This is less in the nature of an essay and more in the nature of a brief exploratory mission. I’m thinking aloud, and I hope you will join in with your own opinions, thoughts, and variations on a theme.
A related term is ‘narrative drive,’ which I define (today, at this hour) as the author’s command of your attention and your emotional engagement in the story.
Good pacing draws a reader forward through the narrative without the reader ever sitting back to twiddle her thumbs or wonder what’s for dinner.
Poor pacing leaves a reader wondering ‘what’s for dinner, anyway?’
Pacing is not more and more events thrown down in front of the reader.
All-action all-the-time, wham bam There’s a Gun! does not necessarily constitute forward momentum in any way except for the breakneck speed with which events are presented to the reader and then moved off the page. I admit that your mileage may vary; some readers will be engaged by this form of storytelling, but I can’t describe it or analyze it because I can’t write it or read it.
Pacing is a balancing act between moving the plot - the physical or emotional events - and everything else that goes into creating a substantial narrative: the landscape, the characters, the philosophy or thematic elements, the musing and hammering that creates the foundation.
How does it work?
How do you as a writer create pacing that keeps the reader with you?
As a reader, what elements, in what balance, keep you moving forward through the narrative?
Humor me.
No, wait, I ve got a better idea let s torture the slimy bastard.
There s a barrel of pipeweed with our names on it back in Hobbiton.
I ll take it to Rivendell already you re just slowing me down.
First off, of course, my Russian publisher doesn t pay. They seem to have no intention of paying, in fact. They ve brought out at least 10 books and not one ruble have I received.
They did send me copies of 5 of the books though.
My French publisher has brought out 2 books and paid for one. I have not received a single copy of the books, though I suspect they re afraid to send them, since I can read French.
Their translator changed Nevyn s name. Yes, that s right the focus character who ties the entire series together is now Persaune, not Nevyn. The idiots thought Nevyn was English and thus needed translating.
I do not have high hopes for the quality of the translations, therefore.
The Germans killed their entire fantasy line two years ago, and no one bothered to tell me. Yet some of the books still seem to be in print, according to amazon.
de.
Finally, we have the Italian government in combination with our own dear IRS. This has nothing to do with the publishers, Editrices Nord, themselves, who have always treated me well.
But the Italian tax people, though a signatory to various tax treaties, will keep 25% of the monies owed me unless they get a certain form from the IRS by a certain date. The IRS is now charging $35 in a user fee for this form and it will take them 45 days to get me one.
How are such matters going with the rest of you?
The consensus reviews of the movie, The Nativity Story, are so respectful, almost comic textbook examples of damning with faint praise: competently dull tale of adolescent dilemmas.
I ll probably not see the movie, having seen and acted in so many dramatizations already in my earlier life. Twice I was even the Virgin .
Anyway, I know how the story turns out: with wars of religion.
But the Nativity was my first arc tale, and from the beginning I loved it with all my heart. My favorite parts were the Angels bringing the news to the Shepherds, the stable and animals, and the Three Wise Men adamantly following their astrological guide or the Three Kings, if you are from a Mediterrean heritage.
Note: I really do try not to duplicate my posts between this blog and , but every once in a while I write something that I think is pertinent to both places. Feel free to comment either here or on .
It s now been about five months since Pyr published my first novel .
It seems as good a time as any to sit back and take stock of my promotional efforts. What worked, what didn t work, what should I have done more of, what should I have done less of?
When I started to make a list of all the promotional efforts I ve made in the past year, I started to feel — well, a little embarrassed.
To an outsider, it must look like I do nothing all day but come up with ways to move copies of Infoquake. The Infoquakes Cereal pic here is meant to be a joke, but honestly, sometimes it feels like I ve tried everything but a sugary cereal for kids.
(Quick aside: Have you ever noticed that when companies say their cereal is part of this nutritious breakfast, the cereal box is always sitting next to a complete nutritious breakfast?
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Here, then, are the promotional efforts I did that I think were well worth doing:
Long time ago I started to talk about contracts and what they mean. I figure it s time I took up the gauntlet (as opposed to the gantlet) again. Last time it was Grant of Rights; the next paragraph in my contract covers Copyright.
The copyright in the Work will belong to the author. The Publisher is hereby authorized to register the copyright in the United States copyright in the name of the Author. The Publisher agrees the imprint the copyright notice authorized by the United States copyright laws in each copy of the Work distributed by the Publisher.At the end of the graph my Lovely Agent (hereafter LA) has inserted an important sentence: The publisher will require all sublicensees to imprint the copyright notice. Why is that important?The Author agrees with respect to any rights reserved to the Author hereunder to take all steps necessary to protect the copyright in the Work.
While you (technically) own copyright from the moment you write something, your hold on the copyright depends, to a certain extent, on vigorous defense thereof (which is why there s that sentence about the Author agreeing to take all steps necessary to protect the copyright in the work ). So if you and the Publisher make a deluxe subrights sale to AudioBooks Am Us, the publisher is required to make AudioBooks Am Us include the copyright notice (and make them include it correctly no slugging in someone else s name instead of yours).
