Writer’s Clay
Story Going Too Slow?
A Simple Tool for Ratcheting the Tension & Keeping Your Readers
I’ve read countless manuscripts from beginning writers that go something like this:
Mary and Steve sit around talking and talking and talking. Maybe they’re eating something and they talk about the food. Great cookies, he says. Thanks, she replies. I tried a new recipe.
They might be walking around the streets of some city (often New York, maybe San Francisco), and we get the surroundings described a lot. (Honking cars, smog, whatever.)
We have background information on the characters’ lives dropped in from the sky — what’s often called an info dump.
BUT NOTHING SIGNIFICANT HAPPENS.
I yawn. At this point, I keep reading only if I’m judging a contest where I’m forced to give specific feedback on a form, or I’m being paid by a client.
Where is the plot, folks?!
Let’s back up and define what we think we already know but sometimes forget:
