THE WORD
What a difference a word makes. Words matter.
Each word matters.
Word choice is everything in your writing processes.
Word sounds, syllables, even placement and pause—even punctuation—add to the quality of your story and really help you delight your readers.
How do we improve a story in a snap? Circle inactive “to be” verbs and shift them to active verbs. This lifts your writing and improves pacing in a snap.
This chapter can work well as a writer’s workshop. You can work with students as teachers, in critique groups as professional authors, and at universities in first-year to grad level students. This material has been used with all levels of learners.
The funny thing is my approach to word pacing boasts an exciting way to improve your writing step-by-step. You may also use other word techniques: oust adverbs, challenge articles, carefully consider your word selection, add beats, embrace proper nouns, create original words, pause or halt, transition, and even hint to time.
You become the puppeteer behind your words. You are your story, and your story is all about how you move words and art to reveal its heart.
One word, for all these things, influences the pacing of our story.
CELEBRATE EVERY WORD
Writers build whole worlds, word by tiny word, so searching and selecting those “just right” words at that “just right” moment remains vital to your book’s success.
Words, when studied fully with all their nuances, improve every genre of writing. The key to working with words is how well you connect, interconnect, mingle, and dance your words across the page. It’s also important that every word within your manuscript feels
authentic and contributes to your theme(s).
You can create excitement for your reader when the emotional edge of a book comes from careful crafting at the word level. Each word remaining pivotal to the book’s success. A lot can be done at a word level and sentence level to enhance your writing.
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lighting,” says Mark Twain. The selection. But I want you to take this a step further to think about the word selection process: sounds, rhythm, and placement. The fiction between words, and the patterns you create with words, may captivate and beg for reaction, much like a rhythmic song does as you place them in a story.
ACTIVATE VERBS
The easiest way to improve any story is to activate your verbs. Hold up the first page of your manuscript and see how many “to be” verbs you use. Circle them. Then, be rid of them. Oust the flabby, wimpy, and not-quite-right verbs and flip them into active verbs, and more descriptive verbs. Use hop, skip, and jump, seem-to-pull-you-in verbs. Consider theme and how your verbs support story. Stay on verb alert. Go for specific and “just right.” Settle for nothing less. Consider this the best way to blossom voice. Consider Eudora Welty’s “Petrified Man:”
“Reach in my purse and git me a cigarette without no powder in it if you kin, Mrs. Fletcher, honey,” said Leota to her ten o’clock shampoo-and-set customer. “I don’t like not perfumed cigarettes.”
Mrs. Fletcher gladly reached over to the lavender shelf under the lavender-framed mirror, shook a hair net loose from the clasp of the patent-leather bag and slapped her hand down quickly on a powder puff which burst out when the purse opened.
Analyze pace
Doing a quick verb check, simply listing them in the order they appear, you can see the action of a scene: (reached, shook, slapped, burst). If you see any inactive verbs, you can work to active them and immediately improve your story.
When you use passive language, your writing feels distant to your reader. It can be used at time to summarize or to amp up the emotional impact of a sentence. The more active your verbs, the quicker your
pace. Action is story and story is action. Pacing moves the action of your plot.
Understanding Passive Voice
Avoid “To be” Verbs: circle am, is, was, were, are, or been.
Passive, mostly: When the alarm rang, he was ready to jump into his gear and race to the fire.
The more active your verbs, the quicker your pace.
Active: When the alarm rang, he jumped in his gear and raced to the fire.
You will want to activate your verbs and select each one with care. So often as an agent, professor, and teacher—and an author, you can hold up your paper and see all those glaring “to be” verbs staring out from the text. Show rather then tell and stay active. Those “to be” verbs, those lovely linking verbs that share no action and just rest on the page and do nothing. So, use them only when necessary. Support your characters and your theme. You can also get really playful to bring fresh to this process. You can go so far as using cooking verbs in a story about a relationship gone bad:
Bretthaniel pan seared his last chance to make up with Gretchen.
Their relationship sizzled to null as his desire to make amends crisped to a golden butter-ridden brown. If only…
This is a nice, easy way to engage and amp up the effectiveness of your pacing—and it’s fun. Try it. This activity is one you should
embrace as you will be amazed by the results. What’s interesting to me about this is that when a writer shifts to this, it falls into a domino effect, leading to a whole series of them. When you see “to be” verbs, this marks telling. When you pop on those bossier storytelling shoes, it may feel wonderful to wear, but they just do not lift your words off the page. Why do this when active voice drops the reader into a scene?
OUST ADVERBS
Oust your adverbs. Who needs them? Use adverbs and realize this points to the fact you missed out on discovering a “just right” verb that would be far more dynamic and interesting and visual for your reader. After all, verbs move readers. Do not water them down. Instead, swim with strength and a swiftness into your fast lane until emotions run high.
(Then, you can cut to a pause and really excite readers.) Until then, cut adverbs like crazy.
Really mix these with oodles of active verbs.
Adverb: She spoke softly and immediately jumped to her feet.
Adverb removed: She whispered and sprang to her feet. (Sprang feels immediate.)
