For Writers

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here. … Now that we’ve looked at words, sentences, dialogue, and paragraphs…let’s look at plot. Plot has pacing, just like everything else in writing.  The number and type of events in a plot add another layer to the pacing, beyond […]

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here. … That damned cask of Amontillado.  Does it even exist?  Is it what Montressor toasted Fortunato with, at the very end of the story? No matter.  We only ask ourselves questions of pacing today.  All your questions shall be

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here. … It’s a big jump, going from “The Quick Brown Fox” to Edgar Allen Poe, but I think we’re ready. Take a moment to look at the story, here.  Whatever you do, don’t stop to read it.  Bah!  Just skim

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here. … We’ve just looked at words.  Now let’s look at phrases. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. Our phrases here are: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog or however you want to slice

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here. … All right, let’s get out a thesaurus and look up dog. pup, puppy, bitch, cur, doggy, hound, mongrel, mutt, pooch, stray, tyke, bowwow, fido, flea bag, man’s best friend, tail-wagger As well as a list of dog breeds. Affenpinscher,

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here. … Dear engineer types, I am a poet type.  So I’m borrowing the metaphor from my spouse, who works in IT and does woodworking. Let’s agree to look at pacing as a woodworking project.  We start with our raw

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here. … I’ll get to pacing for engineers in a bit.  First the different building blocks of pacing: Word length. Length of phrases (as marked by breaths or punctuation). Sentence length. Paragraph length. Beat length (the length of each individual

I’m going to give two explanations of what pacing is, one for poet-types and one for engineer-types.  This is an arbitrary split, and you’ll probably need both perspectives at some point. For poets: Pacing is how you start sneaking poetry into fiction, without the heightened sense of language that might tip your hand to the