DeAnna Knippling's Blog, page 38

Pacing, Part 6: Dog

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here. … All right, let’s get out a thesaurus and look up dog. pup, puppy, bitch, cur, doggy, hound, mongrel, mutt, pooch, stray, tyke, bowwow, fido, flea bag, man’s best friend, tail-wagger As well as a list of dog breeds. Affenpinscher, […]

Think Like a Librarian: My Favorite Thing is Monsters, by Emil Ferris

I’m trying to look at books the way a librarian might, in order to help get me better at thinking from a reader’s point of view.  Here are the other posts in the series. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is another graphic novel.  (I checked a stack of best-of graphic novels all out at once, […]

Pacing, Part 5: Pacing for Engineers

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here. … Dear engineer types, I am a poet type.  So I’m borrowing the metaphor from my spouse, who works in IT and does woodworking. Let’s agree to look at pacing as a woodworking project.  We start with our raw […]

Pacing, Part 4: The Building Blocks of Pacing

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here. … I’ll get to pacing for engineers in a bit.  First the different building blocks of pacing: Word length. Length of phrases (as marked by breaths or punctuation). Sentence length. Paragraph length. Beat length (the length of each individual […]

Writer Resources: Rowan Atkinson on Comedy.

Rowan Atkinson of Mr. Bean and Blackadder fame did a comedy/documentary series called Funny Business or Laughing Matters in 1992.  The first episode, on physical comedy, is available online. Not only is this a great lesson on physical comedy, but on breaking down and distorting character–and why. … It takes writing time to write these posts.  If you enjoyed […]

Pacing, Part 12: POVs

Pacing, Part 3: Pacing for Poets

I’m going to give two explanations of what pacing is, one for poet-types and one for engineer-types.  This is an arbitrary split, and you’ll probably need both perspectives at some point. For poets: Pacing is how you start sneaking poetry into fiction, without the heightened sense of language that might tip your hand to the […]

Think Like A Librarian: Mockingbird Graphic Novels, by Chelsea Cain

I’m trying to look at books the way a librarian might, in order to help get me better at thinking from a reader’s point of view.  Here are the other posts in the series. The Mockingbird graphic novels, #1 and #2, written by Chelsea Cain and illustrated by Kate Niemczyk, are a short series of superhero […]

Pacing, Part 2: Form and Content

At some point, the beginning writer starts to notice that different stories are different from each other.  They don’t all seem to follow the same rules.  For a while (and I’ve seen this a lot), the writer tries to stretch “their” system of writing to fit the basics to cover all possible variations.  This is where […]

Pacing, Part 1: Welcome to Intermediate Writing!

When writers first start out, what they’re mainly aware of, writing-wise, is conflict.  This is when you sit down and start writing a scene and go, “This is two people fighting about something, how exciting!”  Let’s call that Level 0. Beginning writers have started to be inundated with English classes; they often have a set […]