In this video we'll be looking at jack becomes pacing exercise. In writing and selling your novel become recommends an excellent exercise to get a feel for how pacing is affected by the different fiction delivery modes, those modes of discourse. For this exercise, you'll need an assortment of six colored highlighters and a chapter from a novel you'd like to analyze. You may want to photocopy the chapter because you'll be marking up the pages. Before you start review the characteristics of each of the following modes of discourse from the previous lecture. Dramatic summary, dramatic action, dialogue, narration, description, and exposition.
Think of this exercise as creative play. Read through the chapter highlighting each mode of discourse you recognize with an identifying color become suggests drop dramatic summary Read dramatic action in orange dialog in yellow narration in black, description in green, and exposition in blue. You can pick your own colors. whatever colors you choose, I'd suggest marking dialogue first, because it's the easiest to locate by the quotation marks include the identifying tags and the body language as part of dialogue, he said she said, He nodded. Once you've done dialogue, mark the other passages identifying each mode of discourse discourse by its characteristics. When you've got the paper marked up fully, reread the chapter thinking about your own reactions as a reader.
When do you lose track of time and feel your eyes moving faster over the words or feel tension, anxiety or other emotions? If you don't feel any of those, maybe you pick the wrong chapter to mark up. When do you feel yourself distancing from the words to become more aware of your own surroundings, which mode of discourse was used when you became aware of these changes? Remember that pacing is related to every other factor in your writing. Intense, fast paced scenes call for energetic verbs and deeply intense character viewpoint, using dramatic action, balanced by less wordy but meaningful sequences that form an effective bridge with narration and description. characterization viewpoint pacing, suspense, word choice, and modes of discourse all have their effects on pacing, experiment with them all.
The more you play with these fiction elements, the greater your understanding of the effects of the words you write on your readers. Your mastery of storytelling will increase and solely your readers enjoyment. Try this exercise with different passages different authors And your own writing. Add pacing to the things you notice when you're going through your days. One great way of working with pacing while having fun is to rewatch movies that you love. noticing the pacing of the scenes, when the close up and when the wide angle when the time of storytime actually goes by pretty quickly in between scenes, and how much time is devoted to those exciting scenes.
Compared to how much story real storytime there was. Time The chase scenes noticing how much of the movie they take. Notice the high tension scenes in the movie, and what elements in the scenes increase your pacing time the exciting scene and locate the shorter softer sequels that bridge between scenes. Adding visual images to your pacing playbook will enrich your mastery of pacing in writing. How Fun and may the Muse be with you. If you enjoyed this course I hope you did.
I'd love it if you leave a review, review and let me know what you enjoyed and also what you'd like to see in future courses. This is Vanessa Graf and I really look forward to seeing you again in my courses and check back and take a look and see what gets added from time to time because I like putting things in and adding and expanding the courses as time goes on. Have a great day.