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@sam-scribbler
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Back to the "write two paragraphs, delete three paragraphs" stage of writing.
writing be like
feeling that twenty minute gap lads
Ooof or when you write something and then get distracted by Google rabbit hole you fall down because you just wanted to look up this one detail for the story.
Getting inspired to write is actually really easy! All you need to do is be the busiest you've ever been in your entire life and as far away from a computer as humanly possible. Hope this helps π₯°
Hot take: Actual literary analysis requires at least as much skill as writing itself, with less obvious measures of whether or not youβre shit at it, and nobody is allowed to do any more god damn litcrit until they learn what the terms βshow, donβt tellβ andΒ βpacingβ mean.
Pacing
TheΒ βpacingβ of a piece of media comes down to one thing, and one thing only, and it has nothing to do with your personal level of interest. It comes down to this question alone: Is the piece of media making effective use of the time it has?
Thatβs it.
So, for example, things which are NOT a example of bad pacing include a piece of media that is:
A slow burn
Episodic
Fast-paced
Prioritizing character interaction over intricate plot
Opening in medias res without immediate context
Incorporating a large number of subplots
Incorporating very few subplots
Bad pacing IS when a piece of media has
βWastedβ time, ie, screentime or page space dedicated to plotlines or characters that are ultimately irrelevant to the plot or thematic resolution at the cost of properly developing that resolution. Pour one out for the SW:TCW fans.
The presence of a sidestory or giving secondary characters a separate resolution of their personal arc is not βbad writing,β and only becomes a pacing issue if it falls into one of the other two categories.
Not enough time, ie, a story attempts to involve more plotlines than it has time or space to give satisfying resolutions to, resulting in all of them beingΒ βrushedβ even though the writer(s) made scrupulous use of every second of page/screentime and made sure every single section advanced those storylines.
Padding for time, ie, Open-World Game Syndrome. Essentially, you have ten hours of genuinely satisfying storyβ¦.butΒ βshort games donβt sell,β so you insert vast swathes of empty landscape to traverse, a bunch of nonsense fetch quests to complete, or take one really satisfying questline and repeat it ten times with different names/macguffins, to create 40 hours ofΒ βgameplayβ that have stopped being fun because the same thing happens over and over. If you think this doesnβt happen in novels, you have never read Oliver Twist.
Another note on pacing: There are, except arguably in standalone movies, at leastΒ two levels of pacing going on at any given time. Thereβs the pacing within the installment, and the pacing within the series. Generally, thereβs three levels of pacingβwithin the installment (a chapter, an episode, a level), within the volume (a season, a novel, a game), and within the series as a whole. Sometimes, in fact FREQUENTLY, a piece of media will work on one of these levels but not on all of them. (Usually the ideal is that it works on all three, but thatβs not always important! Not every individual chapter of a novel needs to be actively relevant to the entire overarching series.)
Honestly, the best possible masterclass in how to recognize good, bad, andΒ βthey tried their best but needed more spaceβ pacing? If you want to learn this skill, and get better at recognizing it?
Doctor Who.
ESPECIALLY Classic Who, which has clearly-delineated βserialsβ within their seasons. You can pretty much pick any serial at random, and once youβve seen a few of them, you get a REALLY good feel for things like, for exampleβ¦
Wow, that serial did not need to be twelve episodes long; they got captured and escaped at least three different times and made like four different plans that they ended up not being able to execute, and maybe once or twice they would have ramped up the tension, but it really didnβt contribute anythingβthis could have been a normal four-episode serial and been much stronger.
Holy shit there were WAY too many balls being juggled in this, this would have been better with the concepts split into two separate serials, as it stands they only had four episodes and they just couldnβt develop anything fully
Oh my god that was AMAZING I want to watch it again and take notes on how they divided up the individual episodes and what plot beats they chose to break on each week
Eh, structurally that was good, but even as a 90-minute special that nuwho episode feels like it would have worked a lot better as a Classic serial with a little more room to breathe.
