Every
story has a rhythm. A pulse, if you will. Disrupt this rhythm with intent, and
readers will perk up and take note. Lose it entirely, and you’ll risk losing
the reader.
Think
about the melody of your story in terms of music. A romcom might have an upbeat
tempo, light and fun. A cozy mystery might have a similar rhythm but quickened
when trouble arises. A thriller should have a dark and ominous beat like the
opening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Horror often has a creep factor pulsing
beneath every scene. The music in the Halloween movies is the perfect example.
How
do we create music with words?
Multiple
factors create the pace and flow of a story. There’s a cadence to language — one
that reflects the setting, mood, and genre. It takes time to find your
storytelling cadence. As a reader, I’m attracted to certain authors because of
the rhythm of their words. Though it may fluctuate a bit from book to book, there’s
no question who wrote the story. Mastering rhythm is a critical step in
refining your voice.
After
a while, you’ll develop a sixth sense of when a one syllable word disrupts your
flow, and you should use a two-syllable word instead. You’ll hear it when a
sentence feels too choppy and needs to connect with another sentence to
maintain the rhythm of the paragraph.
Please don’t read as I’m a fan of semicolons in fiction. I am not. Some writers use a comma to connect sentences, others use an em dash. Grammar-fanatic editors might not agree with this type of comma usage, but the good ones understand rhythm and pace trumps an intentional run-on sentence. I once counted 100 words in a sentence written by Patricia Cornwell. Exhausting to read, but no can deny her success. For you and me, it’s best to keep run-on sentences to a minimum. J Or use a grammatically correct em dash instead.
v Sentence Structure
Short
or staccato sentences speed up the pace, while long sentences slow it down.
Ø Hard -ed words or one-word
sentences act like bullets firing.
§
Staccato
— Italian word meaning “detached” — is a form of musical articulation that
signifies a note of shortened duration that precedes dead silence. Everyone
freezes when a gunshot rips through the air. A staccato sentence should have
the same effect, thereby quickening the reader’s heartbeat.
Footsteps approached. Slow.
Methodical. Direct.
Ø Gerunds (-ing words) give a more relaxed feel. Gerunds get a bad rap, but they’re useful to strum the correct chord. Too many may litter your manuscript, so be careful not to overdo it.
Ø If you mix the two, you create a
rhythm that either keeps the reader off balance or shows the action is continuing.
His gaze flicked between the road
and the rearview mirror, the blue lights of the dash cascading down the bridge
of his nose to the soft V of his upper lip.
See
how you can envision the blue lights actively trailing down his face? If I used
“cascaded” instead of the gerund, it wouldn’t have the same effect.
v Intentional Repetition
The
repetition of words in the same paragraph creates a melody. Example from MARRED
(feels like I wrote that novel a lifetime ago):
I used
to believe people were inherently good, if only at their core. I saw the
brokenness of the homeless. I respected the overachiever in the football star,
hoping for Daddy’s approval even if he’d never get it. I saw the heart of
sinners, the souls of lovers. Shattered dreams of an abandoned child. I saw good
in evil, spirit in the unholy. I understood the complexities of love, marriage,
life. Hell, I welcomed the challenge. I had hopes, dreams, and affirmations. I
did. Then, that all changed. My views shattered, or my eyes finally opened.
The
repetition of “I” added to the melodic nature of Chapter One’s opening
paragraph. If I continued the repetition any longer, I’d lose the effect. It’d
become monotonous and irritating to the reader. You really need to be
intentional when using repetition. It can backfire if you’re not careful.
v Punctuation
Commas
and em dashes help maintain story rhythm.
After
three never-ending years and umpteen hours of counseling, one small
reminder—scars from the knife—and I relived that night in Boston.
The
em dash is one of the most versatile punctuation marks at a writer’s disposal,
but that flexibility can also lead to overuse or plain misuse. Some writers use
two dashes to indicate an em dash. Do yourself a favor and create a keyboard shortcut for the em dash. The real
punctuation mark looks much more polished and professional.
An
em dash creates a break in the sentence. Used as bookends, em dashes allow us
to add a quick explanation for the reader (see example in MARRED excerpt)
or insert a different thought entirely. It can also replace its ugly cousins —
the semi-colon and parentheses.
Used
as a bridge, an em dash emphasizes whatever comes after it.
Silence hung between us like a
branding iron—scorching hot and ready to burn.
Don’t
include spaces around em dashes in your manuscript. On blogs, it’s clearer to
include space(s). Hence my use of both in this article.
v Transitions
Maintaining
a story’s rhythm is also about the transitions between movements. Transitions
must be fluid. Fluidity pulls the reader along without them even noticing.
They’re trapped in the current we’ve created.
The
best way to ensure the narrative doesn’t hit speed bumps is to read the
manuscript out loud. Yes, it’s time-consuming, but it’s also fun and easier to
hear the rhythm. Sometimes you’ll find unnecessary words or fillers. Other times the rhythm sounds
right but the character isn’t singing the same tune. They’re behaving in ways
that don’t feel authentic. Or they don’t sound like themselves. If the
characterization isn’t right, we’ll lose the fluidity. The drumbeat stops.
Ø Part of finding the beat to your story means how we jump from scene to scene. Think about your favorite movie. We don’t need to stay in the bedroom for a character to sleep eight hours or endure a long drive where nothing happens.
“Start late, end early.” ~ James Scott Bell
Enter
the scene when something interesting is happening or about to happen. End
before the conflict is resolved or in the middle of a new action or
disturbance.
In
Closing
Whether
it’s our heartbeat or the motion of the sun, moon, and planets, we’re embedded within a rhythmic
world. Hence why
rhythm has such enormous power. It’s built into who we are.
You
are the conductor of your story. Pick up the pace, slow it down, increase the
intensity, or lower the volume. Zoom in, zoom out. The choice is yours. Once
you master story rhythm, your stories will sing!
Sue Coletta is an award-winning crime writer and an active member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. Feedspot and Expertido.org named her Murder Blog as “Best 100 Crime Blogs on the Net.” She also blogs at the Kill Zone (Writer's Digest "101 Best Websites for Writers") and StoryEmpire (Positive Writer's "Top 50 Writing Blogs") and is a former Resident Coach at Writers Helping Writers. Sue lives in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire and writes two psychological/environmental thriller series, Mayhem Series (Crow Talons Publishing) and Grafton County Series (Tirgearr Publishing) and true crime/narrative nonfiction (Rowman & Littlefield Group).
Sue's appeared on the Emmy award-winning true crime series, Storm of Suspicion,
and three episodes of A Time to Kill on Investigation Discovery.
Learn more about Sue Coletta at https://suecoletta.com.
