Welcome to Powerful Pacing
Hi! If you’re here on this page, you have enrolled in Alicia’s Powerful Pacing Course. We’ll have fun!
What happens next? Well:
It's all done in email, so all you have to do is:
sign up and pay (you’ve probably already done that if you’ve been to Paypal)
(I'll enroll you in the email group),
click the "join" link when you get the invite email, or you can just hit “reply” and send the reply email.
Then when we start, read the lessons and reply to whichever lessons you find intriguing. There will be some assignments!
(No grades, but plenty of personal positive feedback from me.)
Groups.io is the group-provider, and they provide an invite system, where I submit the email addresses of new members. Then they will send an email invitation to each user. To join the group, each member simply has to click on the link within the invitation, or reply to the invitation.
If you have any trouble signing up, email me at plotblueprint@gmail.com.
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June 1!
So June 1, you’ll get an email from the course. The return address will be:
Now this class is done in email, with the lessons and assignments sent to your email. When you hit “Reply,” your post goes to the group list and to me the instructor. It’s all pretty easy! I’ll also park the lesson posts in the Files section of the Power Pacing course list page, and from there you can download it if you want a copy in .doc format.
If you’ve never taken a course with me, let me warn you. Oh, I mean let me TELL you! It’s not really scary, but the course has a lot of intensive material, as you can tell from the curriculum below.
There are also several assignments/exercises. Now you do NOT have to do any or all of the exercises! They are for your benefit if you want to try them out. They will be geared to your own story— that is, I’ll refer to “your character” and “your story” so that you won’t be wasting time with generic examples.
If you do post an exercise response, I’ll read it and give whatever helpful feedback I have. You’re also welcome to ask questions, especially ones the rest of the class might want to ask also!
So there’s a lot of material, but that’s because I’m so fascinated with the topic of plot pacing that I’ve analyzed it in depth. You can learn a lot about plotting and sequencing events, and apply it directly and immediately to your own story.
Okay! The schedule of class lessons is below. I know it’s a lot, and there will be a lesson just about every day. But it will all be over in three weeks, and you’ll then be able to punch up and revise your story’s pacing!
We’ll have fun! I love to hear about other writers’ stories and characters. Talk to you June 1!
Alicia
Intensifying Your Pacing
BIG PICTURE PACING- What is pacing?
What level of pacing is right for your story? (Exercise)
Plot purpose of pacing
Pacing chains
Events for pacing, and intro to the three-act structure (Exercise)
Cause-and-Effect Pacing (Exercise)
Beginnings, Middles, and Ends (Exercise)
Final thoughts about the Big Picture (story-length structure)
Opening and Closing the External Story Question (Exercise)
Starting on Scenes and Pacing: One more time: Conflict= Goal + deadline +internal issue
Showing things concretely in the opening (Exercise)
Theme as Pacing-creation (Exercise)
Show AND tell and theme
Magic Rule of Three for the whole plot (Exercise)
Moving on from "macro" to "mid-level" with unity
Using motifs to "pull" the reader and pace the plot (Exercise)
Pacing: Intro to scene pacing
Structuring plot turning points for pacing
Zooming in on scenes (Exercise)
Stacking events in scenes
Opening scenes with a question/goal
The magic rule of 3 in scenes (Exercise)
Scene endings that make the reader keep reading
Scene central event for pacing prominence (Exercise)
Within the scene with beats -- doing a scene pacing analysis (Exercise)
Slowing things down: Moments of Grace
Inside scenes: Prose, presentation, paragraphs, and pacing
Pacing for paragraphs (Exercise)
Pacing for sentences
Don't waste space and lose focus in sentences
Make sentences bristle for better pacing
Final Exercise on Power Pacing
