How to Pace a Scene (Writing Emotion: Anticipation)

Jan 18

The Writing Emotion series observes one emotion at a time in a story that does it well. This is so that we can understand better how to do our most important job as storytellers: make readers feel.

The objective of these posts is less about learning to convey a specific emotion (joy, sorrow, anxiousness, etc.) and more about studying what is going on underneath a scene that makes the emotionality of it more compelling for the characters and the reader alike—

It’s about learning to write emotion.

Emotion: Anticipation
Story: The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith

Anticipation: looking forward to (whether negatively or positively)

Passage from the story:

“I sit down next to Finn and watch him open to the page that has consumed all my thoughts.

The book’s ancient spine cracks, like it, too, has been waiting for this.

The ground is hard and cold. The damp of the cellar takes root in my lungs. My heart is in my throat.

I have the feeling I am standing on the edge of a cliff, sick with anticipation of the unknown.

Finn places a warm hand on top of mine. I grip it like a life preserver on a vast dark ocean. What was it the old woman at the market said about anchors?

There’s a diagram of objects drawn on the onionskin paper, sketched so lightly that I can barely make it out.

In a five-pointed star, I lay out the items. I dump the pile of graveyard dust to the right of the mirror, the pocket watch to the left. To my direct left I place the dagger. Then, completing the pentagram, I lay the book open to my right.

Finn’s eyes lock onto mind. “No matter what happens, Frances, I am here for you,” he says.

I picture my brother’s face, alive and smiling. He had wrinkles in the corners of his eyes from how often they were scrunched up in laughter. He had dimples and crooked bottom teeth and my exact same nose.

What if he doesn’t look the same? What if he looks waterlogged and dead?

I nod. The words won’t come. I feel as if I’m about to vomit. Everything I’ve worked for is fanned out in front of me, but what is the punishment for breaking the very laws of existence? What does the world do to girls who speak to the dead? How will I move on when all this is over?

Deep in my soul I know it doesn’t matter what the consequences are. I’d do anything for my brother, and this is the very last thing I can do for him. The final act of the love that’s eating my heart alive.

“Let’s begin,” I say; it echoes off the walls.

I pull the book from Finn’s lap onto my own, and I begin to read.

I’ve read over the spell at least a dozen times, but the words are still clumsy on my tongue.

“Tras thar an veil agus tabhair dom an méid a cailleadh ionas go faimais níos mó ama a labhairt.”

The familiar stirring in my gut I expect when I say a magic spell doesn’t come. Instead there is only the blank, yawning emptiness of nothing.

In the center of the room the lamp flickers, illuminating the fact that nothing has changed.

I pause, staring at Finn and myself illuminated in the mirror, praying for something to happen. But nothing sparks, nothing changes—I’m just stuck staring at my own disappointed face.

Panic rises in my chest. I’ve never fully stopped to consider what I’d do if the spell didn’t work. I haven’t allowed myself to consider the possibility.

“It didn’t work.” I say it out loud more for myself than for Finn.

“Try it again,” he urges. “Close your eyes, really focus.”

I do as he says. With practice, the words come more easily.

I shut my eyes so tight, I see stars. Please please please, I pray. Please let it work. Please please.

I open my eyes. The basement is still and cold. There is only me and Finn reflected in the mirror. He’s concerned too. I can see it in his face.

“Why isn’t it working?” My voice breaks on the last word, and tears begin to fall hot and fast down my face. No no no. This can’t be right.

“I don’t know.” Finn puts his arm around my shoulder, but it doesn’t give me any comfort. “Try again,” he encourages gently.”

Lesson 1: Proper Pacing

Pacing is incredibly important. But, let’s face it, it can be tricky.

At a story level, you want to make sure that you’re neither rushing nor dragging.

You want to move your story forward without your reader feeling as though you are bogging them down with too much information (making the story feel slow) or as though you are giving them whiplash with too much momentum (making the story feel chaotic).

I’ve found that pacing comes more naturally to me the more I write, but I still love to find great examples of pacing to study so that I can understand on an intellectual level what goes into a well-paced scene/story.

This scene provides a good glimpse into proper pacing.

The writer has been building up to this moment for most of the story, so she wants to relish it. Here are a few ways Sasha Peyton Smith paces the scene above by unraveling important details and actions in a logical and compelling chain:

Stakes
First, the writer reminds us of the stakes:

“I sit down next to Finn and watch him open to the page that has consumed all my thoughts.”

