this time I thought I'd take a break from murder mystery and "go back to school", so to speak. I needed to look up some advice on developing my plot and get me out of my rut by pointing me in the right direction.

Here's what I've found and maybe if I'm lucky it will help!

Check This #1: Create a plot skeleton, i.e., outline or sketch of what will happen. Keep in mind the main character needs to accomplish something and there will be challenges along the way. This step is not too detailed because quite honestly, points of it will change as you write. The characters will indeed take a life of their own and tell YOU where they need to go and what to do.

Have I done this? Ah, no. Sometimes I wait until so many pages into the story to figure that out. I start with a story idea and then develop from there. But this time, I'm thinking this may be the particular advice I should follow.


Check This #2: Layer the plot, paint it with setting details, make it come alive with well-rounded characters. Remember that the story needs to progress, it will take a journey with sensible twists and turns, ups and downs, to make it interesting and progress toward the resolution. The dynamic characters should experience change, which happens as they experience life. The evil guy in the story may be the static character. This one always remains evil, but you could make him complex with some vulnerable traits, too.

Have I done this? Well ... sort of. Lots of times I will add to the story, flesh out characters, add descriptors when I go back through for my first edit. I really haven't gotten into the story that far yet.


Check This #3: Periodically analyze the action to see if that is where you want to go and don't be afraid to change the course if it doesn't feel right! This is where you can decide if a scene stays or goes. Do the events add to the plot, or do nothing for it? Remember, if you slow things down too much, you lose reader interest. Heck! You even lose writer interest! That's really a bad sign.

Am I doing this? There are a couple of points already where I find I'm rambling. Those areas will definitely have to go.


Check This #4: Pretend you are the character. Sometimes characters come off too mechanical, sometimes too emotional, sometimes ... well, the actions are just plain ridiculous or unrealistic. As the story progresses and your characters must act, ask yourself if that is what you'd do or how you'd react. Question whether the act seems reasonable, senseable. Just because you want the character to do a certain thing in order to force the plot in your desired direction, doesn't mean it's the best choice of action.

Have I done this? Mistake wise? Yes. The reason I know is that when I've gone back and read something I'd written a long time ago and said to myself, "why ever did I think that worked?" or "who would do such a stupid thing?" then I know it's that kind of mistake. This time around? I guess it will have to wait until I let the story simmer a bit. For me, that kind of observation technique most often comes with time.


Check This #5: When the process is slow, stop thinking so much. I know this sounds contradictory to all points above. However, there are times when you get so bogged down, like your sinking deeper and deeper into that quicksand. I've read that it's because you are stopping to rethink everything you've just written, re-edit, re-write, re-everything! Do I do this? Most definitely!

Am I doing this with my current WIP? Oh boy, am I ever! Why else would I be here, writing this article instead of writing my story? The idea is to simply write and continue to write without editing, UNTIL the story is finished. Soooooo very hard for me to do! And really, I think it's because I'm not sure where I want to take this plot. Hence, I refer back to Check #1. I guess that's what I'll do.

Check This #6: When the story ends, check it all! Okay, this one's a biggy! I call it crossing all the i's and dotting all the t's of my story. In mysteries this is extremely important. In my recent publication, DYING TO DREAM I found myself crosschecking everything, lots of times. Matching up events, times, character interactions, experiences until I felt my eyes cross! Now I've decided the best way to keep from making so many mistakes that will need to be checked and double checked is to take notes as you write. What this character does, where that one goes, when this one does this or that. It's time-consuming, but it will help. Of course, if you just use those beta readers who offer to read your story, they might catch those inconsistencies for you! So much the better.

Am I taking notes this time? Ahhhhhhh ... Okay, getting out the pad and pen to start, but first? Going back to try developing that plot skeleton!


Bottom line? If all else fails, just write the darn story! It might not be the most productive and sensible approach, maybe it will leave you lots of work to do at the end. But at least you'll have a completed story, and plenty of time to revise, revise, revise!

P.S. These are just a very few of the multitude of tips out there on writing and developing a plot. I think this was mostly a cathartic exercise for me, but hopefully it helps all of you, too!

Happy writing!