Thieves' Gambit, Ep. 10: Chapter and Scene Pacing
Pacing scenes and chapters in an action/thriller might seem to be all about how to move through the story as fast as possible, but in this episode Anne-Marie and Erin focus on controlling the pace, why you want slower moments, and how to move fast without sacrificing clarity or emotional resonance.
Things we talk about:
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
The Golden Bowl by Henry James
Dangerous Play by Emma Kress
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Erin Nuttall: As the fairy godmother of all writing to all people, I give you permission.
[Music intro]
[00:00:06] Anne-Marie Strohman: Welcome to season two of the Kid Lit Craft Podcast. This season we're doing a deep dive into Kayvion Lewis's YA thriller Thieves’ Gambit. Today we're focusing on pacing.
[00:00:16] Erin Nuttall: Again?
[00:00:17] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yep! And this time on a more micro level of the pacing within scenes and chapters, I am Anne-Marie Strohman, and I write for children and young adults as well as short stories for adults
[00:00:28] Erin Nuttall: And I am Erin Nuttall. Hello everyone. I write YA and …mostly just YA.
[00:00:34] Anne-Marie Strohman: On Kid Lit Craft, we look at mentor texts to discover the mechanics of how writers do what they do, so we can apply it to our own writing.
[00:00:42] Erin Nuttall: And we wanted to remind you that we have one more ask the Author event this spring on April 22nd with Lindsay Lackey talking about her middle grade novel Farther Than the Moon. And I will say, if you have not joined us for one of our book clubs, or Ask the Author, please do. They're super fun. It is a intimate event with authors who have a lot of really interesting and important things to teach us. I have loved all of them so far.
[00:01:12] Anne-Marie Strohman: And I'm especially excited to talk about Lindsay's book. I got to be there during some of the creation of it on a couple writing retreats. Lindsay's one of my writing buddies. And it's a great book about two brothers, one of whom has significant disabilities. They’ve promised each other, they'll go to space together. And the older one gets accepted to space camp. And…
[00:01:35] Erin Nuttall: Fun.
[00:01:36] Anne-Marie Strohman: …struggles with having left his brother behind, but also realizing his dream at this space camp. And there are a lot of other complications that we'll talk about, but it's a lot of fun. And as a special treat too, Lindsay's gonna be offering a workshop on using touchstone moments to create your novel. And that will be the Saturday after her event. And you can sign up for the workshop on its own, or you can bundle it with the book club and the workshop together.
[00:02:00] Erin Nuttall: Well, that is super fun. I am excited.
[00:02:03] Anne-Marie Strohman: So onto Thieves’ Gambit. We have some great vocabulary today. Erin, one of the huge things I discovered my first semester of my MFA was that I actually didn't know what a scene was. So I did a lot of research and I found it such necessary knowledge that now in the middle grade writing class that I teach, I spend three weeks teaching scene writing. So take us to scenes. What is your definition?
[00:02:28] Erin Nuttall: Well, it is not surprising to me that you didn't know because I think that it can be tricky and I have talked to a number of authors and writers about what is a scene and I have gotten many different answers. But most broadly, it is a unit of story that takes place at a specific time and place. And the characters, they engage in action or dialogue, or both. And scenes are structural units that help move the story forward. I think that for me, scenes take place in one place. If you move to a different location then you have a new scene. I have had people say, if you add a new person, if a new person comes, then the scene changes. I personally disagree, but that's because I like to write scenes with a big cast of characters and sometimes the best way to introduce another person is to have them come into the scene.
[00:03:33] Anne-Marie Strohman: That's true.
[00:03:34] Erin Nuttall: But in general, it's just a unit that helps move the story forward, and something has to take place. If you have a scene where nothing takes place, no change, no new information then it's not a scene, it's just a little piece of writing that you did for fun,
[00:03:50] Anne-Marie Strohman: I often have little pieces of writing that I did for fun in my novels. I go through every scene and write down what changed. And if all that changed is that they moved from the pool deck to through the locker room, to the front desk then, and that's all, then that probably doesn't need to be a whole scene.
