To recap, I’ve written three posts about pacing in the novel and offered some of the techniques I have used: “creative” paragraphing, varied sentence length, and now…
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Last time I gave some examples of shortening those sentences for those tense or suspenseful scenes. I also like to pull out of the immediate scene at a critical moment and go into the character’s thoughts. While the character is hanging by his fingertips, I take a step back and explore what’s going on in that character’s head. It suspends the action, gives me a chance to feed in some important backstory, and—I hope—keeps the reader engaged.
Here’s an example of what might work.
Panting, Zeke ran up the last steps. At the emergency exit, he shoved the door open onto the roof. He’d prayed for a fire escape, but there was none. The killer’s footsteps pounded behind him. He whirled to face the sawed-off shotgun, a few feet away, aimed at him. The only way out was three stories down.
One thing Zeke feared as much as bullets were shattered legs. He’d suffered enough broken bones on the force and with each painful wound, he vowed he’d do anything to keep from suffering that way again. Yet, here he was with what looked like no choice but to jump onto a very unforgiving pavement below. If he survived, he’d be in a world of hurt just like all those other times.
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