: Re: How to convey suddenness when a lot is going on? So, here's a scene idea from yours truly: The giant eagle brown falcon, Horus, is fighting against a necromancer that can stop time. So the

@Sent2472441

Vote Up Vote Down

Lots of different ways. Step one, cut out extraneous detail: leave the exact details of the damage done for a later passage, or the readers' imagination. Don't over-describe - it breaks the flow. Good for slowing things down, drawing out a horrified realisation at the end of the battle, but bad in the middle of it. Try to imply as much as you can with as few words as possible.
(This is also a problem many new writers have: they introduce a new character, location, object or outfit, and it's as though time pauses to give you a full 360° breakdown of what it looks like, complete with history and biography. There are times where this can be a good thing. There are far more times when this should be avoided like the plague.)
The main trick to maintaining the pace of the scene seems to be to make the narration seem rushed. An obvious trick is to avoid complicated words, keep things simple to understand; we don't want the reader to have to slow down and work out what something means, we want them to skip through and read the passages quickly - even speeding up if possible!
One way? Short sentences. Snappy phrases. Chop-and-change, back-and-forth. "Shaky-cam" and "smash-cuts":

Horus screeched, diving for the Necromancer, who suddenly stuttered in place. And was now holding a gun. Horus' world exploded in pain; his shield was in tatters. His left shoulder was shredded. His chest was just gone. The wing was severed. Ribs poked from bloody mince. The air whistled past: the ground approached fast, and then everything went black.
In the distance, his companions watched the hail of bullets blast from time-stop, tearing through Horus, who fell from the sky and disappeared behind a line of buildings.

Another way is to turn your entire paragraph into one long run-on-sentence so that the reader feels like it is being rushed out in one breath with no breaks or chance to pause and a building sense of urgency as they strain to reach the end without running out of air...

Horus screeched, diving for the Necromancer, who suddenly stuttered in place. And was now holding a gun (was that an MG?) and everything was PAIN, his shield was shattered, his shoulder was shredded, his chest was gone, his wing was severed, he swore he could feel air on his ribs and the ground was getting so close, and everything went black.
In the distance, his companions watched the hail of bullets blast from time-stop, tearing through Horus, who fell from the sky and disappeared behind a line of buildings.

(0)

Login to post a comment!