[00:04:10] Erin Nuttall: Right. Or, or you can add to it, right? Like you can have new information come up during the conversation or something that happens that, that causes a change. But yes, if the change is just a movement through space, or, or the change is dialogue that is witty, which is my favorite kind of scene to write, just dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, but we don't get a big change then that is a scene that needs to, to either be cut or to add more to.
[00:04:44] Anne-Marie Strohman: And I also think of scenes in relation to summary too, that when you're in a scene, you're in the action. It's sensory, it's physical. It's not just heads talking in space. It's not exposition or storytelling. And it's not summary, right? A summary might be ‘they spent the whole day at the beach and they got popsicles and then they drove home.’
And that's a summary. And then when you're in the scene, we're gonna feel the sand and feel the breeze and smell the sea air. And we're gonna have dialogue and we're gonna have specific actions within that. So I think of scene in that way as well.
[00:05:20] Erin Nuttall: Yeah. I think that that is a good way, and you don't need all scenes all the time. That's something I need to remind myself 'cause I like to be in the moment. And it's important to have those summaries. You do need to know that they drove to the beach. Do we need to be in the car while they drive to the beach? Not necessarily.
[00:05:40] Anne-Marie Strohman: So we have just talked about how we have scenes and summary in novels. Is that all?
[00:05:46] Erin Nuttall: No. There are more pieces. A really important piece in writing a longer story especially, but I think it in picture books as well, is a sequel. And a sequel is a passage of writing where the character reacts reflectively to the previous scene. and that is my hoity toity definition. If I'm looking at, it's, it's where the character reacts to what just happened. Like you emotionally react or you make a decision about something because of what just happened. It is where we as the reader get to be in the character’s headspace. Could be for a long time, but it could be very briefly. But, personally, I frequently forget the sequel and I wanna go from action to action to action. And I want the reader to intuit why the main character, or whichever character, whoever's head you're in. Why that character is doing what they're doing by their actions. And that is not fair to the reader. And, and it actually keeps the reader at arm's length from the character. So you want those sequels to let the reader know why the character is acting or is making these choices. You
want that moment in their head.
[00:07:01] Anne-Marie Strohman: I had that in one of my semesters at VCFA and my advisor just said, I don't know why, but people like to know what's in characters’ heads. I was like, okay. But this idea of scene and sequel, well, one place that it's found is this great book by Jack Bickham called Scene and Sequence. And he goes into a lot of detail. And you summarized it so nicely. I tend to think of it as this action and reaction as you said, that for every time there's an action, there's gonna be a reaction to it, even if it's, you know, someone gets punched in the jaw and they punch back, right? There's a moment where they decide to do it, and it could be two words that give you that instant of reaction to it.
[00:07:41] Erin Nuttall: Not to interrupt you, but for me I think one of the reasons it's difficult is because of movies and tv. Because we don't see inside character's heads. We do, however, get a visual of their face.
Wow, I was watching something, Dopesick. I don't know if anybody has seen that. It, if you wanna be really upset by the opioid crisis, go ahead, watch that. It's excellently done. And there's this scene where, the Richard Sackler character is listening to this quack doctor explain how if you have someone who is getting breakthrough pain on oxy it's not because they’re addicted. It's because their body just needs more oxy and, and that will keep them happier. And if I were writing the scene, I would need to be in Richard Sackler’s head. I would need that. I would need to see his reaction as a reader. I would need to see him call into question, but because it was, you know, a movie or a mini-series or whatever, I watch his face and you see it pass on his face that this guy is an utter quack and how useful he will be for the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma as he promotes this idea that there's no such thing as addiction. We just need to have the proper amount of medication in us. And that all crosses his face. But we don't get that when we're reading a book. I mean, I suppose you could try to write that, but I don't know how you would write these facial expressions. I have no idea. I don't think it would really work.
[00:09:16] Anne-Marie Strohman: No, it wouldn't work.
[00:09:17] Erin Nuttall: But we needed that. I needed to know, watching that show, that Richard Sackler knew this guy was a fraud and that he would be super useful.
And if I were writing that scene, I would need to be in Richard Sackler’s head where he has that reaction. And now it just needs to be where he says, whoa, what a useful idiot. Like, that's it, that's all you would need. Or you could have him, you know, think at length about how much money he's gonna make off this guy. It depends on, you know, how you want to write that sequel to that scene. But not knowing what Richard Sackler is thinking in that moment does a disservice to the reader. Right?
[00:09:56] Anne-Marie Strohman: Mm-hmm. Which brings us to pacing: whether those reactions are long or short. We've talked a little bit about pacing last time. Can you define it for us again?
[00:10:05] Erin Nuttall: Of course. Pacing is the speed that the story is told and not the speed necessarily that it takes place so that—so you could have a very, in fact, I did read a book that basically took place over one day and it was very slowly paced and, but it was just one day. And then you could have a really fast paced book that takes place over five years or however long, right?
It's really how quickly the plot points unfold and how much tension you keep. If you keep the tension high, then you keep the plot points unfolding quickly, then its’ gonna have a fast pace. And if you have a longer space where people are having longer sequels, where they're thinking about things and, and plotting and planning and conniving or whatever they're doing between your bigger plot points, you generally have a tension that builds on itself rather than just a, a high tension and that is, feels a lot slower to the reader.
[00:11:04] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah and as writers we're in charge and there are different ways to change the pacing, and we looked last time at pacing the entire action book and how pieces of chapters can help us do that and how tension can do that for us. But today we're gonna look at actions, scenes, and chapters. And things like sentence structure, dialogue, descriptive passages, etcetera, can all change how fast the story feels like it's unfolding. So let's dive into pacing on a chapter and scene level. What did you notice Lewis doing to control the pace within a chapter or scene? Can you start us off with what she does with sentences?
[00:11:40] Erin Nuttall: Yeah. So sentences were something that I looked at specifically because I was curious about how sentences make the pacing feel. And she has a lot of short, punchy sentences and quicker dialogue and that speeds up the action. For instance, on page 136, we have, it starts out with Noelia speaking. She says, “‘but don't expect it to continue after we set foot in Paris.’ She glanced at the dome camera in the corner of the elevator. ‘Wouldn't wanna keep the show dull for too long.’ The doors closed and then they were gone. I folded my arms. ‘Well, they weren't lying.’ ‘You sure?’”
So we have Noelia. Something that she says, something that she does, something that she says and then the doors close and then we have punchy dialogue. And so that is something that helps keep the momentum up. But it's not just all short, sharp sentences. We also want longer sentences. 'cause it would get really boring if everything we read was the same. And so you can create a rhythm. So like on page 84. “As he reached the mask, Devroe glanced up. We locked eyes. His brows rose. My fingers gripped even tighter. Here I was dangling from the ceiling like Mardi Gras beads stuck on a power line as if this were the most entertaining thing ever. Devroe waved. I could die right here.”
So this one is a very cute scene. And this one is, we have a bunch of shorter sentences and then some long ones and then back to the short. And so that we sort of get a flow happening and we can kind of get into that groove.
[00:13:22] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right, and those clauses at the beginning. Here I was, dangling from the ceiling, as if this was the most entertaining thing ever. So contrasting with we locked eyes, his brows rose. Adding those initial clauses slows down the pace there so that we're in the moment with them for a little bit longer.
[00:13:39] Erin Nuttall: Right. That definitely extends things a little bit, but it's not like…
[00:13:45] Anne-Marie Strohman: Six paragraphs.
