The best stories have an arc of rising action flowing smoothly from scene to scene. The changes from scene to scene should feel organic to the narrative and not jar the reader.
These transitions are often small moments of conversation, italicized thoughts (internal dialogues), or contemplations written as free indirect speech. These moments are a form of action that can work well when a hard break, such as a new chapter, doesn’t feel right. The reader and the characters receive information simultaneously, but only when they need it.
Pacing has a scientific equation that can be described in two ways:
Action + reaction +action +reaction = pacing.
Push + glide + push +glide = pacing.
Usually, the overall pacing isn’t apparent while the reader is involved in the story. However, if the pacing is off, a narrative can quickly become jarring or boring, and readers will notice that.
Dialogue is an excellent tool for the reaction part of the pacing equation, but it must have a purpose and move toward a conclusion of some sort. This means conversations or ruminations should offer information of some kind to keep moving the story forward.
What can be revealed in conversations or free indirect speech? Necessary information is the obvious answer, but what else? We use it as a component of world-building to convey the atmosphere and show the scene. We also use it to expand on our theme.
A character’s personal mood can be shown in many ways. A moment of gallows humor lightens and shows certain characters as human. Exchanging information about the backstory in a bantering way when characters are under great stress is more entertaining than a blunt dump.
Whether humor comes into it or not, moments of regrouping and processing what just occurred are necessary for the reader as well as for the pacing.
Sometimes, a writer comes to the end of a scene and doesn’t know how to transition to the next. We have a choice to either end it with a hard break or write a short transition scene.
I always look at the overall length of what has gone before. If it’s too short, say 500 or so words, I look for a way to expand the action without slowing it, or I write a brief transition scene.
For the transition conversation, whether it’s an internal monologue or spoken aloud, I ask myself three questions:
- Who needs to know what?
- Why must they know it?
- How many words do I intend to devote to it?
Once I know what must be conveyed and why, I find myself walking through the Minefield of Too Much Exposition.
It is easy to write long paragraphs with lines and lines and lines of uninterrupted dialogue.
Trim that back to “Just the facts, ma’am,” and add a little guesswork to show the characters don’t know everything. We have to keep the carrot (information) dangling just out of reach, or we’ll lose the reader.
We want to avoid bloated exposition because readers will skip over walls of words, hoping to “get to the good part,” and they could miss the information they need, lending confusion to the narrative.
A certain amount of information from the protagonist’s point of view can be dispersed via indirect speech. The point of view character is an unreliable narrator, so their thoughts and conversations are suspect. It’s a good way to misdirect the reader and add an element of surprise when their suppositions are proven wrong.
Let’s look at a scene that opens upon a place where the reader and the protagonists must receive information. The way the characters speak to us can take several forms:
- Direct dialogue: Nattan said, “I was going to give it to Benn in Fell Creek, but he wasn’t home, and I had to get on the road.”
- Italicized thoughts: Nattan stood looking out the window. Benn’s not home. What now?
- Free indirect speech: Nattan stood looking out the window. Benn wasn’t home, so who should he give it to?
Wikipedia describes free indirect speech as a style of third-person narration that uses some of the characteristics of a third-person point of view along with the essence of a first-person direct speech.
The following is an example of sentences using direct, indirect and free indirect speech:
Quoted or direct speech: He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. “And just what pleasure have I found, since I came into this world?” he asked.
Reported or normal indirect speech: He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. He asked himself what pleasure he had found since he came into the world.
Free indirect speech: He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. And just what pleasure had he found, since he came into this world?
According to British philologist Roy Pascal, Goethe and Jane Austen were the first novelists to use this style consistently and nineteenth century French novelist Flaubert was the first to be consciously aware of it as a style. [1]
When I began writing seriously, I was in the habit of using italicized thoughts and characters talking to themselves to express what was happening inside them.
That wasn’t wrong, but I used italics too freely. When used sparingly, italicized thoughts and internal dialogue have their place. We have to be careful with them because a wall of italicized words is difficult for people with compromised vision (like me) to read.
In the years since I first began writing seriously, I’ve evolved in my writing habits. Nowadays, I am increasingly drawn to using the various forms of free indirect speech to show who my characters think they are and how they see their world, and I rarely use italics.
The main thing to watch for when employing indirect speech in a scene is to stay only in one person’s head. You can show different characters’ internal workings, provided you have a hard scene or chapter break between each character’s dialogue.
If you aren’t careful, you can slip into “head-hopping,” which is incredibly confusing for the reader. First, you’re in one person’s thoughts, and then another—like watching a tennis match.
Readers like it when we find ways to get the story across with a minimum of words.
Writing conversations and showing a character’s critical thoughts as an organic part of the unfolding plot make good transition scenes. They’re a good means of giving information and revealing hidden aspects of a character.
I hope your writing has continued now that November and the month of writing quests has passed. Keep writing new words every day, even if it’s only a paragraph or two. This will keep you in the habit and bring your novel closer to completion.
Credits and Attributions:
[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Free indirect speech,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_indirect_speech&oldid=817276599 (accessed Dec 7, 2024).
As stories unfold on paper, new characters enter. They bring their dramas and the story goes in a different direction than was planned. When I meet these imaginary people, I assign their personalities a verb and a noun.
