Pacing And Dialogue Make Me Insecure

It's the first Wednesday of the month so that means it's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. The purpose is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Together we are going to rock the neurotic writing world!

One thing I feel insecure about is the pacing of The Most Magical Place. I mean how long should one scene be? In my outline i had a scene taking up one slot, but as I started writing it grew. It is now extremely long and looks like it could be broken in 2 or even 3 places. What details are too trivial to include and which flesh out the characters or settings? I am also wary of an info dump because a character who has been dealing with the situation my hero has just been dropped into has come on stage. I'm sure some of it will get cut and I'm trying not to worry about it now, but man it's feeling a little out of control. What do you do when a scene seems packed with things you want to share with your readers, but is getting too long? How do you rearrange things to make room for a new scene you didn't anticipate?

Another thing that is giving me trouble is dialog. When I envision my characters talking to one another it always seems smooth and well put together, but somehow that doesn't translate onto the page. Often when I reread what I wrote the characters that aren't interacting. They are just standing or sitting there talking at each other. In my mind's eye they are moving and doing stuff or at least showing some sort of reaction to what they've just heard. Other than rolling their eyes. I don't want my beloved characters to become automatons. How do you remember to make your characters move around as well as speak? Do you have a guide to how much dialog you use?

The last thing on my neurotic writer list is my inner editor. Oh, this lady has some nerve! I am forever gagging (Which always ends up with garish red lipstick all over my hands.) and tying her up then shoving her in a closet. Unfortunately somehow she finds her way out again and back into my head. When I tell her to get the hell out she just laughs. I think I need to find a new strategy for dealing with her. Maybe I will take her pointy red glasses and poke the lenses out or maybe I could see if her beehive hair do has enough product in it to set on fire. What strategies do you use to get past your inner editor? What does your editor look like to you?

Please be sure you leave a comment to say hello. Don't forget to let me know where you are visiting from so I can follow you back and see what you're up to.

ROW80 August & September Goals Rundown

1. Write 2 Poms every day.
I wrote on Sunday and Monday, but skipped Tuesday. I had an MRI in the early evening and the sedative they gave me made me very distractable. Just in case you didn't know being shoved in a tube is not fun.

2. Post for every ROW80 check-in.
I'm here and I'm doing it. Keeping it moving and making sure I am keeping myself accountable is a big part of my plan, but ROW80 has taught me to be flexible and not beat myself up when I make a misstep.

3. Spend 1 Pom per day visiting ROW80 friends.
I did go and visit some of you. I only had time for 5 of my wonderful ROW80 friends, but I spent my pom which was my goal.

4. Post to Twitter on ROW80 days.
Still keeping up with this and not letting it stress me out anymore.

Photos by Pixabay.

Stuck At The Bottom Of A Martini

While people who are easy going and polite are a treasure to have in your company. They are boring to write about and I assume if they are boring me to write about they would be boring to read about. I mean stuff blew up and that was interesting and fun. The female main character was scared and angry yelling at the male main character while attempting to put as much distance between them as possible and that made for interesting writing, but I am in a lull between moving away from one event and moving to another. They are sitting awkwardly in a living room talking about the freaking weather. The weather?! I wanted him to say something quipy and slightly antagonistic to rial her back up, but I don't even know what about. I am stuck and she is all like, "My martini is gone and he has been looking down at his mostly empty glass for over 15 hours! Get a move on writer lady!" All that she says to me, but not what they should talk about or how to get to the next scene. I'm about to just stop trying to force this scene, leave a note and MOVE ON!

Please leave me a comment and let me know what do you do when you have a general idea of what kind of interaction you want to occur, but are lacking the specifics? Where do you turn for ideas? How do you feel about leaving a note and moving on? Make sure to let me know where you are visiting from so I can follow you back and see what you're up to.

So moving on...

Today's mascot is a typing duck!

ROW80 July Goals Rundown

1. Write at least 800 words per day on my Camp NaNo novel The Most Magical Place.
Was doing really well on this, but only wrote just over 200 so far today and I am not thinking I will make it because it is already after 9 and I am working on this.

2. Post for every ROW80 check-in.
Well, this is the first and I'm here. YAY!!! OK, so maybe it's not that exciting, but like I said I'm feeling bored and restless.

3. Spend 1 Pom per day visiting ROW80 friends.
I was able to do this and have visited lots of friends, but don't remember exactly how many. I also made sure to leave a comment.

4. Post to Twitter every day.
Yeah, I completely forgot to even post when I got my initial goals post out. So set an alarm on my phone to remind me. The worst part about posting on Twitter is I usually get stuck there for a while because there are so many good links to check out.

photo credit: ducktyping via photopin (license)
Other photos by Pixabay.

A Good Chase

I have been working on my main work in progress and have come to a dilemma. I need to write a chase scene. I want it to be exciting and meaningful all at the same time. I have been doing some research and looking around the interwebs information and advice on writing a good chase scene.

Some of the tips that I ran into several times said in many different ways are:

Make each sentence simple and precise – Short sentences make the reading flow much faster keeping the action flowing. It would be hard to keep up the pulse pounding action while your character takes time to jimmy open a window. Just smash it instead.

Use active verbs – [thing doing action] + [verb] + [thing receiving action] Yeah I know it's not quite that simple, but what I am trying to say is don't find an amazing euphemism for an explosion. Just have the car explode.

Avoid all qualifiers – Nearly and almost only count in horseshoes and grenades. Something should either happen or not.

Stay on your character – Action scenes are sometimes so complex we are tempted to describe the whole setting. What people really care about most are your characters and what is happening to them.

I think these suggestions will help me write a pulse pounding chase scene. Do you have any tips I didn't cover? Do you use a completely different method? Please share, I would love to get all the help I can before I dive into my first chase scene.


photo credit: jenny downing via photopin cc

photo credit: ˙Cаvin 〄 via photopin cc