[00:13:46] Erin Nuttall: Right. It is not like a super long version. It, it's like, it's the action paste version of a long sentence.
[00:13:55] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yes.
[00:13:56] Erin Nuttall: No, no Henry James there.
[00:13:58] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right. Yeah. And that writing is really direct. We get those short, simple sentences. Are there other techniques that she's using here with sentences?
[00:14:07] Erin Nuttall: Well, like you said, her writing is very direct. And so we have short active voice sentences a lot and we also have really vivid verbs that help depict what's going on, the action that's taking place. So like on a page 102, “as I reached for the door handle, the car jerked forward. What was he doing? Devroe held my gaze. ‘You get in, you owe me.’ I hesitated. There's always a catch. ‘Open it for me.’” So we have this scene that we can easily picture, but we don't actually have a lot of description about what's going on. We have, she reaches, the car jerks, she hesitates, he held my gaze. So we have these verbs that tell us right away what's going on,
[00:14:51] Anne-Marie Strohman: Mmm-hmm. And we don't get like the, you know, midnight blue Audi, particular model, make year, et cetera, jerked forward, right? She's given a description of the car earlier. It's just the car. We're just simple, straightforward,
[00:15:07] Erin Nuttall: Yeah. There's not a lot of description that is unnecessary.
[00:15:10] Anne-Marie Strohman: And we got those great verbs like jerked, held, hesitated.
[00:15:14] Erin Nuttall: Right. Yeah.
[00:15:16] Anne-Marie Strohman: She’s masterful at this.
[00:15:17] Erin Nuttall: And it puts you right in. She also uses fragment sentences and like single words of sentences which is really helpful for immediacy and it makes things more intense. On page 84, “Despite an urge to scream, I kept my calm like a professional. So he got the mask, whatever. That's why I had plan B onto the ring.” So we have a little bit of a longer sentence right there, but we still have, you know, urge, scream, calm, professional and then we go into boom, boom, boom, boom, really short sentences of single words, pieces of sentences.
[00:15:53] Anne-Marie Strohman: So one of the most important roles of an author is controlling what readers pay attention to and then how much room something has on the page, if any. So how does Lewis leverage that?
[00:16:04] Erin Nuttall: I think that she does well is an idea that I think because movies and TV are such a part of all of our understanding of entertainment and understandings of stories, it really helps me to think about it like where is the camera focused. And so she does a good job highlighting the most important movements and reactions and skipping unnecessary details, kind of like we were talking about with like the description of the car. So we have headlights flash to the left of us. So right away we know that a car is coming. We don't need to know a car is coming and the headlights flashed us. Right? Right. Like that takes six words out of it. And it also, it's kind of like your GILGOE that you were talking about, you're getting in late. We're, the headlights right there, that alone explains that there's a car. And so, and then it flashed to the left of us. Now we know it's coming towards us. Right? And I think that that is really helpful, especially in the style of book. We don't need that big, long anticipation of, the green car drove up the long driveway, the headlights flashing through the trees. Like that's gonna be a different pace in a different book, right?
Another example would be “Devroe shrugged. Kyung-soon nodded. Mylo’s eyes lit up at the challenge.” So we have three reactions and they're short and they're fragment sentences and we know right away how each one of these kids feels about this challenge. Another important one that she does that I think can sometimes be tricky is she cuts out unnecessary movement through space. It’s so tempting to be like, and they walked across the room and opened the door, right? Like, because, you know, we may be seeing, at least this is how I do it, I see things play out in my head, and so I see my character walk across the room and answer the door. I see my characters get on the elevator and ride it six floors up, get off the elevator, walk down the hall, get to the hotel room. Instead, when we're on page 100, we skip from the lobby right to the hotel room. So the elevator ride, the walking down the hall, swiping the card for the key card, like all of that is just skipped. We move from one place to another without, she trusts a reader to understand that all those things happened.
