WCIT: Pacing in Sailor Moon, vol. 12

Welcome to What Can I Take (WCIT) Thursdays, a feature dedicated to looking at our favorite books for tips we writers can take to improve our own writing (or at least get some hints to address those trouble spots). 

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This WCIT will focus more on what not to do with pacing, as I think those are just as important as what to do, and, as you know from my Tuesday review of volume 12 of the Sailor Moon manga, my biggest problem with the book was its poor pacing. Really, I thought all of the things I didn't enjoy about that volume stemmed from this problem, which shows the importance of striking the right balance with pacing. I think I have a bit of tendency to ramble when I write and to try and include a lot of extraneous details. That combined with my preference for long books over short likely contributes heavily to my own issues with pacing (I ascribe to the slow and steady wins the race school of thought).

Gerry Visco draws a helpful distinction for us as regards to what pacing is, which he describes as essentially manipulation of time. Involved in that manipulation are several tools, of which I picked a couple that really stood out to me: the scene, the summary, and the flashback. The scene is a moment in a time, it covers a short period of time in a long passage, whereas the summary, as you've likely guessed, covers a long period of time in a short passage.

Volume 12's biggest issues I think stems from not making the most of these two tools in particular. The scenes we should have been treated to—such as scenes of the original scouts fighting the enemy or the new scouts actually explaining things instead of just being cryptic and famous (they're disguised as pop stars)—were instead summarized in a page or two, when those should have been the bulk of the story. In contrast, pages and pages were devoted to an issue that really should have been solved in the second chapter, or at least summarized as having been an issue that is no longer an issue.

Takeuchi generally makes good use of the flashback in the series, but in this volume, she mostly uses it to fill us in on (POTENTIAL SPOILER follows) the untimely off-screen demise of some of the Sailor Scouts. We do get some great examples of flashbacks, though, when she uses them to give us some exposition on the enemy. We not only get the enemy fleshed out as a character, but it was appropriately timed and allowed us to catch our breath after the harrowing events that preceded it.

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So what can I take?

• Think carefully about which events you will summarize, and which you will portray in a scene. These really set, not only the pace of your story, but the tone as well. If you choose to focus more on the human relationships over the action, then obviously the type of story you write will be very different from what it would have been if your focus had been the action instead of the relationships.
• Take care to balance exposition with action. I think too much of either can be distracting to the reader, and leave the reader feeling like something's missing.
• Be conscious of when your readers might need a breather or to pick up speed a bit. Follow Takeuchi's lead and write some (calmer) exposition after especially tense action scenes (provided that this fits with the tone you want to create for your story).

Try it out!
Take an action event and the events that follow it. Write these action event as a scene and the aftermath as a summary, then switch the two. Try the action scene as a flashback in the middle of the aftermath events. Take note of how the tone and movement of the story change in each variation. Don't forget your basic building block, the sentence, can have an impact as well! Varying your senentence structure can help adjust the influence pacing as well!


Any questions? Comments? Extra tips to add about pacing? Share them in the comments! And I'd love to see what you write, so please share it either in the comments or shoot me an email.

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WCIT: Voice in The 5th Wave

Welcome to What Can I Take (WCIT) Thursdays, a feature dedicated to looking at our favorite books for tips we writers can take to improve our own writing (or at least get some hints to address those trouble spots). 

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We begin with Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave, of which, as I mentioned in my review of the book on Monday, my favorite part was the writing. Absolutely gorgeous, poetic, and a true delight to read. But, in addition to that, there were two other things about Yancey's writing that really impressed me (and I thought made this book stick out from so many):

1) The way Yancey wove certain phrases and ideas throughout the book, across the multiple perspectives he uses, sometimes using the exact same phrases in a new circumstance to give them a completely different meaning. This repetition also allows him to tie things up rather nicely, while still leaving loose ends for the later books to pick up. Not related to voice, but worth mentioning.

