Writing Tools

One of my hopes for the Writing Tools blog is that readers will have a comfortable place to ask questions or to contribute their own most effective and useful strategies. The first one comes from a writer with The Dallas Morning News, a man with a handsome byline:  Bill Marvel.

Bill's advice has a Zen ring to it, that to speed up the narrative you might have to slow it down. Here's Bill:

I wouldn't glorify this by calling it a "strategy," but it's something I've learned writing a 130,000-word non-fiction narrative (for Harper/Collins -- long past deadline; but that's another story). Narrative is all in the pacing. I move the action along as briskly as possible -- short subject-verb-object sentences -- until I get to the high point, or turning point, or hinge. Then I abruptly slow things down. Pause to let the reader look at the scene, assess the characters' motives, dwell on details.

As strange as it seems, in a quickly moving narrative these passages actually gain energy. I probably picked up this technique unconsciously from the movies. Think "Bonnie and Clyde": the closer they get to the final shoot-out, the more the narrative pauses to look around: Deputies waiting beside the road, flock of birds taking flight. The final ambush is in slow motion. It's a technique I've been able to import into my writing here at the News, not unnoticed by my editor who tells me I'm a better writer these days.

Thank you, Bill, for launching the interactive part of the Writing Tools blog. Your strategy reminds me of another I've noticed over years of watching reruns of Law & Order. Most faithful watchers recognize the formula: dead body found at the beginning by players we will never see again; intense police investigation; some problem in the gathering of evidence; shift to the prosecutors half-way through; key piece of evidence thrown out; a surprise discovery near the end; the verdict; comment on the verdict.

During every show, of course, detectives or assistant DAs interview suspects or potential witnesses. Often, these interviews happen in interrogation rooms, but they can also happen in someone's home or school or workplace. On such occasions, the person being interviewed seems pressed for time. The doctor has a patient to see, the socialite must return to her guests, the truck driver has to make a delivery, the student needs to get to class. That slight compression of time adds a bit of urgency to the talk -- the sense that detectives have only a couple of minutes to find out something important.

If you have a question about the writing craft, or if you'd like to contribute a favorite strategy, please contact us here.