[00:18:29] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. And if you think of graphic novels or cartoons, even picture books, writers are often thinking about what happens between the panels or between the page turns. And when I was first writing novels, as I told you about my walking through the locker room scene, I felt like I needed to get everything on the page, including moving from one location to another.
And you can just skip it. Lewis does it. It's great. We know and it shows me how much she's in control of her narrative.
[00:18:57] Erin Nuttall: Yes, for sure. And if you do think about it in a TV or a movie idea, frequently a new scene will just open at a new location and you're not like, wait, wait, how did they get into the police station? Right? You just know that we're in the police station or wherever, right? So, I think if you need permission to skip some things, and some of us might feel that way and that's fine, then think about a TV show or look at a book like, Thieves’ Gambit, where you see that someone is doing it successfully and you can be like, oh yeah, I can do that too.
[00:19:30] Anne-Marie Strohman: I thought you were gonna give us all permission.
[00:19:33] Erin Nuttall: Oh yeah, I, well, as the fairy godmother of all writing to all people, I give you permission.
[00:19:42] Anne-Marie Strohman: So are there other techniques that Lewis is using here for pacing within scenes?
[00:19:48] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, I really like how she uses sensory details. She doesn't do it a ton, but when she does it, it's pretty effective. In, on page 78, she has “a memory of cold metal cuffs, biting my wrist at ski school,” and that is enough to remind the reader and Ross about Noelia’s original deception, which really was her mom's deception. But at this point in the story, Ross thinks it was Noelia’s betrayal. I think it was a, a great way to remind Ross and the reader of her feelings about trust without being like, and I can never trust anyone. Right?
[00:20:22] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right. Or even being in her head, right? I mean, we just get a memory of, and then it's a physical memory, like a sensory. Ugh. So Rich, so good.
[00:20:33] Erin Nuttall: It is, it is.
[00:20:34] Anne-Marie Strohman: Going to the sensory detail instead of into the thought.
[00:20:37] Erin Nuttall: Right. And we've already seen that scene play out in Ross's memory. And so we immediately also can feel, you know, the cold metal cuffs reminding us what's going on. Right?
Another way, and we talked about this a little bit last episode, is by incorporating a ticking clock or a sense of urgency increases the pace. And so on a scene level, we have the security guards. So we know everything has to happen within 20 minutes because that is their rotation. So they move from one part of the museum to another and then back within 20 minutes. So that's pretty quick if you're gonna steal something. And so that adds tension and it also adds constraint too, because maybe you're like, well, Ross is amazing. She's an amazing thief. This isn't gonna be no problem. And here we are and there's just one more thing that makes it difficult. Getting the phone before the train stops, or also moving the phone between players before they're frisked. Both of those are actually a ticking clock 'cause we have when they're gonna be frisked next, when the train is stopping and the police will come. So if you can incorporate a ticking clock, it doesn't necessarily have to be a clock, like with the security guards in the 20 minutes. It can just be something is gonna happen in X, Y, Z, you know, a limited time.
[00:21:59] Anne-Marie Strohman: We mentioned last time this idea of forward lean and that ticking clock definitely adds that tension to keep the pace feeling quick.
[00:22:08] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, you're reading Ethan Frome and there's like no clocks anywhere, so. I, I'm reaching back to my, to my old favorites. I think I talked about Henry James last time, and now here I am with Edith Wharton. But Ethan Frome is seriously one of the slowest, or The Golden Bowl. Holy cow. I don't know if you've read that, but that's a slow one. Um. Which is great. There need to be slow books. If they were all fast, then we would be tired, but, but we're talking about fast books today.
[00:22:40] Anne-Marie Strohman: So we talked about sensory details and not getting into Ross's head, but how does Lewis use internal monologue to help with pacing?