2) Yancey's choice to tell the story through four different voices: Cassie, Zombie, Silencer, and Nugget. This choice isn't in and of itself unusual, but I thought the way he carried it out was (and this is the first things I think we can take from T5W to apply to our own writing). Instead of cycling through the perspectives in a particular order, he picks up a perspective when it is useful for his purposes and drops it when it has fulfilled that purpose. I took a writing class this past semester, and my teacher was always talking about how when we write, we often feel the need to fill the reader in on everything—it's hard to know how much background they need to know for your point to be effectively conveyed, after all. The consequence of that is the reader getting bogged down with unnecessary details. So, my teacher was always encouraging us not to be afraid of just dropping in the information we wanted the reader to know with little to no preamble (adjusting as necessary, of course). Using a phrase or a literary technique when it's useful, and letting it drop when that use has been expended.

Yancey does this beautifully, and he uses it to his advantage to keep tension running high throughout the story. You learn in one section that the army is evil and in the next section, you're thinking, well, maybe not? It's a wonderful tactic that I think is heavily responsible for the book's ability to pull you right into the story so you feel like you're right there next to Cassie as she sleeps in her tent or Zombie as he trains, and you are feeling the same disorientation that the people in this world are experiencing.Who really is the bad guy? This technique really helps this story world come alive for me.

The second thing that I think we can take away from T5W is the distinctiveness of each individual voice. Cassie's voice is very different from Zombie's voice, which is very different from Silencer's voice, which is different than Nugget's voice. When we would switch sections, even before Yancey told us whose head we were in, I could tell. I really respect that, because distinct voices is something I really struggle with in my own writing. What I noticed is you can kind of see how he distinguishes these voices by looking at the choices he makes when constructing his sentences. Cassie's voice is skeptical and sarcastic, but you still feel her teenage girl essence through her use of everyday, teenage vernacular such as creeper, heebie-jeebies, and longer sentences and figurative language. Zombie's, on the other hand, tends to feature shorter, more straightforward sentences, that get to the point. There are fewer memories present in his section, and he speaks like a (non-teenage) young adult, though occasionally, you'll catch flashes of the teenage boy he is. Nugget's is clinical, simple, straight-to-the-point, and Silencer's, matter-of-fact, but tinged with a bit of wonder. Having read the book, I think all of these are perfectly written to express the essence of these characters.

So, how do we copy Yancey? Take a page from his book. Look at the way Cassie relates her experiences versus the way Zombie relates his. Everything from the way you construct a sentence (Is the sentence written in passive or active voice? Is it sarcastically phrased or take-me-at-face-value phrased?) to the words you choose to construct that sentence ("hightailed it" vs. "ran away," "He's creeping me out!" vs. "He was making me nervous.") all reflect your character's personality, circumstances, and experiences. The teacher I mentioned before had us start the class by only writing with simple sentences. It forced us to stop and think about what we actually wanted to say as opposed to thinking about how we wanted to say it, which then made us aware of how we were saying things as he slowly started letting us open up our assignments again to more natural, figurative, complex sentences.

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So what can I take?

• Only use what you need, when you need it. Don't be afraid to trust the reader.
• Don't forget the power of the sentence and the things we use to construct them (punctuation included!).
• Read with a critical eye! If you find a phrase that really strikes you, ask yourself why? You can learn a lot about strong and effective writing when you do that.

Try it out!
Take three characters. Write a short piece in which each one of them recounts the exact same incident from his or her own perspective. Take care to think about how each character might notice certain things over others, the type of language he or she likely to use, and the way he or she tends to express him or herself. (Does she use slang or proper language? Does he tend to ramble or are his observations short and to the point?)

(Writing prompt made by me. Please give due credit if republished.)

Any questions? Comments? Extra tips to add about voice? Share them in the comments! And I'd love to see what you write, so please share it either in the comments or shoot me an email. I might share what I write with you guys too!

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