On Pacing and Paragraphing

December 11, 2024 by Harvey

In Today’s Journal

* Steven Pressfield Again
* Took Most of the Day Off
* On Pacing and Paragraphing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Steven Pressfield Again

After I posted yesterday’s issue of TNDJ I revisited Steven Pressfield’s website and noticed a little note in the upper right corner that read “Continue to Website.” I clicked it.

His actual website is here. I encourage you to visit. He even offers a free 5-audio-lessons course on The War of Art. It might be worth your while even if you already have the book.

Took Most of the Day Off

Welp, after I posted yesterday’s issue of TNDJ and wrote the bit above about Steven Pressfield, I wrote the opening for a short story. With any luck, it will also turn into a novel. Shrug. I dunno.

Anyway, after that I took much of yesterday off.

My much better half and I went to Sierra Vista to browse a junk shop. Then we went grocery shopping, then enjoyed lunch at Culver’s.

Overall, an enjoyable experience.

We got home and stowed the groceries and other things at around 1:30, and then I came back to the Hovel.

After checking and responding to emails and comments, I was anxious to get back to the story, but I didn’t get much more done.

Still, in my world a day of writing only a little fiction is WAY better than not writing any fiction at all.

On Pacing and Paragraphing

A few years ago as I write this, I was reading one of my magic realism stories to my grandson. “The Storyteller” by Gervasio Arrancado.

As I read it aloud to him, I got bored. Massively bored. It’s a good story, but it wasn’t an enjoyable reading experience. I found myself wondering what reader could possibly enjoy wading through this thing.

My pacing sucked. My paragraphing sucked worse. The two go hand in hand.

Pacing is what draws the reader through the story. More importantly, it’s what keeps the reader engaged along the way.

I thought I knew paragraphing. I knew what I’d learned in every English, English Comp and English Lit class I’d ever taken.

But no, I didn’t know paragraphing for fiction. And I had absolutely no clue about pacing.

The bare bones of pacing is this:

• Hit the Return (Enter) key more often.

Shorter paragraphs (smaller blocks of text) are easier and quicker to read, understand, and absorb. So are shorter sentences and sentence fragments. All of those move the action along.

Longer, less punctuated sentences convey emotion more strongly. To heighten the emotion (especially during a time a great turmoil) you might even string as many as two or three longer, less-punctuated sentences together. Doing so will heighten the emotion in the story and in the reader.

But if longer sentences are overused, they quickly become boring.

Shorter sentences and sentence fragments convey a sense of drama and emphasis.

Especially if they’re used in their own paragraph.

(If they aren’t overused, that’s a powerful tool. If they ARE overused, the overuse will water-down the dramatic effect.)

In an action scene, those shorter paragraphs force the reader’s eyes to catapult across the white space from one paragraph to the next in an attempt to keep up.

So even as the action is racing, the reader is racing right along with it.

But maybe the character moves into a new setting, one where he’s going to be for awhile and where action is not imminent.

For example,

• maybe he’s lying in wait for a victim or a perpetrator, or

• maybe he’s sitting with a colleague in a coffee shop discussing an interesting turn of events, or

• maybe he’s visiting family in Hoboken (or wherever).

All of that goes to pacing too.

In those circumstances, while the character’s “resting” from the action, you can force the reader to rest too with more detailed description and longer paragraphs.

So what about description? How much description of the setting is necessary?

Ask your character. He’s the one who’s actually in the story. If the character notices it (sees, hears, smells, tastes, feels), include it.

If the character notices something about the setting, chances are excellent it will be important later in the story.

What does the character notice if he’s panicked and busting through a door to escape a fire?

What does he see, hear, smell, taste, touch when he’s immediately involved in a fist fight or a shootout as he enters a room (saloon, library, grocery store, airport, etc.)?

Maybe it’s all a blur. Maybe only one aspect or two of the setting stands out for him.

Maybe those one or two aspects stand out inanely because they remind the character of something from his past. Or maybe they represent a massive fear the character has.

Or maybe they stand out importantly because if he can only get to that place it will provide him with safety.

Now, what does the character notice (again, see, hear, smell, taste, touch) when he is admitted to the home of a victim’s relatives to inform them he’s found the body of their son?

What does he notice in the hospital waiting room as he awaits word about his colleague?

What does he notice when he joins the rest of his extended family for Thanksgiving dinner?

I ask “what does the character notice” because if you want to ground the reader in the scene (and you do) ALL description of setting MUST come through the character’s senses of the setting as expressed in the character’s opinions of that setting.

Think about it. He probably won’t notice a lot about the setting (but maybe some, and maybe in a more highly focused way) as he’s busting through a door to escape a fire or is suddenly involved in a firefight.

He might notice a great deal more about a setting in which he’s relaxed or in which he’s spending some time as he awaits the next action scene.

When we’re bored or otherwise unoccupied, we tend to pay more attention to sights, sounds, smells, etc. When we’re excited or frightened, we tend to notice fewer specifics of the setting we’re in, but we notice those few more intensely.

So do characters.

Bring the readers along with you into the scene. Describe the setting accordingly. Pace the scene accordingly.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

AI: The Secret Weapon in Finding a Book’s True Audience Not an endorsement. Presented for information only.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 1050

Writing of “The Waller Files” (a Stern Talbot PI mystery)

Day 1…… 2094 words. To date…… 2094

Fiction for December………………… 38876
Fiction for 2024………………………. 963269
Nonfiction for December…………….. 12060
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 374630
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,165,466

Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 3888

2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 18
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 102
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 269
Short story collections……………………. 29

Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.