How in the actual name of god did they stretch like twenty minutes of actual story into a four-episode serial (derogatory)
How in the actual name of god did they stretch like twenty minutes of actual story into a four-episode serial (awestruck)
If youβre not actively trying to learn pacing, either for literary analysis or your own writingβ¦honestly? Just learn to differentiate between whether the pacing is bad or if it just doesnβt appeal to you. Thereβs a WORLD of difference betweenΒ βThe pacing is too slowβ andΒ βthe pacing is too slow for me.βΒ
βI really prefer a slower build into a universe; the fact that it opens in medias res and you piece together where you are and how the magic system works over the next several chapters from context is way too fast-paced for me and makes me feel lost, so I bounced off itβ is, usually, a much more constructive commentary thanΒ βthe pacing is badβ.Β
And when the pacing really is bad, youβll be doing everyone a favor by being able to actually articulate why.
Show, Donβt Tell
This is a very specific rule that has been taken dramatically out of context and is almost always used incorrectly.
βShow, donβt tellβ applies to character traits and worldbuilding, not information in the plot.
It may be easier toΒ βgetβ this rule if you forget the specific phrasing for a minute. This is a mnemonic device to avoid Informed Attributes, nothing more and nothing less.Β
Character traits like a character being funny, smart, kind, annoying, badass, etc, should be established by their behavior in-universe and the reactions of others to themβif you just SAY theyβre X thing but never show it, then youβre just telling the audience these things. Similarly you canβt just tell the audience that a setting has brutal winters and expect to be believed, when the clothing, architecture, preparations, etc shown as common in that setting do not match those that brutal winters would necessitate.Β
To recap:
Violations of Show Donβt Tell:
A viewpoint character describing themselves as having a trait (being a loner, easily distractable, clumsy, etc) but not actually shown to possess it (lacking friends, getting distracted from anything important, or dropping/tripping over things at inopportune moments.)
The narration declaring an emotional state (βCharacter A was furiousβ) rather than demonstrating the emotion through dialogue or depicting it onscreen.
A fourth-wall-breaking narrator; ie, Kuzco in The Emperorβs New Groove directly addressing the audience to explain that heβs a llama and also the protagonist, is NOT the same! This actually serves as a flawless example of showing rather than tellingβwe are SHOWN that Kuzco is immature and egotistical, even though thatβs not what heβs saying.
A fictional society or setting being declared by the narrative to be free of a negative traitβbigotry, for exampleβbut that negative trait being clearly present, where this discrepancy is not narratively engaged with.Β
(For example: There is officially no sexism in Thedas and yet female characters are subject to gendered slurs and expectations; the world of Honor Harrington is supposedly societally opposed to eugenics, yetΒ βcuresβ for disability and constant mentions of a nebulous geneticΒ βadvantageβ from certain charactersβ ancestry are regular plot points that are viewed positively by the characters and are not narratively questioned.)
A character declaring that their society has no bigotry, when that character is clearly wrong, is not the same thing.
The narrative voice declaring objective correctness; everyone who agrees with the protagonist is portrayed as correct and anyone who questions them is portrayed as evil, or else there is no questioning whatsoever. For example: in Star Trek: Enterprise, Jonathan Archer tortures an unarmed prisoner. What follows is a multi-episode arc in which every person he respects along with Starfleet Command goes out of their way to dismiss the idea that he should bear any guilt, or that his actions were anything but completely necessary and objectively morally correct. No narrative space is allowed for disagreement, or for the audience to come to its own conclusion.
NOT Violations of Show Donβt Tell:
A character explaining a concept to another character who would logically, within that universe/situation, be the recipient of such an explanation.
An in-universe explanation BECOMES a SdT violation if the explanation fails to play out in reality, such as a spaceship being described as slow or flawed in some way but never actually having those weaknesses. Imagine if the Millennium Falcon was constantly described as a broken-down piece of junkβ¦and never had any mechanical failures, AND Han and Chewie werenβt constantly shown repairing it!
Information being revealed through dialogue, period. Having your hacker in a heist movie describe the enemy security system isnβtΒ βtellingβ and thus bad writing. Having information revealed organically through dialogue is whatΒ βshowβ means.
