Zero Blogs: Pacing · 9:07pm Jan 17th, 2016
Looked at the EQD critique in a little better detail today. To my everlasting chagrin, the biggest problem the reader had was STILL the pacing. That overall, the story felt too rushed. So I skimmed over my story to try and get an idea of where he was coming from. And now, at last, I think I finally understand why people keep saying that.
Those of you who know me know that I'm a very "straight-to-the-point" kind of person. I don't take kindly to filler or padding and much prefer a straight line to any form of walk-around.
That works fine for one-shots but not so well with multi-parts. Judging by past experience, trying to be short and to the point in a multi-part story tends to generate the feeling that the author isn't digging deep enough. That we're only getting a small snapshot of the rest of the world.
"But Zero," you tell me, "Isn't that the point? You said before that you don't want to shoehorn pointless exposition into the story."
That's true. If you're writing a story about a war between sea creatures, you don't want to waste three paragraphs on how their language works. That doesn't add to the actual plot in any way and just comes off as boring filler.
But at the same time, you can't have no exposition whatsoever either. With no idea of what's going on, the audience has no reason to invest themselves into the setting or the characters. And since I'm writing a fanfiction, I feel like I might have depended too heavily on the fact that the audience already knows how the characters look and act. I didn't do enough to make them my own. You see a bit of that when Knight of the Raven, Admiral Ponyform and *spits* Cryosite pointed out that the first chapters of the story followed after the movie too much. Sure, I deviated later; but looking back, I might have been better off making it my interpretation of the movie events.
Rose: How do you do that?
I have no idea. I first noticed this problem when writing one of Spark's now-scrapped chapters. Long story short, I didn't describe Crystal Prep in enough detail so when a fire broke out, the situation felt a little contrived.
So what's a would-be novelist to do about this problem?
Solution: Write filling but don't write filler.
I'm going to try and write more details but keep them rooted in the plot. For example, rather than describe the Dazzlings twice in the span of two chapters, their first appearance can have them plotting instead. That also fixes the omniscient narrator problem the guy mentioned too.
I'll keep you guys posted and await your feedback.
Zero Out.
That is true. I personally like your stories, but even I can admit that sometimes the pacing can be a bit... wonky... at times. Sometimes, It would be good to actually expand on what a character is thinking every now and then, or even just a conversation that can start off unrelated to the plot but then turn into something plot-relevant. Like you said, filling that is plot-relevant.