Pacing
I had a miniphany that I want to get down.
“Do you have your pack?”
I swung it off my back and held it up in answer. I had gotten into the habit of grabbing it whenever things got busy since I’d gotten here.
“I” is the latest intrepid hero. This takes place in the morning of his fourth day in the village. No one picks up habits in four days. Not to mention the past perfect tense with “had” implying “long since”.
That’s not what this post is about, but the time frustration thing finally broke something loose. The pace of a character’s life and the pace of the reader’s experience don’t need to match.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that each day is divided into four parts: Vocation, Maintenance, Personal, and Sleep. The character’s life proceeds for a year.
No one cares about sleep, so we skip that (by mentioning it briefly – not not mentioning it all).
If all the author writes about is the Vocation parts, the reader will be exhausted from all the action. All the stuff that has happened to the intrepid hero above by Chapter 19 could still happen by Chapter 19. The difference being that much more time has passed. While the reader is well aware of the undocumented three quarters of his life (“he ate another quick meal and was asleep as his head hit the pillow”), it has not affected the reading pace.
If all the author writes about is the Maintenance parts, the reader will be impressed (or bored) by the hero’s dedication to his vocation. The reader is still aware of the other three-quarters of his life, but what the author focuses on makes it seem as if all the guy does is train.
If all the author writes about is the Personal parts, there tends to be no narrative. Some dude just living his life isn’t very interesting.
The genre is what the vocation is and how you mix them. If the vocation is “adventurer” and the focus is on Vocation and Maintenance, you’ve got the typical LitRPG book. If the vocation is “detective” and the focus is on Vocation, you’ve got a Procedural. When was the last time you read about a cop putting gas in his cruiser? Maintenance is missing from that genre; perhaps the hero goes the range once in a while. If the vocation is an avocation and the focus is on Personal, you’ve got a cozy.
None of that affects time! What the author chooses to focus on does not change the rhythm of the character’s everyday life.
This is obviously simplified, but the point is that neither author focus/pace nor reader pace sets the pace/timeline of the character’s life.
That is what I find so difficult to write: The stuff I purposefully do not write. How do you skip the out-of-focus bits without accelerating time for the character or starting each chapter with “On the next day…”
Just because I’ve noticed this problem – both in my own writing attempts and the works of others – doesn’t mean I have a solution.
A fairly common one just occurred to me: Change time when you change point-of-view.
The book from which the quote is taken is in first person with one protagonist. There is no point-of-view switching to cheat with. Since I have no intent to write in first person, that’s not my problem.
What about immediately after chapter start? This snippet fits my “chapters end with endings” goal and defers the problem into the next chapter.
<Epic fight scene that I don’t want to write, now>
We are calling this point A.
“That. was. exhausting,” Tom panted as he nearly collapsed to the ground. Luke looked over and nodded.
“Yep,” he acknowledged, “but it reeks of blood here.” Despite the complaint, Luke flopped down as well. “It’s going to attract scavengers,” he half-heartedly warned.
“Don’t care,” was Tom’s only reply.
We are calling this point B.
Point A would make a fine end-of-chapter. The fight is over therefore the chapter is also over. Point B might be a better choice.
If point B starts the next chapter, it becomes difficult to skip ahead. Shadows can move across the clearing, distant noises can become closer as the warned-of scavengers approach, they can chat as they slowly recover, or all three things can happen. But it has to be written.
If point B ends the chapter, the next one can start with “The sun was setting by the time they made it back to camp.” The passage of time can just slide in between chapters without having to write about it.
Of course, if the purpose of the next chapter is to have them fight scavengers while being exhausted, point B makes a better beginning because point A makes an acceptable ending.
Am I overthinking this? Probably. But time in books is the number one reason I either like or dislike them. I want it to flow smoothly (not necessarily evenly) without the reader paying much, if any, attention to it.
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