[00:22:50] Erin Nuttall: Okay, so on page 135 we have an example of Lewis incorporating Ross's thoughts to add tension and depth to the moment. Ross is on a train, if I remember right. And she's seeing like the French countryside and they are in a truce. And so you might think that this would be a boring part of the story, but we get “how unfair that I got to see something so serene while Mom was trapped in a nightmare. She was caught Thursday night. It was Sunday now. When did three days become a lifetime?” So we have this little piece, three sentences, I think, of Ross's thoughts that remind us how much time has passed. So we have a little bit of ticking clock there again. But we also get to see how she is worried about her mom. And so we have a reminder of the stakes. Lewis does a really good job reminding, we've talked about this before, but reminding the reader and Ross of the stakes and why this is so important. And as someone who struggles with stakes, it's helpful to see.
[00:23:57] Anne-Marie Strohman: And we talked in our action episode about how we need these moments of reflection around the action, or it just gets to feel samey, samey. And so we get this nice moment of what, she calls it serene, right, and appreciates this little break. And it gives readers a little bit of a break too, even for such a fast-paced book, we have these moments of interiority, this moment of reflection, this moment of the serene outside and you know, we get the contrast with her tension inside in this moment of interiority.
[00:24:33] Erin Nuttall: Right. Well, if you have ever seen Mission Impossible 2, it was, John Woo was the director and he was known for doing music videos and the whole movie was no interiority, basically. And it gets to be like, oh, another fight scene. Even their bodies don't get a rest. You’d be like, how can the human body withstand that? When you have just over and over, action, action, action, action. And you don't get that moment to breathe and you don't, you don't get to see inside Tom Cruise's head. Right? And why he's doing this. And you don't even get it on his face 'cause he is wearing a mask.
[00:25:18] Anne-Marie Strohman: True. True, true. So we talked last time about chapter length and many chapters being between 4 pages and 15 pages and having a variety there. What about scene length?
[00:25:31] Erin Nuttall: I noticed that Lewis also did a variety of scene lengths, which actually did not surprise me after I noticed her variety of chapter lengths. She does have a lot of shorter scenes that do accelerate the story. But kind of like we were just talking aboutm some of the longer ones can give you a little bit of depth, they can slow things down for the reader a little bit. Just like we were saying, we don't want a hundred miles per hour the whole time. We need a little bit of space to breathe and you know, it can just be three or four sentences in, in part of your scene. Or it can be, I'm trying to think if she has any scene…I don't think she has any scenes that are fully a break but she definitely has little breaks in the longer scenes.
[00:26:15] Anne-Marie Strohman: So can we pause for a second to talk about the difference between scenes and chapters? I know this is a question that I get a lot. Is it, every chapter is a scene or can there be multiple scenes in a chapter or can a scene be split at a chapter mark?
[00:26:32] Erin Nuttall: Okay, so yes. For all of those things.
[00:26:36] Anne-Marie Strohman: Done. We're done.
[00:26:37] Erin Nuttall: We're done. That's all, that's the only answer. So I actually feel like I got the best advice from my faculty mentor when I was at VCFA, Tom Birdseye. I was talking to him a lot about scenes and chapters and those ideas and he said, scenes are for the author and chapters are for the publisher. and I really liked that idea 'cause, so he only ever writes in scenes. He never writes in chapters. And it's only later when he is working with the publisher that sometimes he does break up his scenes in the middle. We talked last time about kickers, the, a sentence that kicks you into the next chapter, and that might be in the middle of a scene. You might be in the middle of hanging off the cliff, you know or whatever it is that might be the middle of the scene. I think Emma Kress does a really good job with this, with her chapters. She frequently breaks up scenes into different chapters. In her book, um…
[00:27:36] Anne-Marie Strohman: Dangerous Play.
[00:27:37] Erin Nuttall: Dangerous Play. Thank you. So. When you're writing and you're writing a scene, I would say don't worry about chapters. That is something that can come after you figured out how you want your scene to look, how you want your scene to be paced, how you want your scene to feel to the reader. And then later you can look and be like, it would feel even more exciting if I split it right here. Or you could say, I think these two scenes would go well together to be a chapter or, I think this one scene is a great chapter on its own. But as a writer, I think if you focus on just writing the scene, one scene, and then another scene, and then another scene, you can worry about chapters later. If maybe you do something different, that's okay. We all work the way that works best for us.
