Anticipation

Impulsive is not usually a word I would use to describe myself. I’ve always been an over-planner and an over-thinker, so I don’t make rash decisions.

This week, I was impulsive.

For now, that’s really all I can say on that. In the words of the new Frozen II song (which incidentally I’m in love with given my adoration/admiration for Panic! At The Disco), into the unknown…

This week, I’m really starting to get into the Christmas spirit.

The Christmas market in Exeter has really put me in the mood. I officially listened to my Spotify Christmas playlist for the first time yesterday! Then I went into the Christmas section in Primark, which always sets me off.

So now it’s official: Roxy Christmas mode activate!

Today, I’m starting a bit of a series about writing techniques.

Since the mini-rebrand to be a writing focussed blog, I’ve had so many of you emailing in to suggest topics, and I absolutely LOVE your enthusiasm! I promise that I’ll get around to all of your requests but thank you thank you thank you for them!!! I cannot express how much it means to me.

One of the key themes of storytelling is anticipation. All types of a story require anticipation.

Think about it: whether you’re listening to someone tell you a story in a pub or reading a real page-turning novel, you need a certain level of anticipation to engage.

As a writer, or storyteller of any kind, how do you build that anticipation? How do you take your story to that next level?

I remember the first story I ever wrote. Well, the first serious one. [If you’re interested the real first story was a fantasy story I wrote when I was about 6 or 7 – as you can imagine it was really intellectually stimulating 😉]

My first serious story formed the plot for what is now the first novel I will ever have properly published.

But one of the key things that that first draft lacked was anticipation.

That said, it was only a page long, so there wasn’t much room for in depth plot development I suppose…

Point being, adding in a little bit of dramatic anticipation was one of the key things that moved the story up from just being an idea and made it into a book.

So how do you do it?

My two main genres being murder mystery and romance, I’ll tell you a few of my top tips for building up anticipation in those genres. They’ll probably apply just as well in any other

genre, but here are my personal techniques after a lot of good old trial and error.

Murder mysteries rely on the build-up. It’s hard to find the balance between the reader trying to anticipate what will happen next and know what’s happening next; it’s got be interesting and not simplistic.

I won’t lie; I still get that balance wrong. It’s not a perfect science anyway, hence why proof-readers are a godsend.

The biggest thing for me when I’m trying to build anticipation in a murder mystery is to speed up the pace of the writing to create that sense of excitement. Sounds complicated but it’s actually really easy to do.

For example, if you’re reading a long paragraph of text, you’re naturally going to be reading at a slower pace.

When the paragraphs are one or two sentences long, and the action feels to be moving on quickly, you create the sense of anticipation.

All the examples I could give of this are in my unreleased work, so I can’t put one up here unfortunately, but if you want a better explanation/an example to demonstrate what I mean, email me: roxyelle01@gmail.com

Romance is a little more complex ironically. Any reader who picks up a romance novel will have a vaguely good idea of where the story is going. Either the characters have a happy ending or a tragic ending.

Since there isn’t much new in the field of romance, instead of trying to fight the clichés, I tend to just steer into the curve. Embrace the cliché, and you’ll find that romantic moment you’re trying to write will probably be a bit smoother.

When I reach that climatic romantic moment, I start to phase out the use of character dialogue and go more into the descriptive paragraphs. Start exploring what the characters are thinking right before they kiss or whatever else. You’ll see that it just feels a little more natural.

And finally, you may have noticed I’m rather a fan of rule of three… Honestly, I use it way too much and probably use it in places I shouldn’t, but in romance, repetition and reinforcement usually makes the moment sound more romantic.

Once more, I can’t really post an example, but if you want to read one of my romances, look up my profile on Inkitt (a free reading/writing platform) and you’ll probably be able to easily spot all the above tricks.

I hope that post was even vaguely helpful and that the person who requested it enjoyed it. Any more questions, DM me on Instagram @roxyelle01 or email me.

To finish this week, I’m going to go back to being cryptic, so here’s a piece of advice that I’ve been saying for years, but only realised it was really true this week:

It’ll be worth the wait. Even if it doesn’t seem true right now, I promise that it is.

P.S. I know it’s super in advance, but would you guys prefer to read a Christmas or New Years’ extract when the time comes? Or both? Comment down below and I’ll see what I can whip up :)

#anticipation #writing #toptips