Today’s tips involve time, timing, and putting the drama in a dramatic moment.
There’s nothing explicitly “wrong” with any of the words or phrases I’m recommending against, below. The problem with them is that they almost always steal the power or the opportunity from a moment that could be stronger.
There’s a certain amount of linear flow that gets established in a narrative. It can usually be assumed that things are being reported more or less in the order in which they happened. Unless you set the expectation early-on that things are going to jump around, the reader is going to accept that they’re not. Words that reinforce that linear order, therefore, are unneeded. Sometimes redundant, sometimes awkward, they have a tendency to interrupt the flow of the narrative by pointing out what is already taken for granted.
* Starting sentences with “Next,” or “That’s when…” can come across as redundant or clumsy by stating a chronological progression that’s already assumed.
Usually I see sentences starting this way in sections where a lot of actions are strung together in a row. “The ground shook. That’s when the candle fell off the table.” If we’re assuming a linear progression of time, we can assume that the candle falls at the point in the story when you mention the candle falling. “That’s when” is redundant, and I find it distracting.
Inserting narrative, reactions, or even environmental details to break up a list of actions, or condensing the action and avoiding some of the the step-by-step progression altogether, are good ways to get rid of the problem and create a smoother and stronger flow.
* When a sentence starts with “In that moment…” you’ve already supplied the end of the moment before it’s begun. It’s much more powerful to let the moment hang there, let the reader experience it, and then take it away.
Writers use “In that moment” to mean “this is how the character was feeling or what he was thinking at the time / in response to some event”. Again, though, narratives usually set up a chronological and linear flow which makes the phrase redundant. It’s already assumed whenever a character expresses an opinion or emotion that they’re experiencing it “in that moment” and at that time. It’s stronger to hit us with the emotion, the thought, or the realization. “In that moment, fear gripped him,” gives us a cue, whether we realize it consciously or not, that in the next moment the fear will pass and it will be okay. By cutting it to “Fear gripped him,” now we’re gripped too, because we don’t know if or when that fear is going to end.
* Sentences in dialogue can start with “So.” In dialogue, it can even be a sentence by itself. In narrative, a sentence beginning with “So” is almost always awkward.
Cause and effect is also a feature of the linear flow of a narrative. Since everything builds on what came before, a reader will naturally assume that if a realization is followed by an action, the two are likely related. “The doorbell rang. So she got up to answer the door.” Chances are, she wouldn’t be answering the door randomly if there hadn’t been a cue that someone was present, so the “so” is redundant.
Even if we change the period to a comma and leave the “so” in the middle of the sentence, it feels like a weak bridge to me. The cause and effect is assumed, and the narrative time could be better spent on characterization. What does she have to do before she answers the door? Set a cup aside, maybe, or shoo a cat off her lap? How does she feel about the doorbell ringing? Surprised? Annoyed at the interruption? There’s nothing explicitly wrong with “so”, but it’s redundant, and therefore distracting. It often starts a sentence in places where cause and effect is already implied, or where an opportunity to make the text richer and stronger has been missed.
* Be wary of repetition or over-explanation of action. This is especially common in combat scenes. Sometimes the same action is covered repeatedly for several sentences, or is returned to after the narrative has already moved on to something else. In a movie, you can have a slow motion shot repeated several times from different angles. In text, unless you’re specifically employing it as a device and deliberately returning to a moment from several different POVs, it will weigh down the pace at best, and confuse the reader at worst.
“The sword passed through flesh like it wasn’t even there. The swordsman slid the enchanted blade through his target, cutting frictionlessly through armor, muscle and bone.” — These two sentences say the same thing. More than that, though, they repeat the same moment. If the stab only happens once in the story, it should only happen once in the narrative. Instead of overexplaining a point, give it one really good, strong image and move on.
—
If you set your readers an expectation of a linear, chronological narrative, you can make it do some of the work for you. Cutting out the repetition that points to the framework you’ve already established will make your narrative stronger, give your moments the dramatic tension they deserve, and tighten your pace. Overall, you’ll have a more powerful, and more polished, book.
