Writing, and by that I mean fiction writing, can be divided into two parts: Action and Development.
Action, is the name of the category of fast-paced scenes. Action-driven scenes will contain:
- Dialogue
- Events
- Little to no description
Development, on the other hand, is the mother name of slow-paced scenes. Mainly, these scenes will contain more description. However, these massive paragraphs, which will appear as massive blocks of words on you page, can be divided into multiple subjects:
- Character (IE: Thoughts, physical description.)
- Setting (Ex: The mountains hung under an orange striped sky, painted such by the dawning sun.
- Historical/background (Otherwise known as Info Dumps)
Okay, now that explanation of the title subjects is out of the way, let us get to the 'and' part.
When we write action, be it fight scenes, or simply events happening to our characters, the story hurtles forward. Yet, usually, this stops any character, or setting development.
"Wait just a moment," You might say. "Characters doing things is the height of character development."
Well, there you are wrong. There is no need for a plot to move forward in order to develop a character. See, when 'stuff' happen to the character, they are not developing, but changing. While change is good and even great in a story, especially when you are nearing the end and you are feeling like the character had learned nothing from the events which fell upon them, change can sometimes be disastrous to your readers, especially in the early parts of the story.
Now, let me jump towards Development, for just a moment. When we want to develop our character, or our world/setting, events must freeze and the characters must come to a stand still.
As the author, you will have a much easier time keeping track of the events and the characters, especially by your third edit. So, while you might think that a reader can juggle the fact that brown haired, dimwitted Zalroot's father is a carpenter and that the dark lord has just killed everyone he loved and that his father was actually the daughter of the king's juggler and that the juggler sang a poem long ago which told of a man on a hill...
"Oh, don't be foolish," You might say. "I won't present the facts in such foolish a manner."
Yes, well, as the author, you can't really know what you are doing. This is because you spent endless hour after excruciating hour on every single paragraph.
Okay, now that that's cleared up, let us return to the topic of the title.
While fast-paced Action is fun and I myself spend most of my writing on such sections, one must learn how to speckle slow-paced Development. If not, you will find that the characters have not been developed enough so that the readers will give a crap.
On the other hand, if you find that all you're doing is describing the scenes and the character's emotions and the way the sun reflects off the glass windows of the palace, you will have to start writing faster, less descriptive, eventful scenes. That is, if you do not wish to drag your reader into the depths of boredom.
There must be a balance between Development and Action, in order to create an interesting, moving tale, with lovable characters. Or deliciously hateful villains, for that matter.
How do you do that?
Experimentation is really my best counsel. And also, keeping this article of advice in mind. If you find that a scene feels boring, despite plenty of explosions smashing against the text's walls,
or, of you find that your alpha readers are deterred from reading, despite the characters and world practically jumping out of the pages,
try to balance these two elements of writing. You'll be surprised by how well these two contradicting elements can compliment each other.
Finally, thanks for reading through my rambling,
Tal
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