ADD ONOMATOPOEIA
Are there places in your narrative where you can drop a series of words and exchange them for a sound to increase your pacing?
Absolutely! Onomatopoeia gives way to immediacy and engages your reader. When you create some noise on the page, you garner attention from your readers and it make the experience feel live. Sound brings
a reader in as much as the other senses do: smelling, touching, tasting, seeing. You cannot underestimate our own ability to breathe new
life into a scene by thinking about these very tactile and stimulating techniques. If you want a challenge for the day, try to incorporate smell and taste into a scene to bring your reader in with immediacy.
Take a peek at any chapter book worthy of its spine and experience onomatopoeia at its finest. In STINK and the Great Guinea Pig Express by Megan McDonald, she uses oodles of onomatopoeia as she shares
a story about picking up guinea pigs and becoming a one-van pet adoption mobile.
“Shake! / Rattle! / Squeal!”
You can explore why and ask what onomatopoeia does for her story as well as how this improves the reader experience. When you can remove words and create the live feel that onomatopoeia provides, there’s little to decide.
Is there a risk?
Sure.
Don’t do this too much. And never forget to also connect your reader to the emotional side of your story. You can’t rely on onomatopoeia alone (pacing is the mash-up of many techniques). When it comes to pacing your plot, you want to remain focused on interactives and reader engagement.
HALT STORY
Remember that you hold the power to start a story in that “just right” place, halt it, or allow the illustrations to carry it or shift the pacing at any given moment along your narrative arc. What amazes me most about pace is how much it influences and enhances everything within a piece of writing: character, emotional depth, tension, and suspense and pause your readers more. Show importance and further dramatize by placing one word as its own sentence, own paragraph, or own page or chapter. This halts the story, if even for a moment, and
refreshes both your reader and your pacing. Remember this. Small edits make a big difference. One word can be an optimal edit.
WRITE SLIM
A single word holds power, and you know from our previous discussion that a single word creates a whole story experience. But you need to remember that the simplicity and slim writing can be exhilarating. When you get to that point when you are thinking of all the words on your page as your darlings that you can’t let go of, read slim texts like Newbery novel, The One And Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, and experience how magical writing slim can be. You axe words you do not need.
Think rhythm.
Think short sentences.
Think about writing visually with action and energy to meet the demands of today’s readers.
You monitor passive language and use it less, perhaps only when you summarize or jump your story to a new scene.
Katherine Applegate, in The One and Only Ivan uses lists in her book in her “it,” “romance,” and “outside at last” chapters and it’s a great example of “doing less to do more.”
“This actually falls in line with my focus on brevity and writing small,” says Applegate. “I watched a short video clip of Ivan’s first encounter with two female gorillas at Zoo Atlanta and distilled it into few words. The ‘it’ chapter is really based off of the behaviors seen in this clip.” Unlike wild male gorillas that would dominate and pounce their chests, Ivan allowed the females to chase him. “He ran off as if he was playing tag, which he really would have done in his young gorilla life in the wild,” she said. But the sad reality is that he didn’t really
know how to be a gorilla.
In the “romance” chapter that follows, Ivan shares fragmented thoughts about his integration process:
Make eye contact. / Show your form. / Strut. / Grunt. / Throw a stick.
/ Grunt some more. / Make some moves. / Make some moves. / Romance is hard work…
One-word sentences are used in the “outside at last” chapter, highlighting Ivan’s emotional change. These observations contrast Ivan’s experience and highlight what he lacks:
Sky. / Grass. / Tree. / Ant. / Stick… Mine. / Mine. / Mine.
“Writing small really places readers in a scene—and it’s great for the most reluctant readers,” says Applegate.
WORD PAUSE
Watch for moments where you may incorporate a word pause. Like the short sentence, one word used as a sentence—whether it appears within a paragraph, at the end of a paragraph or sentence, or on its own in its own paragraph—adds punch. It creates emphasis and harnesses your reader’s attention. It’s like waving yours arms and saying, Hello! This is an important moment, readers!
Flip this concept into the novel and find a lot more to get excited about.
Take a look at what happens in New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series, by Stephanie Meyers, who uses a single word title to represent the stress her main character was facing when Edward, her vampire boyfriend, left her behind.
OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER JANUARY
4. WAKING UP.
Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second-hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.
Analyze pace
This is a great example of a word pause, a great one-word move, and a nice shift in the pacing within a narrative. When you shift to a chapter actually having text, it’s a short one as well, so this adds impact and a swifter pacing. Plot moves even as it doesn’t, as this word play represents the main character’s anguish following her loss. The months create emotional hot spots by slowing pace in single words and sequential page turns. This creates a longer pause and heightens the tension during this traumatic event. What’s nice here?
The text that follows the chapter title begins “Time passes” and on a word-level, Meyer’s shows us this (October, November, December, January). She leads us right into rhythmic word repetition and discussion, revealing more details and emotional resonance during this time: (even, even, …. passes, passes… and unevenly).”
JUST RIGHT WORD
You can find this similar approach used in the Newbery and Caldecott Award-winning book Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña, illustrated by Christian Robinson. This time, you also see that unexpected, just right word at that just right moment. Consider “freedom” and alliteration of “s” sounds, as well as repetition of “smelled.”
