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Today, I’m going to be discussing pacing and tips to better achieve a good flow within your story. First off, pacing is how fast or slow your story is moving and this is determined by how the writer distributes information. This is something that is very tricky to nail down, especially if your story spans several books. Plotting is something that is very important when it comes to pacing. I have a post on the types of plots linked here if you need more information on that.
#1 Sentence length
Varying sentence length is important in general, especially with exposition and narration. If your sentences are consistently short or long and not varying, this can risk disrupting the flow of your story. A rule of thumb:1. Use shorter, choppier sentences for fight scenes to add tension and excitement2. Use longer sentences and add more detail to slow things down and to add suspense.
#2 Paragraph length
Paragraphs should never be too long. If they go on for even a page, you’ve done too much. I’ve learned a trick to help me out in this area. Imagine a camera moving through your story. If the camera pans to another character or different action, start a new paragraph. You should always start a new paragraph for dialogue, especially between characters. If a new character is speaking or moving around, the camera pans, and thus a new paragraph should begin.
#3 Keep track of conflicts/subplots
An important part of pacing is to keep up with conflict and subplots. The central conflict/inciting incident should present itself around the third chapter of the book. It should remain prevalent for the entire course of the story. Some authors like to write different conflicts for every book released (typically seen in graphic novels), but a great series is centered around one conflict that takes a couple or even a few books to complete. By keeping track of the conflicts of your plot and subplots, you are able to better keep pace. If your character has a love interest and that’s the subplot, why haven’t we seen them in four chapters? If they’re overtaking a great, untouchable drug lord, why did it only take half of the book to defeat them?
#4 Cut unnecessary bullshit
I’m sorry to tell you, but excessive wordbuilding counts as unnecessary bullshit. We don’t need to know the name of every single town in every realm of this continent. We don’t need to know what kind of fabric the clothes in this world are woven or what the fabric is made from unless your main character works in the clothing district or this is vital to the plot. Descriptions should not go on and on until it takes entire pages to explain that we’re on the side of a mountain. Unless you’re writing poetry, vague and long descriptions distract from the point of the story or scene and are often just boring to read.
#5 Telling vs Showing
It’s common for people to explain things rather than show what happened. The majority of your story should be carried by scenes and dialogue, not exposition and narration. Showing instead of telling helps the reader become more grounded in the story, and it causes more connection and emotional attachment between your readers and the characters.
That’s all for today. Hopefully, this helps you on your writing journey!
Your family member has been abducted and replaced by an alien who is really bad at their job of pretending to be them. However, you don’t complain because the alien is still a vast improvement over the original
Before you bitch about how authors are marketing their books, do this one thing:
Shut the fuck up unless you are volunteering to do all the labor required to market a book, because it’s really fucking hard, people don’t pay attention to posts about original content 90% of the fucking time, and giving a short, pithy teaser is how book marketing fucking works. Click the links and read the full book description if you want to know more.
Seriously, shut the fuck up.
Like, I don’t know how to explain to you people that the posts with long descriptions that don’t get right to the point don’t get reblogged.
People don’t give a shit about new content. If it’s not their established blorbo, they don’t give a fuck. Plastering my book cover and the plot summary all over tumblr doesn’t do shit when people aren’t actually stopping to read the posts.
Little pithy marketing statements like, “Hey, wanna read a story about a queer autistic ship captain with synesthesia?” are what get people’s attention. Time and time and time again, my own advert posts have reflected this, and it’s the same for every other author I know.
If you hate it, and you think that book marketing sucks, and authors are lazy and stupid, and you think that it’s ruining books, or whatever the fuck, here’s what you can actually do:
Promo authors and their work, share their marketing posts, and help their books get seen.
REVIEW BOOKS. Tell other people what they’re about. Share them with your friends.
Volunteer to be part of an author’s marketing/street team, if they have one. I’ve helped get promo bookmarks into libraries and bookstores for other authors before, among other things.
Stop being a dick to the authors and start paying attention to the real issues within the book and publishing industry, because there are a lot of them.
Stop blaming the authors when they’re the ones getting fucked over the hardest, and most likely are trying to scrape together money to eat, because being an author has shit pay no matter how well-known you are.
ngl this is why getting badgered over and over again by ppl saying “but what is spitfire REALLY about” when i was doing my big promo push was incredibly annoying and stressful. you have to make shit punchy or people don’t pay attention.
@westernsunshine i’ve never paid to advertise anything i make, whether it’s a skirt or my book or anything, but if i was gonna pay for advertising, tumblr blaze WOULD have been top of my list… if it wasn’t for shit like this.
like yes “silence, brand” and all that but like when it’s indie…. what do y'all think you’re doing here?? an indie creator paying $5 to have some more eyeballs on their art/book/whatever is not the same as wendy’s underpaying a social media intern to clap back at random teenagers on twitter.
i seriously thought about blazing spitfire for a while but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the potential headache. same with the skirts/etc. and that’s a little ridiculous considering that tumblr blaze is one of the best ways for tumblr to remain independent and not turn into an actual hell scape of relatable brand content the way most other social media has.