In the days when I worked at Tor, I was the person responsible for filing the TX forms (the forms registering copyright in a text).
My understanding of the law is that you do own copyright from the moment you ve written your Work but filing the form cements your copyright in the finished work as it appears.
To return to that vigorous defense business: this is where things like fan fiction can cause trouble for a copyright holder. If Mona Ffysh-Ripple, author of Love s Avocado Dip, sues Deirdre Deebleknight for infringement of copyright, and Deirdre can prove that there are dozens, maybe hundreds of fan fic stories on the internet using her characters, plot and situations, Deirdre can argue that Mona has failed to vigorously defend copyright in her work, leaving the door open for her to borrow stuff too.
This is a vexed subject: a lot of publishers/production companies know that there s a marketing benefit to having people so immersed in your world that they want to continue that experience; still, you don t want to lose copyright and its economic benefits.
And really, that s what it comes down to: yes, copyright protects you from somone who might steal your work and say it is hers. But in the final analysis it s copyright that protects your right to make money from your work (and the publisher s right to make money from your work, and you d better believe they care about that publishers have mortgages and food bills too).
Well, last night was a first for me for a couple things, the second of which was a complete surprise: It was not only my screenwriting debut (actually story credit with script consultation, but most of the dialogue is right from my short story), but also my acting debut, a cameo with two brief lines of dialogue.
I also have the contract in hand now, so I can go ahead and broach radio (or actually blog) silence. Last spring, I met up with Robert Mims, a new producer looking for material for a short film.
I sent him a copy of Clove Smoke, a short of mine that s been well-received and even translated into Spanish. Next thing I know, I m looking at a screenplay adaptation by Robert s writing partner, Justin Queen.
A thumbs up, and next thing we re in the fast track.
Principal shooting finished yesterday at the House of Shields in San Francisco, where I d gone both to get to see the actual production of the filming of my story, and to set myself up for a cameo as background. Stephen Watts, the director, then surprised me by offering me the role of the bartender, since it gave me a speaking line and also offered some contrast visually since I d known the color palette the production designer was going with and I d dressed to match it, adding the red that the principal actors weren t wearing for the scene.
I also got to meet the actors, Anissa and Jason, who are playing Aurora and Jimmy, a strange bit of serendipity giving them the same initials.
They were great, both in terms of acting and in looking the parts. The second, in fact, even better than I d pictured them, thanks to Anissa s wardrobe (she s also a model) and Kirsten Larsen s skill as production designer. Richard Cascio, the director of photography, was also getting some amazing shots, or at least from what I was getting to see literally looking over his shoulder one shot was from the bardtender s perspective, so I was standing right behind him so Jason could get the right line of sight to my eyes for when we later reversed the shot.
And I stepped on a light box one of the grips had left behind the bar, mistaking it for some sort of platform you re supposed to step on. However, one fluorescent bulb is not a disaster and it was fascinating to watch a full production up close. The dolly shot curving around the bar was particularly amazing.
What was also amazing was the location. The House of Shields is a hundred years old, literally, being built in 1906 and opened in 1908 (delays caused by the great quake and fire). Edwardian lamps, the bar from the old Palace Hotel, coffered ceilings and so on.
Gorgeous. 
An interesting discussion came up with someone I do a lot of writing talk with.
She’s been studying openings very closely, and has come up with some extremely fine observations on what works and what doesn’t in genre, but she will choose the time and place when she shares the insights she’s still gathering.
But this particular discussion came up generally, over on Hatrack River. (I haven’t read the discussion no time, though I do have an interest only her summary.
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The topic was of pertinence especially to genre writers, I thought, and that is, readers at the beginning of a new book want less to know what is happening than to find out what is happening next.
It took me some time to wrap my tiny brain round this concept, but once I did, I thought, hoo boy, this is a toughie, at least for me. Especially at the start of a sequel in a roman fleuve storyarc.
What is meant is this: so many of us are anxious to get the reader oriented in our world, and how it works, that we tend to shove too much up at the front. We don’t want to risk losing the reader, but also, we are so invested in our world and its workings that all our details are fascinating to us. Until the reader gets invested, it’s just more detail to try to figure out, while one is also trying to pick up character clues and hints about what’s going on.
Thus a reader might get overwhelmed with stuff that will hopefully mean a lot to them as they get into the story but at the beginning, one doesn’t know what’s important and what is just setting or backdrop Gulp. Holding hand up in guilt.
This is a particular bugbear for sequels in genre, because we can t just blithely add in a quick phrase here and there: Mr Detective Hero, who was raised on the streets of New York Ms.
Ongoing Love Interest, a professional masseuse Each quick phrase provides us with braink-links to all kinds of data, but similar phrases added to the opening of book two in The Dragon-Vampires in Space trilogy ( Captain Thundernuts of the sporble-craft Stenchpuff S llot ta the zipril of famed Klusterduk ) don t clue us in to anything just pile on the questions. Readers want to know what’s happening and who it’s happening to. That’s first.
And then why, and where. Trying to remember that now as my mantra, and I thought I’d share it and see what others think.
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