Pacing: Decisions, Decisions...

I woke up early today, and thought I'd share with you something that helps me keep on track...

When a character makes a choice, it makes readers both sympathetic to the character, and it develops the character into something more than words on a page. Especially when that decision is a hard one. People don't want to know if your MC prefers regular or diet soda. For example:

Should the character quit their job because they're terrified of the thing living in the basement? Of course if they do, they'll lose the only income they have to support their newborn baby.

Now let's unpack this choice. We have a basic decision—quit the job or don't. Easy. We have a reason—something in the basement. Because it's me writing the example. Finally, we have stakes—a child. I know I'd do anything for mine, including a fight with Cthulhu. Ftaghn you! When confronted with a choice like this, a character is going to have to make a decision that will catapult us into the next chapter/scene to find out what happens.

Here's how I structure chapters on my Scrivener note cards:

• Outcome from the previous decision (yes/but, no/and style)
• Choice in this chapter
• Complication from outside (not related to decision, or something MC isn't aware of)
• Scene outlines for myself
• Chapter synopsis

For the outcome, I take the choice made in the previous chapter and make the character deal with the fallout—and sometimes combine it with issues from previous choices. I've heard it called scene-sequel format, or yes/but, no/and style. One way to remember it is this:

• Do we cross the bridge?
• Yes, but now the grass is made of razor blades.
• OR
• No, and there's an army of orcs about to kill us.

Next, the choice. It has to be a really hard choice. Something that puts the character's base nature into conflict. What does the character really want? For example, does she want marriage? Does she go with the rich jerk, or the loving pauper? And it doesn't necessarily have to be a two-way choice, either. You can throw in a choice like a man who's already married and wants to leave a loveless relationship to be with her. Or a man of moderate means but whose looks makes her nether regions tremble.

Finally, the complication. I just look at these as forces going on behind the scenes that will come into play at some point, and things that are affecting the action right now, but can't be seen. Like the Force guiding Luke into a confrontation with the Emperor, the complications are keeping things in motion. In the first example, this would be the monster because it's not seen, but it's most likely going to come into play at some point.

For me, this structure flows really well. I'm actually able to plot effectively (which was a surprise when I first did it), and it moves things along at a speed that's both comfortable and quick. Tension remains high because choices are hard, characters are flawed and interesting because bad choices can be made—and readers are right there watching.

So, yeah. This has been really long. Sorry about that. I can break this down a little if you want. Leave a comment, and let me know what you think.

Thanks for wreading!