This has been a four day weekend for me and it has been filled with celebrations. I spent Friday in my friend’s back garden enjoying the sunshine and the company. Saturday brought a birthday celebration and a day out with good food and friends. Sunday morning I did the Easter thing with my little ones and then Sunday afternoon brought another day enjoying the weather outside for my god daughter’s tenth birthday pool party.
What does all that have to do with writing? Well, my weekend was certainly filled with wonderful and vivid memories all packed into a relatively short amount of time. This contrasted with one section of my work in progress which seemed so long and drawn out, and lacking excitement. I realise providing readers with some detail is vital especially when world building within a novel but there are times when too much detail just slows things down. Pacing is everything and I do not want my readers to fall asleep.
I spent some time rewriting that section of my novel today. It really needed speed. I added in some rapid fire dialogue and some shorter choppier sentences. The result of the rewrite was much improved flow and the protagonist got from point a to point b in the story without all the extra weight dragging her down.
Although the slow and steady pace is best sometimes every once in a while we just need to pick up the pace.