The βas you knowβ trope is technically a Show Donβt Tell violation, despite being dialogue, because itβs unnatural within the universe and serves solely to let the writer deliver information directly, ie, telling.
Characters discussing their own actions and expressing their motivations and/or decision-making process at the time.
The existence of an omnipotent narrator, or the narration itself confirming something. Narration sayingΒ βthere was no way anyone could make it in timeβ is delivering contextual information, not breaking Show Donβt Tell.Β
Keep in mind thatΒ βShow, donβt tellβ is meant to be advice for beginning authors. BecauseΒ βtellingβ is easier and requires less skill thanΒ βshowing,β inexperienced authors need to focus on getting as muchΒ βshowβ in as possible.Β
However,Β βtellingβ is also extremely important.Β Sometimes, especially in written formats, the most appropriate way to deliver information to the audience is to just say it and move on.
Keep in mind that a viewpoint character in anything butβ¦a portal fantasy, essentiallyβ¦is going to be familiar with the world theyβre in. Not every protagonist needs to be a raw newcomer with zero knowledge of their new world! In most cases, a viewpoint character is going to know things that the audience doesnβt. Generally, the ONLY natural way to introduce worldbuilding in this situation is to just have the narration point them out. (It makes sense for Obi-Wan to have to explain the Force; it would make no sense for Han to explain the concept of space travel to Luke, who grew up in this universe and knows what the hell a starship is. So, if youβre writing the novelization of A New Hope, you need to just say βand so they jumped into hyperspace, the strange blue-white plane that allowed faster-than-light travelβ and move the hell on.)
For that matter, in some media (ie, childrenβs cartoons) where teaching a moral lesson is the clear intent, a certain level of βtellingβ is not only appropriate but necessary!
The actual goal ofΒ βshowingβ andΒ βtellingβ is to maintain a balance, and make sure everything feels natural. Show things that need to be shown, andβ¦donβt waste everyoneβs time showing things that would feel much more natural if they were just told.
But thatβs not nearly as pithy a slogan.
(Reblog this version yβall I fixed some really serious typos)
Quick addition: When you Show, you Slow.
Taking the time to Show something rather than simply Telling it slows the moment downβand that can be a good thing! When you want a moment to have real emotional impact, when you want the audience to linger and really connect with the scene, use Show to slow them down and really make them live in it. Use descriptive language, engage the senses, and make your audience spend some time with it.
This is Not always desirable. If youβre heavily Showing in moments that arenβt truly important, your audience will disengage and get impatient and then bored. I always err on the side of over showing in a first draft, over trimming to lots of telling in a second draft, then marrying them together in a third once Iβve gotten a better understanding of the pacing with the second Telling draft.

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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I'm doing an experiment
Writers: What do you struggle with the most?
Plot
Characters (i.e. personality)
Pacing
World Building
Dialogue
Action
Romance
Friendships
Antagonists/Conflicts
Setting
Mood
Other (Put in replies or reblog!)
Edit: Should've added smut. If smut is your top struggle and you want to or do write it, reblog and say so <3
Just figured out how to include a VERY cool scene I've been waffling about deleting without derailing the current plot.
Basically, this means I am a god.
Working with a big cast of characters: Okay. Which one of you fuckers is the real main character?
I should absolutely be working on the Shadow Tongue manuscript. Instead, however, I am re-writing my outline for a fanfic.
I should be allowed to do this! It my BIRTHDAY ( <- guy whose birthday it is absolutely not)
I should absolutely be working on the Shadow Tongue manuscript. Instead, however, I am re-writing my outline for a fanfic.
I should be allowed to do this! It my BIRTHDAY ( <- guy whose birthday it is absolutely not)

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch β’ No registration required β’ HD streaming
I should absolutely be working on the Shadow Tongue manuscript. Instead, however, I am re-writing my outline for a fanfic.
Me for most a chapter: *Writing go brrr*
Me when finishing it: *Old computer error noises or something idk*

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch β’ No registration required β’ HD streaming
I long to kill the writers block fairy