6. Pace
Much of screenwriter William Goldman’s wonderful Adventures in the Screen
Trade can be applied to other types of writing. Goldman advises getting
into each scene as late as possible, and out of it as early as possible. Faulty
pacing in almost any work can be corrected with this advice.
There’s
no need to begin scenes by laboriously explaining how characters arrived there,
or to open an article or essay with excessive setup or introduction. If you
find you’ve done this, chances are a more interesting way to begin follows just
after what you’ve written. Similarly, many writers put an empty paragraph at
the end of a scene or section. When revising my novels, I experiment by cutting
the first and last paragraph of each scene. Suddenly, a sequence that dragged
can become speedy. Arrive late in a scene and leave early. The reader will fill
the gaps.
—Morrell
7. Unity
One method for creating a sense of unity in a piece of writing is the use of selective
repetition. A detail or remark or even just a unique word mentioned early in
your piece can be echoed later, creating a sense of wholeness through the
reader’s recognition of the previous mention. That recognition also imbues the
repeated element with a resonance, not unlike a coda in a musical composition.
The reader enjoys a satisfying sense of progression, of having moved from one
literary moment to another.
Reread
a piece you’re working on with an eye toward finding that element you could
repeat in a subtle way, and then look for a place later in the piece where you
could drop it in. If you’re unsure which one would be most affective,
experiment by trying several. Ask yourself: If you had to cut all the details
or images and retain only one, which one would you keep? That’s the one you
want.
—Heffron
8. Sentence Structure
Well. I don’t know that any writer in the 21st century worries about subjects
and predicates. Or believes that one shouldn’t begin a sentence with and
or but or or. Or thinks contractions are slang. So I don’t have
much to say on this matter.
But
this is important.
Generally,
I don’t like rules for writers. The First Amendment doesn’t, either. But the
English language is democracy in action. It responds to its users. If it didn’t,
we’d still be saying “prithee” and calling taxis “hacks.” Hence, my 30-minute
recommendation is to sit down and write whatever moves you, following only one
rule:
Don’t bore anybody.
—Spikol
9. Word Choice
The poet Frank O’Hara is rumored to have given this advice: “If you think in
pictures, write. If you think in words, paint.”
This
turns out to provide some guidance on word choice. If you’re stuck on a word,
sketch what it is you’re trying to describe. It doesn’t matter how good you are
at drawing. What matters is the employment of a different skill set, a portion
of the brain distinct from the one that has been searching for the mot juste.
Or
consider a soundtrack for the scene. Let the scene play out in time along with
the music, or read it aloud with the music as background. When you employ a
different depictive medium than mere words, different associative threads (or
synaptic connections) can be brought to bear on the task.
—Corbett
10.
Rhythm is the subliminal soundtrack in writing. To explore options for moving a
reader along, choose a dramatic passage from a published piece you admire. How
do you feel when you read it? (Notice your breathing, heart rate, posture and
emotions.) How did the writer provoke this response? How do word pairings and sentence
and paragraph structures contribute to its momentum? How do these rhythmic
choices serve the piece’s meaning?
Now,
write a passage that echoes the patterns you’ve discovered. If the first
sentence is three short words, yours should be, too. Where a descriptive image
blossoms for a paragraph, let yours do the same. Communicate emotion through
your rhythm. You might let rage stutter through the syncopation of words and
halting punctuation, or stream through run-on sentences. Notice how these
choices support or squelch the surrounding narrative. Just as a musician
practices scales until they become second nature, your attention to the
mechanics of rhythm will help you improvise over time.
—Cohen
11. Inspiration
In my writing classes, I devote a session to daydreams, which are spontaneous
messages from our subconscious. After one of my presentations, a puzzled member
of the audience raised his hand and asked what a daydream was. Others were
surprised, but I wasn’t. Not everyone has a daydream-friendly mind. In fact,
some people have been taught to repress daydreams as mere distractions.
As
writers, however, we should not only welcome daydreams, but train ourselves to
be aware of them. In fact, the cores of most of my novels have come from
daydreams. Daydreams are our primal storyteller at work, sending us scenes and
topics that our imagination or subconscious wants us to investigate. Each day,
we should devote time (I usually do this before sleeping) to reviewing our
daydreams and determining which of them insists on being turned into a story.
Don’t push away those daydreams that make you uncomfortable: The more shocking
the daydream, the more truthful about us it is. Embrace that truth.
—Morrell
12. Balance
Creating a sense of balance in your piece is similar to creating unity (see the
opposite page), but the repeated element is even more obviously connected to
its earlier use. A classic example: In The Great Gatsby, as F. Scott
Fitzgerald introduces us to the Buchanans in early summer, he emphasizes the
breeze blowing through the room, billowing the curtains and the women’s dresses.
Later, the same characters seated in the same place are shown in the heat of
summer as weighted down, dispirited, languid. The connection between these
descriptions creates balance and gives the reader a keen (if not necessarily
conscious) sense of progression. It also implies that the characters are no
longer free and airy, but encumbered by the circumstances that have arisen.
Set
aside 30 minutes to reread your work, looking for a description, scene or
metaphor that you can repeat later with some aspect changed to serve as a
counterweight to the first usage.
—Heffron
