Rapid Story Development #1: Commercial Pace in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction: Rapid Story Development, #1
By Jeff Lyons
()
About this ebook
Narrative pace can make or break the reading experience, but few people describe what real pace is or how you can achieve it. Most just discuss writing, style, and sentence structure, but pacing in any story is so much more than that. This e-book gives a clear explanation of pacing and then shows you how to achieve a solid commercial pace for any story, thus assuring reader engagement and more book sales—engaged readers buy more books.
Related to Rapid Story Development #1
Titles in the series (6)
Rapid Story Development #1: Commercial Pace in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction: Rapid Story Development, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRapid Story Development #4: Teams and Ensembles—How to Develop Stories with Large Casts: Rapid Story Development, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRapid Story Development #6: Rapid Story Development, #6 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related ebooks
Rapid Story Development #4: Teams and Ensembles—How to Develop Stories with Large Casts: Rapid Story Development, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRapid Story Development #6: Rapid Story Development, #6 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Plan Your Novel Like A Pro: And Have Fun Doing It!: Barany School of Fiction, #4 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Outline Your Novel: The How To Guide for Structuring and Outlining Your Novel: Writer to Author, #3 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Editing Your Novel's Structure: Tips, Tricks, and Checklists to Get You From Start to Finish Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsActivate: A Thesaurus of Actions & Tactics for Dynamic Genre Fiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nail Your Novel: Why Writers Abandon Books And How You Can Draft, Fix and Finish With Confidence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ten Day Draft: A Writer's Guide to Finishing a Novel in Ten Days: The Ten Day Novelist, #2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Outlining Your Novel Box Set: How to Write Your Best Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Writing the Fiction Synopsis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/57 Essential Writing Tools: That Will Absolutely Make Your Writing Better (And Enliven Your Soul) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Write Page-Turning Fiction: (Advice to Authors), #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThird-Person Possessed: How to Write Page-Turning Fiction for 21st Century Readers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOutlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writing Active Hooks Book 1: Action, Emotion, Surprise and More: Writing Active Hooks, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II: Advanced Techniques For Dramatic Storytelling Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fiction-Writing Modes: Eleven Essential Tools for Bringing Your Story to Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fiction Writing Maps: A Step-By-Step Guide To Characters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dialogue Doctor Will See you Now: How to Write Dialogue and Characters Readers Will Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Epic Guide to Character Creation: Sidekicks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDynamic Dialogue: Letting Your Story Speak Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing (Revised Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Improving Your Writing Craft: A Self Published, Indie Authors Guide: Wordslinger, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThree Story Method: Writing Scenes: Three Story Method Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Performing Arts For You
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yes Please Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Macbeth (new classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Importance of Being Earnest: A Play Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unsheltered: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romeo and Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hollywood's Dark History: Silver Screen Scandals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wuthering Heights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Dolls House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count Of Monte Cristo (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hamlet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Whale / A Bright New Boise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Your Huckleberry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Agatha Christie Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCoreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World Turned Upside Down: Finding the Gospel in Stranger Things Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Town: A Play in Three Acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Rapid Story Development #1
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Rapid Story Development #1 - Jeff Lyons
RAPID STORY DEVELOPMENT #1
COMMERCIAL PACE IN FICTION AND CREATIVE NONFICTION
JEFF LYONS
Storygeeks PressRapid Story Development: Commercial Pace in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction
Copyright © 2018 by Jeff Lyons
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.
ISBN: 978-0-9970663-6-4 (e-book)
Cover art by Jeff Lyons
Interior design by Jeff Lyons
Web: www.jefflyonsbooks.com
Give feedback on the book at:
feedback@storygeekspress.com
2nd Edition
Printed in the U.S.A
DEDICATION
This is for loyal readers past, present, and future.
Because without you, what’s the point?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank the following individuals for their support, help, encouragement, patience, infinite patience, faith, trust, belief, handouts, generosity, and small petty crimes undertaken to promote the success of this book.
• Charlene DeLong and David Allan—thank you for being trusted beta readers, editors, and telling me the truth.
ALSO BY JEFF LYONS
FICTION
Jack Be Dead: Revelation (bk #1)
13 Minutes
Terminus Station
The Abbess (coming)
NONFICTION
Anatomy of a Premise Line: How to Use Story and Premise Development for Writing Success
Rapid Story Development: How to Use the Enneagram-Story Connection to Become a Master Storyteller (coming)
Rapid Story Development: The Storyteller’s Toolbox Volume 1
RAPID STORY DEVELOPMENT SERIES
#1: Commercial Pace in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction
#2: Bust the Top Ten Creative Writing Myths to Become a Better Writer
#3: Ten Questions Every Writer Needs to Ask Before They Hire a Consultant
#4: Teams and Ensembles: How to Write Stories with Large Casts
#5: The Moral Premise–How to Build a Bulletproof Narrative Engine for Any Story
#6: Seven Steps to Busting Writer’s Block Forever
CONTENTS
What Is Pace and Why Should I Care?
The Structure of Pace
Where Pacing Goes Right: Commercial Pace
Where Pacing Goes Wrong: Slow Pacing
How to Speed up Slow Pacing
Where Pacing Goes Wrong: Fast Pacing
How to Slow Down Fast Pacing
A Pacing Diagnostic
Narrative Drive
Conclusion
Appendix 1
Also by Jeff Lyons
About the Author
Author Offer—Anatomy of a Premise Line
WHAT IS PACE AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?
Pacing refers to the speed of the read and how effectively the text pulls readers into the matter of the book without jolting them with fits and starts or boring them with lengthy, drawn-out exposition. Next to a weak story premise, bad pacing is one of the top-five killers (bad title, weak premise, bad pacing, split stories, episodic writing) of most books. Every book has a pace, just as every book has a voice or a tone. But bad pacing can do more to put off readers than any other single problem.
A reader knows by the end of the first chapter how frenetic or tedious the read is going to be, and if they don’t have the patience to hang in there, they will bail before chapter three. If the pace is too slow, it will drag on the reader, sucking their energy and testing their patience. If the pace is too fast, it will rattle their nerves and distract them with twitchy scenes and shallow writing, often leaving readers annoyed and exasperated. But if the pace is right for the story, what I call commercial pace, then the reader is at one with the story and with the writing. They are a partner with the writer, not a tag-along running as fast as they can to keep up or dragging behind like dead weight.