: Re: What are some conventions for creating a sense of urgency? I do not believe I came up with the concept of urgency in a main conflict, but I cannot find the original source, so I will just

@Connie138

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When i write a scene that needs to feel fast and urgent the most important thing that I do is shorten sentences.

In contrast let's take a calm scene. Calm could mean tense but still in a way static. I use long sentences to create imagery and describe every sight, sound, and smell I can to convey the scene.

When things get urgent this flips. Sentences become short and fast, just conveying what the reader needs to know. Humans feel this when they read. Every period is a mental tick in their mind, so when the periods come at the reader quickly the speed of the ticks increases and everything moves faster. The reader feels uncomfortable and wants to get out of this situation and return back to normal flow. Often at climax the sentences can become single words.

Here are two paragraphs from my writing. The first one is meant to be slow

I dig myself out and the world returns. Gray beams of rotting wood
holding up the shadowed roof. The train car is empty except for me,
hay for animals that have already met their slaughter, and them. I
cannot see them, they are too fast. They scurry from my sight before
my eyeballs can turn in my skull. I know they are there, in my
peripheral, taunting me as they crawl around, slithering… squirming…
safe…

and then the next the scene speeds up, and everything goes quickly.

They are not safe. I whip around, claws extended, and tear into them.
My fingers find nothing but hay, dung, and floorboards that snap
before my impotent wrath. They are behind me now. Retreating to the
shadows where they think they can escape. I leap across, I strike, I
kill… there is nothing there.

Even if the sentience is longer, commas chop it up. There is a rhythm that keeps the reader engaged to the time of the action.

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