We know that Frances has been waiting for this. We know it’s all she’s wanted since her brother died (to be able to speak with him again). And we know that the spell that allows them to talk might solve the mystery of who murdered him. The stakes are clear.
Sensory Details
Next, the writer drops us into the moment with fabulous sensory details:

“the spine cracks,” “the ground is hard and cold,” “the damp of the cellar takes root in my lungs.”

Sensory details ground us into a scene. They make it feel more real, raising our engagement on both an emotional and physical level.
Emotions
Then, the writer lets us live for a moment inside Frances’ mind and body:

“I have the feeling I am standing on the edge of a cliff, sick with anticipation of the unknown.”

The sensory details set the scene outside of the protagonist, this moment lets us get a more visceral peek into how she is feeling internally.
Show
It is only after all of this that the writer starts to show us the action of the scene—once we have a proper insight/reminder into the motivation and stakes of Frances as a character:

“In a five-pointed star, I lay out the items.”

Action is important. Your pacing will feel off if you include too much or little little action at any point in a story.
Future Focused
Something we naturally do as humans is to think about the future:

“I picture my brother’s face, alive and smiling…What if he doesn’t look the same? What if he looks waterlogged and dead?…How will I move on when all this is over?”

We tend to wonder if things will turn out the way we hope. We concern ourselves with how our circumstances might go wrong. This is natural. And, therefore, a good way to continue to ground the pacing of the scene and hammer home the stakes.

So, as a recap, the 5 steps to pace a scene will likely include:

Clarifying the stakes.
Grounding the reader in sensory detail.
Glimpsing the character’s interiority.
Showing important action.
Allowing the character’s mind to wander into their worries for the future.

In the passage above, these 5 steps continue in a back-and-forth between building the scene itself, pulling us into Frances’ mind and heart with her worries and emotions, and laying out the actual action. It is what creates a well-paced scene rife with emotion for the reader.

If you are struggling with pacing a scene (or your story as a whole), it might be helpful to see if any of these steps are missing.

Story implementation questions:

Have I properly communicated the emotional stakes? The best way to get a reader to care is to make sure they know what will happen if things go wrong for a character and why that matters to the character emotionally.
Have I built out the scene with specific sensory details (sight, sound, taste, feel, smell)?
Have I demonstrated how the character is feeling at any given moment? Consider using interiority, body language, dialogue, observation from another character, etc.
Have I included action that shows what is happening in the story? Telling is often useful. For example, “The king and queen struggled for years to have a daughter.” But it’s also important to pause at crucial moments in the story and show what the character is doing by writing out their specific actions.
Have I allowed my character to have interiority, such as worry about what will happen when the action starts? This goes hand in hand with clarifying the stakes, but sometimes the moment can land more powerfully if you make sure the character is well aware of what they have to lose.

Lesson 2: Dead Ends

One way to increase the feeling of anticipation in your story? Have things go wrong.

Make your character hit a brick wall; a dead end. Make them work and work and work for something, and then slip it out of their hands at the last second.

In this passage, Frances has to try several times. She has to come at her problems from different angles, getting more desperate and creative. This is coming after literally hundreds of pages of hitting dead ends and then having to pick herself back up.

In addition to raising the emotion of anticipation, this technique brings out more of Frances’ personality (everyone reacts differently when faced with disappointment and desperation).

As the dead ends keep pulling her up short, the writer also builds anticipation in other concrete ways:

Finn’s concern. The cold basement. Her increasing panic and internal pleas.

Story implementation questions:

Can you stretch the anticipation in a given scene a little tighter by prolonging the release your character is hoping for?
As you stretch it tighter, how can you show the building anticipation in other details? (The emotions of another character, the sensory details in the scene, the interiority of the main character, etc.)

Lesson 3: Movement

Movement is important, especially considering Lesson 2. Because while dead ends can stretch the tension in a scene, you never want the story to feel stagnant.

It’s one thing to intentionally create a feeling of disappointment or desperation. It’s another thing entirely to have the reader feeling frustrated because the story feels like it’s stalling.

So keep moving things forward. It can be simple: “With practice, the words come more easily.”

This one line shows that something is, in fact, happening. There is a progression. Maybe Frances just needs more practice with the spell.

It shows a sign of movement—hope that the story/scene isn’t dead—which is all the reader needs to keep pressing forward.

Story implementation questions:

If a scene or section of your story is feeling stagnant, how can you add a little movement/sign of hope/indication that there is more to be revealed?

One of the big lessons I’ve learned as I study other stories is how impactful a single sentence can be. One tiny word can change the entire atmosphere of a scene or character.

Maybe it’s a flicker of a shadow in the corner or the way someone’s jaw twitches that shows there is more than meets the eye, and, most importantly, more to be revealed.