I know it's probably not a question for a first draft. But do you think about pace when you are writing? What is your pace like?
Some authors use long, flowery, descriptive sentences, rich and blooming. Some authors just seem to take it slow, going behind the things that happen, for example (in my opinion) like Tad Williams in his "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" series, it begins with the book The Dragonbone Chair. There is a lot of writing over not a lot of action, it took me a while to get used to. However, it's a very entertaining read! Others keep a much faster pace, important things happening several times a chapter, has you hanging on every word, dramatic events galore, every chapter designed to make you go on reading, action-packed and exciting. One example (I know it could be called sci-fi) that many have probably read, is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I found the book very fast-paced; lots of stuff happening all the time.
Has anyone read the book "The 100", and seen the tv-show "The 100", and compared them? For one thing, the books are slow and crawls along, lots of background stories (memories and flash-backs), not a lot at stake and not packing a lot of dramatic happenings, in the three books. Well written, but slow and rather calm. But the tv-show, which is only loosely based on the books, has a lot of very dramatic action going on all the time, a lot is at stake for every character, there is danger, enemies, making friends, war, a hard-won truce that lasted less than half an episode... In every episode the stories flash by fast, people risk their lives, every episode has a quick pace and a lot happening. To compare these two really shows you the difference of pace in storytelling. I'd love to get my hands on the script of the show. It might be unfair to compare books to a tv-show, but after all the tv-show was also written.
So to look for what I mean; here is what the dictionary said:
a rate of movement;
a rate of activity, progress, growth, performance, etc.; tempo.
By pace I think about the ebb and flow of sentences, the tempo of your writing, that and how the plot moves: the activity leading to more activity, how a story can grow more exciting; how you use short clipped sentences to convey emotion like frustration, or break the rythm -like so- in your words.
We are word-smiths. I think it's important to think about the craft of writing. Pace is very exciting to look for in novels.
Some authors use long, flowery, descriptive sentences, rich and blooming. Some authors just seem to take it slow, going behind the things that happen, for example (in my opinion) like Tad Williams in his "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" series, it begins with the book The Dragonbone Chair. There is a lot of writing over not a lot of action, it took me a while to get used to. However, it's a very entertaining read! Others keep a much faster pace, important things happening several times a chapter, has you hanging on every word, dramatic events galore, every chapter designed to make you go on reading, action-packed and exciting. One example (I know it could be called sci-fi) that many have probably read, is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I found the book very fast-paced; lots of stuff happening all the time.
Has anyone read the book "The 100", and seen the tv-show "The 100", and compared them? For one thing, the books are slow and crawls along, lots of background stories (memories and flash-backs), not a lot at stake and not packing a lot of dramatic happenings, in the three books. Well written, but slow and rather calm. But the tv-show, which is only loosely based on the books, has a lot of very dramatic action going on all the time, a lot is at stake for every character, there is danger, enemies, making friends, war, a hard-won truce that lasted less than half an episode... In every episode the stories flash by fast, people risk their lives, every episode has a quick pace and a lot happening. To compare these two really shows you the difference of pace in storytelling. I'd love to get my hands on the script of the show. It might be unfair to compare books to a tv-show, but after all the tv-show was also written.
So to look for what I mean; here is what the dictionary said:
a rate of movement;
a rate of activity, progress, growth, performance, etc.; tempo.
By pace I think about the ebb and flow of sentences, the tempo of your writing, that and how the plot moves: the activity leading to more activity, how a story can grow more exciting; how you use short clipped sentences to convey emotion like frustration, or break the rythm -like so- in your words.
We are word-smiths. I think it's important to think about the craft of writing. Pace is very exciting to look for in novels.