{"id":13300,"date":"2024-07-15T10:15:03","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T17:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=13300"},"modified":"2024-07-15T10:15:07","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T17:15:07","slug":"pick-up-the-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/pick-up-the-pace\/","title":{"rendered":"Pick Up The Pace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"487\" height=\"592\" src=\"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Hourglass.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10411\" style=\"width:123px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Hourglass.png 487w, https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Hourglass-247x300.png 247w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 487px) 100vw, 487px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Quick pacing hooks readers, deepens the drama, creates and increases tension.<br><strong>How to pick up the pace:<\/strong><br>1. Start story in the middle of the dramatic action, not before the drama commences.<br>2. Keep description brief. This doesn&#8217;t mean using no description, but choose one or two telling, brief details.<br>3. Combine scenes. If one scene deepens character by showing a couple at dinner and a few scenes later they have a fight, let them have the fight at dinner.<br>4. Rely on dialogue. A lot of the story can be carried by spoken conversation. Readers seldom skip dialogue.<br>5. Keep backstory to a minimum. The more we learn about characters through what they do now, in story time, the less you&#8217;ll need flashbacks, memories and exposition about their histories. All of these slow the pace.<br>6. Squeeze out every unnecessary word. This is the best way of all to increase pace. There are times you want a longer version for atmosphere, but be choosy. Wordiness kills pace and bores readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paraphrased from Writer&#8217;s Digest magazine, January 2006, &#8220;Pick Up the Pace.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Just Write!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>#justwrite #iamawrite #iamwriting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quick pacing hooks readers, deepens the drama, creates and increases tension.How to pick up the pace:1. Start story in the middle of the dramatic action, not before the drama commences.2. Keep description brief. This doesn&#8217;t mean using no description, but choose one or two telling, brief details.3. Combine scenes. If one scene deepens character by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[126],"tags":[1978,1981,1979,1165,1977],"class_list":["post-13300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-write-2","tag-create-tension","tag-deepen-drama-2","tag-hook-readers","tag-just-write-writing-freely-the-write-spot-blog","tag-pick-up-the-pace"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-3sw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13300"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13304,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13300\/revisions\/13304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}