Writer’s Clay

Story Going Too Slow?

Annette Lyon
Writer’s Clay
3 min readFeb 23, 2021

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A Simple Tool for Ratcheting the Tension & Keeping Your Readers

Photo by Nick Abrams on Unsplash

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:

Plot is a series of connected events that tell a story.

More importantly, plot is a

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Annette Lyon
Writer’s Clay

USA Today bestselling, award-winning author. Word nerd. Chocoholic. Mom. Deals, newsletter, books & more: https://taplink.cc/annette.lyon