>>> Item number 39029 from WRITERS LOG9410D --- (36 records) ----- <<< Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 21:46:02 EDT Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: The Bonfire of Ideas Subject: EXERCISE: Slow It Down... 1. Write a paragraph. Your choice on characters, action, etc. but make sure something happens in the course of the paragraph (even just having one character get up and cross the room). [100 words? no, shorter than that.] 2. Break it up. Take at least one part of the action and rewrite it into a "clue" or "foreshadowing" part. Then insert some other material in the middle--a flashback, perhaps another scene from another part of the action, a little description, some other stuff--and finish by rewriting the ending of the first action. [go back in and slice it up, then put some stuffing in...] 3. Keep stretching that original action. You can add some blocks and difficulties, you can add more "filling," you can turn that original paragraph into a thin framework binding all the parts of a whole novel into chunks interrupting your character slowly walking across the room... [and then get the pump out, put a funnel in and grind sausage into the casing to fill the little monster out, get on top and stomp more into the edges...] Don't let the reader down. Slow down the action...unless it needs to be fast and heavy. and sell a few more words, too! tink