CJ pushed through the church doors, Skipped down the steps.
The outside air smelled like freedom, But it also smelled like rain,
Which freckled JC’s shirt and dripped down his nose.
One word may elate us or break our heart. Right? This example shows how much key edits can enhance a piece of writing to emotionally impact readers.
The simple truth? One word that’s off in picture book—or any piece of—writing marks a direct invitation to toss the manuscript in recycle bin. I recently spent time with a client talking about two single-word moves in a manuscript. The final two off beats in the whole manuscript needed more attention. Was it was worth it? Get your words right, you earn the contract. Fall short, and, well, you know.
Dare the extra mile.
WORD ECHO
A single repeated word garners your reader’s attention. In Imogene’s Last Stand by Candace Fleming you see the repetition of the word ‘small’ and ‘Liddleville.’ Plus, alliteration, the recurrence of same letter sounds, and consonance, similar sounds add rhythm and enhance tone: small, speck, state, still, store, as well as the pop that ‘Liddleville’ to ‘Little’ adds the deliciousness of prosody to Fleming’s writing:
Liddleville, New Hampshire, was small—so small it wasn’t even a speck on the state map. Still, Liddleville was home to a village green, a general store, a three-legged cat, and a little girl named Imogene Tripp.
Analyze pace
Lots to love: You can see the punch the quick repetition of the word (small) adds, mixed with alliteration (small, speck state map) and lists (village green, store, cat, girl) filled with specificity and prosody—
it’s pleasing to the ear—that ends in the introduction of her main character. This text moves mind, heart, and ear to engage readers.
You can use a one-word repeat to add beats. Pulse one word and feel an increase in energy. When words add rhythm to the narrative flow, I call this ‘writing with a fist”—or punching up your writing. Your sentences read more poetic. You create great word beats within your text. You go far enough to support your narrative to adding the
emotional depth needed elevate story. This move adds rhythmic energy and strengthens the pacing of your novel. It’s the same move used in the most effective speech in United States history in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech or the book, I Have A Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and illustrated by Kadir Nelson shares a message that will top rhetorical speeches of all time, just above John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address. It’s a powerful read:
... I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
Fun to see that even with a single word, powerful things happen.
Take a moment and dissect the pace in his speech.
The “I Have A Dream” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. represents wonderful moves in pacing. If we take this message and
explore pacing elements and those parts of this speech that move us emotionally, we learn a lot about the power of pacing. King, Jr. was not wrong to say his speech would “go down as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.”
You can ask what words stand out to us and why?
This will open a conversation about words like “dream” and repetition: Now is the time, cash this check, “Dark and desolate,” objects like solid rock of brotherhood. The visual imagery in good writing: “bad check” and “beacon” “daybreak” “chains” “lonely island of poverty.” These all contribute extreme and concrete visuals to his writing.
Actions include “Cash[ing] a check” and being “Sent a promissory note,” which serves up a universal truth in a three:
Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.
King Jr. leans on visual imagery to an extreme genius level.
America has given the negro people a bad check, marked Insufficient Funds.
He suggests that if people ask for the African American to “Take the tranquilizing Drug of gradualism” they “will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.” He talks about being “granted his citizenship rights” to “shake the foundation of our nation” (interior rhyme), and “drink from the cup of hatred.”
This certainly remains a prime example of how word selection, visual imagery, and active writing motivate the complex feelings and connections to readers (and listeners).
If you take a look at the addition and rhythmic pulse of one word, luck, in Less by the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Andrew Sean Greer, you might be surprised how much impact can be created:
Luck in days of endless golden words. Luck in checks in the mail.
Luck in prize ceremonies and trips to Rome and London. Luck in tuxedos and hands secretly held beside the mayor or the governor or, one time, the president.
The word “luck” adds an extra beat, a starting beat. It’s predictable and expected and rhythmic and specific.
One word does this.
Now see new options in your own work and really celebrate your ability to let go of your words to punch up your sentences to have more impact. Remember that emotional connection improves pacing so strive to connect, engage as if you are the puppeteer of your every word.
When you flip to explore the one word edit in a novel, you see how it can add rhythm, interest, and punch. In The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, you hear the main character, Jessica, talk about the race and fighting through her personal struggle when she hurts most:
Rigor Mortis Bend: Rigor Mortis Bend.
It’s a place in the 400-meter race where every cell of your body locks up. Your lungs ache for air.
Your quads turn to cement.
Your arms pump desperately, but they’re stiff and feel like lead.
Rigor Mortis Bend is the last turn of any track, and at Liberty High you’re greeted with the head wind.”
Knowing you can turn to this at any point in your writing is powerful. It improves pacing by adding a rhythmic quality, deepening understanding through details and specificity. The pattern appears: general, general, more specific. You can find this again within the same chapter seven of Van Draanen’s novel shares this:
The finish line comes into view and you will yourself toward it, but the wind pushes you back, your body begs you to give up, and the whole world seems to grind into slow motion.
Your determination is all that’s left. It forces your muscles to fire. Forces you to stay in the race.
Forces you to survive the pain of this moment. Your teammates scream for you to push.
Push!