Julian’s noun is chivalry (Gallantry, Bravery, Daring, Courtliness, Valor, Love). He sees himself as a good knight and puts all his effort into being that person. He is in love with both Mags and Beau.
Next, we assign a verb that describes their gut reactions, which will guide how they react to every situation. They might think one thing about themselves, but this verb is the truth. Again, we also look at sub-verbs and synonyms:
Have you thought about the two words that describe the primary weaknesses of your characters, the thing that could be their ultimate ruin? In the case of Julian’s story, it was:
Julian Lackland took ten years to get from the 2010 NaNoWriMo novel to the finished product. He spawned the books 
I hate it when I find myself at the point where I am fighting the story, forcing it onto paper. It feels like admitting defeat to confess that my story has taken a wrong turn so early on, and I hate that feeling. Fortunately, I knew by the 40,000-word point that last year’s story arc had gone so far off the rails that there was no rescuing it.
The sections I cut weren’t a waste, they were a detour. In so many ways, that sort of thing is why it takes me so long to write a book—each story contains the seeds of more stories.
Sometimes, something different happens. In 2019, I realized the novel I was writing is actually two books worth of story. The first half is the protagonist’s personal quest and is finished. The second half resolves the unfinished thread of what happened to the antagonist and is what I am currently working on. Both halves of the story have finite endings, so for the paperback version, I will break it into two novels. That will keep my costs down.
For those of you who are curious—I have the attention span of a sack full of squirrels. Proof of that can be found in the 4 novels currently in progress that are set in that world, each at different eras of the 3000-year timeline, each in various stages of completion.
think of 
In 1953’s 
Neil Gaiman’s 
Dedicated authors are driven to learn the craft of writing, and it is a quest that can take a lifetime. It is a journey that involves more than just reading “How to Write This or That Aspect of a Novel” manuals. Those are important and my library is full of them. But how-to manuals only offer up a part of the picture. The rest of the education is within each of us, an amalgamation of our life experiences and what we have learned along the way.
Authors write because we have a story to tell, one that might also embrace morality and the meaning of life. To that end, every word we put to the final product must count if our ideas are to be conveyed.
The second piece of wisdom is a little more challenging but is a continuation of the first point: Write something new every day, even if it is only one line. Your aptitude for writing grows in strength and skill when you exercise it daily. This is where blogging comes in for me—it’s my daily exercise. If you only have ten minutes free, use them to write whatever enters your head, stream-of-consciousness.
The story is the goal; everything else is a bonus.
The well of inspiration runs dry and they quit. Many will never attempt to write again, although they will always consider themselves secretly a writer.
The first one is one I developed when working in corporate America. Frequently, my best ideas came to me while I was at my job. If your employment isn’t a work-from-home job, using the note-taking app on your cellphone to take notes during business hours will be frowned upon. To work around that, keep a pocket-sized notebook and pen to write those ideas down as they come to you.
Every obstacle we throw in the path to happiness for the protagonists and their opposition shapes the narrative’s direction and alters the characters’ personal growth arcs. As you clarify why the protagonist must struggle to achieve their goal, the words will come.
Finally, let’s talk about murder as a way to kickstart your inspiration. Some people recommend it but I suggest you don’t resort to suddenly killing off characters just to get your mind working. You may need that character later, so plan your deaths accordingly.
The writer of true science fiction must know the difference, especially when creating possible weapons. Superweapons and superpowers are science-based. Think 
Magic works best when the local population in that world accepts that it exists and has limitations. When you think about it, magic should only be possible if certain conditions have been met. It should follow a set of rules.
Conflict forces the characters out of their comfortable environment. The roadblocks you put up force the protagonist to be creative. Through that creativity, your characters become stronger than they believe they are.
However, neither science nor magic can support a poorly conceived novel. Science, the supernatural, and magic are just tropes, tools we use to help tell the story. Strong, charismatic characters, mighty struggles, and severe consequences for failure make a brilliant novel.
I suggest writing a short synopsis of the story as you see it now. This will be as useful as an outline but isn’t as detailed. It will allow you to riff on each idea as it comes to you and is a great way to develop the storyline.
Fortunately for me, my writers’ group is made up of industry professionals, and one in particular, 
The protagonist will find this information out as the story progresses and only when they need to know it. With that knowledge, they will realize they’re doomed no matter what, but they’re filled with the determination that if they go down, they will take the enemy down, too.
The answer to question number one kickstarts the plot: who are the players? Once I know the answer to this question, I can write, and write, and write … although most of what I write at that point will be background info. The answers to the other questions will emerge as I write the background blather.
They share some of their story the way strangers on a long bus ride might. I see the surface image they present to the world, but they keep most of their secrets close and don’t reveal all the dirt. These mysteries will be pried from them over the course of writing the narrative’s first draft.
And what if you are writing poems or short stories? Graphic novels? We will also go into preparing to “speed-date your muse” when embarking on those aspects of writing.
Setting: Does the setting feel real?
Be prepared for it to come back with some detailed critical observations, which may seem harsh. Any criticism of our life’s work feels unfair to an author who is new at this. And to be truthful, some authors never learn how to put aside their egos.
Worse, perhaps they were familiar with a featured component of the story, such as medicine or police procedures. The reader might have suggested we need to do more research and then rewrite what we thought was the perfect novel.
I went out and bought books on the craft of writing, and I am still buying books on the craft today. I will never stop learning and improving.
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 