![[RSS Feed]](http://kiwiwriters.org/s/rss.png)
Pacing
Posted by: kerrynangell
The pacing of your story affects the speed of your writing.
I’ve done the majority of my writing this month in word wars. Focused and fun they have made the most of my limited time. I’ve celebrated when I hit over 500 words in ten minutes and commiserated when I only managed 200. One side affect of this method is that I’ve been able to compare my performance in word wars with what I’m writing and I’ve learnt one important thing.
What you write and how fast you write are inherently linked.
It’s not just how you’re feeling, how focused you are or how much chocolate and caffeine you’ve imbibed. It’s not just whether you’re writing a new genre or a different perspective. It’s all about the pace of your story. Those fast, furious action, sex or fight scenes will be written fast and furious. Readers can’t read a whole novel of fast, furious action without getting tired and therefore we as writers, though we’d like to, can’t write a whole novel fast and furiously.
My slowest word war times were when I was writing or attempting to write transition scenes and other scenes where I had lost the momentum. The writing went slowly because the story was slow. Sometimes these parts are necessary. You need to let your reader catch their breath. On the other hand my fastest word war times were when I was writing conflict scenes with characters arguing or being attacked. The same pieces that the reader will read fast I wrote fast.
Learning this has allowed me to manage my expectations. Instead of commiserating when I only manage 200-300 words in a ten minute word war I realise that it’s a reality of how I write. I’m also more excited to write the action packed scenes because I know my word count will skyrocket and quickly!
So, to ensure you’re writing as quickly as you can pack your SoCNoC novel full of action and skip over the transition scenes and boring bits. Hell, you’ll probably just edit them out anyway.
Labels: (none)
26 Jun 2007 17:05:03
Comments
On 27 Jun 2007 23:18:34 Andy Chilton said:
I agree.
I find that when I'm writing a scene that's chaotic, like a fight scene, my hands are going 10 to the dozen!
But when I'm writing something more intimate (even just a chat), I find it goes slower since I want each person to say the right thing.