Tools, not rules. For writers, by writers.
Our hosts explore the many tools writers can use to control pacing. We discuss how cadence, transitions, tone, sentence structure, and white space can all speed up or slow down a reader’s experience. And remember, fast is not inherently better than slow! This conversation highlights the importance of contrast—pairing fast…
Pacing is one of the most subjective and difficult aspects of storytelling to get right. What is pacing? How do you know what the right pace is for a story, and what techniques can you use to speed up or slow down your narrative? Homework Assignment from Fonda Lee: Take…
So, what is publishing for, anyway? The question may seem glib, but DongWong Song raised it in their newsletter, and in this episode we answer (or at least refine our asking of) the question. Liner Notes: The Publishing Question Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan…
Your Hosts: Brandon, Piper, Dan, and Howard We fielded some questions on style, diction, and paragraphing: Is it okay to have pretty prose in a straightforward adventure story? How do author voice and character voice differ? How do you prevent paragraphs from rambling? I feel like my writing is derivative…
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley What makes a chapter? WHY is a chapter? How do we chapter, and do we always chapter the same way? Should our chapters be this many parts of speech? This episode will answer these questions and more, except for that last question,…
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard Let’s talk about the structural tools we use to control pacing. These include sentence length and punctuation. Also, white-space. Liner note: Here is the Feb 12, 2017 Schlock Mercenary strip mentioned around the 18-minute mark. Credits: this episode was recorded in Cosmere House Studios by…
The microphones again find us aboard the Independence of the Seas*, to talk about how terribly ugly this manuscript is, and what we can do to make it pretty. In this episode we drill down on line-by-line, paragraph-by-paragraph revisions. This stage of the revision process is where our prose gets wordsmithed. This…
We wrap up this month’s discussion of pacing with a Q&A. Here are the questions we pulled out of the virtual hat (read: Twitter) for answering during the episode: What are some early indications of a pacing problem? How do you chart pacing so that it remains even? Can you control pacing…
Words take time to read, but that’s not the same amount of time that the words communicate…
Are we making progress? How do we communicate that to the reader?
