Good morning and happy Friday to you all.
I've reached something of an obstacle in my WIP and I'm really unsure how to pass it. I finished planning the first act this week, but found that it all happens over too short a period of time. The first half of the 2nd act needs to cover at least 9 months, as it ends with the birth of the protagonist's son, whose conception is only revealed at the beginning of act two, so the first act needs to follow a broadly similar period of time in order to keep the book feeling consistent and maintain the tempo throughout. Reading back through it, it isn't clear that this is the case and I don't think it works well enough.
What I'm trying to ask is how do I maintain pace while ensuring each act takes places over a reasonably long period of time? Each scene will focus on a specific series of events, so there needs to be a gap between them in order to allow time to pass.
Does anyone have a good examples of books that do this well? I recently read Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis (not his best book, but quite funny), which used a device that broke up each act with a brief overview of events that happened in between, which kind of worked, but felt a little bit contrived.
I don't want to write a full on saga, but the story will take place over a period of 2 to 3 years.
Thanks for your help... if any of this makes sense!
Mark.
I came to this post because I have a similar issue with a project I'm working on, therefore I can't offer advice. I just wanted to say that Kate, you're answer has made me feel a lot less muddled by a problem that I think I've been creating myself. Mark, all I can offer you is the knowledge that I too am suffering in time!
If it's any help - I often find that with this sort of problem, if I just go away and leave it, try and think about something else - work on the next part of the story for instance - my subconscious works it all out for me and then I have a light bulb moment a few days later: "of course, that's how to do it!" But if I spend too much time worrying about it, the problem gets bigger.
Thanks Kate, this does help. I think I've placed too much importance on keeping timing the same throughout the novel, and lost sight of the importance of simply telling the novel.
I'm going to go back to reconsider the first act with a focus on what needs to happen, rather than how long it takes. The story is from the father's POV, but you're right in using clear sign posts to give the sense of time passing; my concern had been more with how I make the first act follow a similar passage of time, but I see that I don't have to.
How did you find The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden? I read The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed out a Window and Disappeared, and I thought it was an amazing story: very funny, very well-written and very entertaining. He does skip through a large number of years in that, but only in the back story, which is deliberately a rush through time, with a focus only on key events, which doesn't quite translate to what I'm trying to achieve.
I'm not sure I expressed myself very well in my initial question, but then I don't think I fully understood what I needed to ask... probably because the question wasn't worth asking in the first place!
Thanks,
Mark.