Topic for July *EDITED*

[Zorknot]

Sure, Jenny, feel free to use whatever you want. 

[10thMuse]

Well I'm sure everyone knows I won't be there in person, just spirit as it takes too long to drive from Eureka to Memphis for some reason.     But hopefully I can sweet talk Hilaire into taking notes and passing them on.

Jenny, I have some good articles I found on both areas, so if you'd like them for research etc., let me know and I will forward them on to you via email.

What's kinda cool is I just finished reading "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins and as I was reading it, the writer side me who likes to take notes was whispering about how the book's pacing was so incredibly well done, that I am still in awe.  I went out and bought my own copy to use as an example of this.  I think pacing is sometimes more important than we realize, until you get a hold of a good example.  (Realistically everything in writing is important in some sense but just sayin' - it's not the first thing I think of and only a handful of people really nail it on the head consistently imo)

Have fun at the meeting!

[skald79]

You needn't sweet me. I'll take notes.    I'll even endeavor to make them readable! 

Leon Uris' book, "Exodus" was an excellent book, full of history and really made you feel the plight of the people who struggled to make a home in Israel and the myriad feelings about making it a separate country way back when.  HOWEVER, the pacing did kind of suck.  While the historical parts of ancestors served a purpose, OMG did it slow the story down!  I appreciated those sections after slogging through it the first time, but admittedly the first time (it was a summer reading assignment for school) I really had to force myself to keep chugging through those sections.

I think we all can point out books where we know the pacing was off.  I think if it's dead on we only think about the pace once the book is finished.  Like, "wow, I just couldn't put that book down."

Okay, I'm gonna stop rambling now.....

[Zorknot]

Anne Rice got bad about the historical stuff in some of her novels too.

[Dev]

Poll is closed and I've modified the original post to reflect the topic of the meeting.

[Zorknot]

One question I have about pacing is when to worry about it. Is it something you can fix while you're writing, or do you really need to have a full draft before messing with it?

Also there's the pacing that you have to worry about to keep readers interested, but there's also pacing at the level of plot. For instance I have a supporting character who I really like, but who is a little evil (a la Spike from Buffy) and I want them to eventually become more friendly, but I keep finding myself jumping the gun and having them help out when really they wouldn't yet without some other impetus. And I often have stories where there is some secret that needs to be revealed, but I keep wanting to put the revelation scene in too early.

Any thoughts?

[skald79]

Premature revelation.  I think they make a ring....wait, no, wrong problem. 

I think if you outline an arc of your story, so you know when it needs to be revealed from the get-go you can build up and keep yourself from spilling the beans too soon. 

[Zorknot]

Maybe I'm not outlining enough, but even with an outline it takes a lot of patience to build up properly to a climax.

Then again, I guess what you should really shoot for is...

multiple climaxes



[EDIT: the management apologizes for the above comment. The people responsible have been sacked.]

[Dev]

http://www.writersdigest.com/article/how-to-make-your-novel-a-page-turner/

[Num]

How was it? 

[skald79]

Well, we mostly had a group discussion. Jenny's research led her to conclude that the pacing stuff she found wasn't exactly the pacing issues we had in mind.  We hammered away at the topic and figured out that a rough outline of sorts consisting of your heart-clutching moments (see above link) helps set the general pace.  The stuff before and in-between can be tweaked, added, deleted, whatever to achieve your desired pace.  In general, you don't want to tire your reader (Jenny referenced a horrid book she read that was nothing but action scene after action scene and no real story).  Even if you are aiming for a fluid meandering literary style, it must flow and not come to a stop and stagnate in a pool of useless description or dialogue with no purpose.

The things we seem to have issues with are those in between sections. Are they too slow?  Too fast? Too boring?  I believe my reply on that topic was write it and then either set it aside and come back later and read the story as a reader vs writer or give it to another set of eyes to look at.

I think we had a tangential discussion about fanfic.

Nominated peeps for board. I'm running again, Brad and Matt are running, and Dan is electing not to run again. So we have just enough peeps for the positions available.  Such a heated race...lol.  Official vote will be next month.

[Dev]

There were also some rad drawings by yours truly.

[Num]

Sorry I missed it -I had intended to be there, but I was on call at work and it seems they only call on the weekends when you're trying to do something... on the plus and minus of it, I got about fifteen hours of work in... so, yeah... 

[skald79]

Well, more $ isn't a bad thing. Hopefully you can make the next meeting.

[exilesrequiem]

Sorry I missed y'all... even though I was working, the greater tragedy was my forgetfulness. If only I could take Dan's advice and get a personal assistant!