Playing with Time: Use Pacing to Keep Readers Wanting More
What you'll learn
- Identify three different kinds of time in storytelling, and the formula that cuts through the confusion of pacing.
- Discover how pacing controls the reader's perception of time.
- Use your understanding of the six primary fiction delivery modes to analyze pacing.
- Use pacing to make your story more powerful and keep your readers wanting "more"
- Control pacing using the relationship between Scene and Sequel and Fiction Delivery Modes
- Understand pacing's relationship to "camera angle", depth of viewpoint, emotional intensity, and scene and sequel.
Requirements
- The only requirement for enrollment is a willingness to learn.
Description
In this course you’ll discover how to use pacing techniques to build tension, emphasize important story events, and increase your readers’ engagement.
SECTION 1
In Section 1 we’ll explore story pacing with its three different timing clocks, and a formula that can help you control the relationship between time, speed, viewpoint depth, and emotional intensity.
- Introduction - the Confusion of Pacing
- The 3 Clocks of Storytelling
- The Storyteller's Pacing Formula
SECTION 2
In Section 2 we’ll look at the way a reader’s perception of time fluctuates with the level of excitement, and study techniques you can use to fine-tune pacing and control your readers’ level of excitement.
- Scenes, Sequels, and Pacing
- Reader's Perception of Time and Sequels
- Pacing Techniques
- Pacing, Emotional Intensity, and Viewpoint
SECTION 3
In Section 3 we’ll study the effect different writing modes have on pacing, and how you can control pacing using these modes.
- How to Control Pacing with Fiction Delivery Modes: Dramatic Summary, Dramatic Action, Dialogue, Narration, Description, and Exposition. (Dramatic )
SECTION 4
In Section 4 we'll explore the structure of Scenes and Sequels more deeply, examining the relationship between Fiction Delivery Modes and Scene and Sequel.
- Scene and Sequel: the Building Blocks of Fiction
- Scene and Sequel meets Fiction Delivery Modes
- Practice Exercise: Analyzing Pacing using Fiction Delivery Modes
I designed this course for writers who want to improve their control over pacing to keep readers wanting more. The only requirement for enrolment is a willingness to learn.
Feel free to check out the course video here on the landing page, and preview the free lessons.
I look forward to seeing you in the class.
Have a great day, and may the muse be with you.
Vanessa Grant
Who this course is for:
- Storytellers who want to keep readers interested throughout their stories.
Course content
- Preview01:58
- Preview02:22
- Preview01:59
- Preview06:40
- 3 questionsResolving the confusion of pacing
Instructor
![Vanessa Grant](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.1 Instructor Rating
- 36 Reviews
- 395 Students
- 2 Courses
“Storytelling and education have been my lifelong passions. I love facilitating learning for storytellers.” … Vanessa Grant
AUTHOR / STORYTELLER
Vanessa Grant began her literary career writing the column A Letter From Lucy Island Lighthouse for a small northern British Columbia newspaper. She later worked as a contributing editor for Sea Talk magazine and freelance commentator for CBC Radio Canada.
Her first novel was published in 1985 and she went on to write 32 more romance novels as Vanessa Grant (several while living on a sailboat in Mexico for two years) and three dark thrillers under the pseudonym Val Cameron.
Vanessa has been translated into 15 languages with over 10 million copies of her books sold worldwide. Her non-fiction book Writing Romance won the Under the Covers literary award and was described in a National Writer’s Monthly review as “by far the best writing book I have ever read”.
EDUCATOR
Vanessa has presented storytelling workshops for writers’ groups in Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. She is also qualified as a Certified Professional Accountant, a Certified Forensic Investigator, an MBA, and holds a Post Secondary Instructor’s Diploma.
Vanessa recently retired from her career as a Professor of Accounting and Forensics at Vancouver Island University to work on her own teaching and writing activities.
Vanessa lives with her husband of forty-one years and their Siberian Husky, Winter, on British Columbia’s beautiful Vancouver Island.