SET THE PACE

Imagine your favourite piece of slow music played really fast, or vice versa. Worse, imagine all the music you ever listened to played at the same tempo throughout. Getting the pace just right is extremely important. Handled properly it:

• enhances the atmosphere
• matches and underlines characters’ moods
• advances or delays the action appropriately
• changes fairly frequently.

The last point can be a particular stumbling block. No matter how skilful the writing, too much delivered at the same speed can leave us feeling like a refugee from the January sales, or the recipient of a long sermon with no hard pew to keep us awake. Cinema and television with their ever shorter scenes and frequent changes of pace have no doubt influenced our tastes in this respect.

Study the structure

Watch your chosen video with the above criteria in mind.

• Pick some scenes where atmosphere is particularly important. What effect does the pace of those scenes have on their atmosphere?
• Note the way pace is matched to the main characters’ mood. Could this have been done differently?
• Select a 20-minute passage. Note the length and tempo of each scene within it. What is the proportion of fast to slow/short to longer scenes?
• Select a section of your chosen book to study in the same way.

Focus on the words

Camera movement, actors’ performances and soundtrack all help to set the pace on screen. A novelist, journalist or storywriter has only words on paper through which to convey this vital element. Some writers come unstuck because they recall the fervour or languor with which they wrote, and therefore believe these have been committed to the page.

Masterly handling of pace leaves no doubt as to the author’s intentions. Compare these extracts from Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves. Read them aloud several times as you study them.

First, the opening:

‘The sun had not yet risen. The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it. Gradually as the sky whitened a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other perpetually.’

The rhythm of this extract is like the in and out of the sea itself. It is almost impossible to read it any other way, or to hurry it. How is this achieved?

• Using this extract as a guide, create a descriptive piece with a similar tempo.

Later, the early morning sea is described:

‘(The sun)bared its face and looked straight over the waves. They fell with a regular thud. They fell with the concussion of horses’ hooves on the turf. Their sprays rose like the tossing of lances and assegais over the riders’ heads. They swept the beach with steel blue and diamond-tipped water. They drew in and out with the energy, the muscularity, of an engine which sweeps its force in and out again.’

About half-way through the book, the afternoon sea is described:

‘The waves massed themselves, curved their backs and crashed. Up spurted stones and shingle. They swept round the rocks, and the spray, leaping high, spattered the walls of a cave that had been dry before, and left pools inland, where some fish stranded lashed its tail as the wave drew back.’

The vitality of the images in the second two extracts defy us to read them meditatively – but that is just one element of the craftsmanship. Notice the shorter sentences, and the way commas are used to break longer ones into short bites to hurry us along. (What might an inner-critic style English teacher say about commas between ‘swept round the rocks, and the spray, leaping high’, and none in the phrase ‘where some fish stranded lashed its tail’?)

• Write a sequel to your first descriptive piece, using short sentences and ‘unorthodox’ commas to create urgency.

Use of the present participle (’ing’ suffix), tends to slow down action. In the first extract there are four examples, in each of the others only one. The first extract uses only two images; the cloth and the lines, both of which are introduced slowly. Description is mainly in the passive voice: ‘the sea was indistinguishable . . . was slightly creased,‘the grey cloth became barred’ There is a dreamlike detachment: ’as if a cloth had wrinkles in it’ rather than ‘like a wrinkled cloth’. Later the sea becomes a cloth and, as in a dream, we do not question it.

• Read the first extract again. For the present participles, substitute ‘which divided . . . which moved, followed, pursued’. Compare the effect. How many present participles did you use in your first descriptive piece? How much did you use the passive voice? Can you develop this further?

In complete contrast, the second and third extracts overflow with vigorously active images, which follow each other rapidly. In the second extract these are highly focused. It is like being overtaken by the cavalry at full charge. We hear hooves, see weapons, riders – with ‘the energy, the muscularity, of an engine’. In the third extract we are thrown from image to image; the waves, stones and shingle, rocks, spray, the walls of a cave. It feels like a performance of the 1812 Overture, complete with manic conductor in danger of being cut off by the tide.

• Develop your second descriptive piece further, introducing more images, using the active voice and limiting the use of present participles.

Focus on the sounds

Speech, like writing, is physical. Some sounds are less complex and easier to produce than others. ‘M’, one of the first consonants a baby learns to pronounce, is easy. So are ‘B’ and ‘W. They use natural lip positions. ‘V, on the other hand, requires a tricky movement of the lower lip, and may be pronounced as’ W in the early years. ‘K’ and ‘G’ require co-ordination of tongue and soft palate. Short vowel sounds require least work from the larynx.

Most can be ‘grunted’ with lips hanging loose; a – e – u – try it. Long vowels require more effort, and most diphthongs require this effort to be co-ordinated with tongue and lip movement.

Writers need to be aware of these relative complexities because the harder a sound is to make, the longer it takes to pronounce – and this affects pace. Even when we read silently, the brain carries on transmitting ‘how to’ messages to the brain. Some people’s lips move as they read. Most people’s larynxes respond, however subtly.

Experiment with sounds

• Place your fingertips lightly on your Adam’s apple and try some short vowel sounds followed by ‘ou’, ‘oi’, ‘oo’. Try reading silently and notice any subtle movements of the larynx as you do so.
• Try all the consonants, noticing which ones require the most complex movements of the speech apparatus. (Those which require co-ordinated release of air – ‘f’, ‘p’, ‘sh’, etc. are short sounds because they are explosive.)
• Read the Virginia Woolf extracts aloud in the light of these findings.
• Read a slow and a fast passage from your chosen book aloud, noticing what is happening to your speech apparatus as you do so.

Because we are accustomed to these physically imposed rhythms, we usually sort them naturally as we write. However, it is good to have them in mind when we analyse our work. ‘Do I need more explosive consonants. Would longer vowel sounds work better here?’ Such ‘brush-strokes’ can make all the difference.

Checklist

Pace is affected by:

• sentence length
• use of punctuation
• use of active or passive voice
• use of present participles
• number of images and their speed of presentation
• length of sounds involved in speaking the words.