“I wanna support indie creators!” and “Silence, capitalist shill!”
are not two things that can coexist with the expectation of actually supporting indie creators. I don’t know how anyone expects to support an indie creator without them telling people about their products and using some of the same techniques as large marketing departments. Creators post a pithy statement and get “wHaT iS tHiS AbOuT????” so they post a longer description and get ignored.
They’re actually trying to do what you, their potential customers, want. But you scream at them no matter which avenue they choose, so I don’t know what indie creators are expected to do for you, because no matter what, they still pay rent and need to eat, just like the rest of us.
I can only say this: nothing will ever be perfect. If you think you can get indie creators to market their products in a way that makes you feel like you’re not implicit in the sins of capitalism, let me spoil it for you: you can’t, and it’s not the creator’s job to comfort you in that situation. So long as capitalism exists, you will be required to participate in it. But I’ll tell you something else, and I’ll tell you for free: allyship does not begin and end with consumer behaviour. You can’t buy your way into being a good ally. You have to do the work, just like the rest of us who don’t have the luxury.
When you give indie creators no way to get product support, what do you expect? And the big brands just laugh, because you’re doing their work for them by putting their competition out of business without them spending a cent.
I think you all can stand a little advertising if it means indie creators can survive and thrive.
Most of the time people are nice on my blaze posts, and it sucks that this isn’t the same for everybody.
The following content contained a ton of capslock that made it incredibly difficult to read. I’ve put the whole dang thing in lowercase and added quotation marks and bolding to guide your eyes to the important words.
I’m not sorry for changing all this. Let’s just be nice to each other.
if you’re talking about a weapons cache, it’s
pronounced “cash.”
if you say “cashay,” that’s how “cachet” is
pronounced, which means “prestige” and does not mean a collection of items
stored together in a hidden/inaccessible place.
hoard – (n.) a
collection of stuff, (vb.) to collect a collection of stuff.
horde – (n.) a
collection, group, mob or host of people, often unruly or barbaric.
peel – (n.)
the outside skin of fruit, also (archaic n.) a tower house, sometimes
spelled “pele;” (vb.) to remove the outside skin of fruit; by extension,
usually as peel off, to remove clothing, but also (aviation) to break away, one
aircraft at a time, from a larger formation.
peal – (n.)
the sound of several church bells ringing together or in sequence; (vb.)
to ring bells in this manner.
breach – (n.) a break or opening, usually in a wall; (vb.) to make
such an opening, also a whale rising clear of the surface of the sea. (the
words “breach” and “break” are distant relatives.)
breech – (n.) the bottom end of a gun-barrel, where it’s loaded; also breech
presentation (a baby being born bottom-foremost);
also (n. pl.) breeches, a historical
style of trousers ending just below the knee
and (archaic vb.) to breech, to dress a boy
in breeches (adult clothing) for the first time.
you bare your soul to someone, i.e. uncover it or
i.e. strip it naked
they are a bear to deal with, i.e. large and
cumbersome and difficult
a baby is born, i.e. ejected from the womb the
mother has borne the weight of the child, i.e. carried
and i saw this flip-flop in an honest-to-god published
book that had presumably been through several readthroughs: your actions elicit
a reaction from someone else, i.e. provoke or cause or draw out
something illicit is illegal or unapproved or
against norms or codes or crossing boundaries e.g. your illicit affair
with the pool boy will probably elicit a demand for a divorce from your
spouse
father’s day is funny in my family because my dad is so angry this holiday exists that it’s the one day of the year i am NOT allowed to call him. we are officially estranged for 24 hours a year. wishing him a happy father’s day is a declaration of hostilities.
and like he is a good dad with a good dad, there’s no traumatic backstory to this, he just hates The Man telling him what to do so much that it’s a personal affront that someone decided that anyone is supposed to feel a thing on a specific day or, god forbid, spend their hard earned dollars because shaving commercials tell them to. if a dad did his job right (be a good father who unconditionally loves his kids), his kids should love him 364 days a year but FUCK the 365th day to spite hallmark and gillette specifically and you know what. i respect it.
Okay, I love this. My dad is the polar opposite. Basically, he’s happy for ANY excuse to have attention on him. He once had three birthday parties for himself on the same weekend in three different states. He lives for Pride month because corporations make everything about the gays and that includes HIM! So adopting me and my sisters had the side benefit of giving him another day to celebrate his amazingness! And the man is genuinely fantastic, so everyone is happy to throw celebrations for him whenever he requests them.
So the idea of a dad stubbornly refusing to acknowledge it? Is adorable and charming to me. Like, it’s my dad’s dark reflection! I love it. 10/10.
amazing!! i hope his birthday is not in june so he gets to spread out the festivities! happy gay pride father’s day to your dad, may he receive much adulation and more rainbow shaving kits than he knows what to do with 🌈 🪒
Can we please get some hilarious writing pieces where these two meet??