[00:28:32] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. I'm usually doing chapters in like my fourth or fifth revision, like very late in the process. I call it chapterising. But one of our writers for Kid Lit Craft, Kristi Wright thinks in chapters and so she ends up writing in chapters even though it might, scene wise, split in the middle. Like her brain just does that. So you might find what works for you, but you can try it out. If chapters confuse you, just don't worry about it till a later revision.
[00:29:02] Erin Nuttall: Oh, for sure.
[00:29:03] Anne-Marie Strohman: So Erin, I am hoping you will take us through one scene to help us see all of these different elements in action and how they work together.
[00:29:11] Erin Nuttall: I would love to go through a specific scene, so if you have your book, you can go along with me or you can just listen and enjoy how I explain things. I wanted to look at the scene, it’s the museum heist at pages 80 through 84, and it is just one chapter, although Lewis frequently has multiple scenes in a chapter. But this time one scene is one chapter. And I will say they are at the museum longer, but they are at different sections of the museum doing different things. So that's why they're different scenes, if that makes sense. So at the very beginning of the chapter she grounds the reader in the setting.
So she said “I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little excited waiting in the vents above the 30 foot drop into the gallery. My fingers itched, ready to get my hands on something hot.” Which is a really fun. Speaking of fun entries into a chapter or a scene, that's a good one. So we know where she is. We know that Ross is in the vents above a gallery waiting to steal one of the things. In the previous scene, we know that she has gone different options for, 'cause there's a handful of things they can steal and she's gone through the pros and cons of some of the different ones. So we already know that. And then there's a little bit more grounding and setting. There's about another paragraph or so. And then we get a ticking clock. And this is when we've talked about, it's the guard's rotation.
“Security was doing walkthroughs in 20 minute intervals. I had 20 minutes to get my target and dip.” And then she even gives her another clock. Well, almost another two clocks. “15 to be safe. Always assume you have less time than you think. It'd take two hours to get from Cannes to Marseille with the help of a hijacked car. That left 60 minutes for me to get a target and get the hell out.”
So we have multiple ticking clocks right there. So we have a lot of tension. And then we see her assessing the competition. And mostly it's in her mind 'cause she's waiting right now for the museum to close and for the guards to come in her room and then leave, or gallery and then leave. We have her assessing her competition, and explaining her plans. The chapter starts on page 80. And then we have about a page of her assessing her competition. And then we have her going through three different plans. Plan A, the mask, plan B, the empress’s ring, and finally plan C.
“If all else failed, I was shimmying all the way through these vents to the lobby and making my way to the heart of the museum to swipe a pair of ivory fans.” So we have multiple plans. There was more to those plans, by the way, I just didn't read 'em all for the sake of time. And then on page 83, “It's the perfect time. 7:20. It'll take 20 minutes for the security to do another walkthrough.” So again, we have a reminder of the time. “Now I moved the grate aside and lowered my legs through the opening first, keeping a good grip on the inside of the vent. I swung lower only until my forearms were supporting me then my hands.” And so we have right there the action starting on page 83, the very top of 83. And right after that, we have a reminder of her mom and the stakes. “Mom wouldn't be hesitating. Mom would've already jumped.” Um. And then we have a challenge. So that's kind of at the top third of the page. She's still going through this action of getting into the gallery, and then at the bottom third of the page, Devroe and Kyung-soon show up. And it's like, man, why aren't you picking something different? This is the thing, is I always want it to go easy for my, for my main character, I want everything to be smooth sailing and then it never is, and obviously that's what helps make it exciting. but still it's like, dang it. Why are they there? So then we have the failure. So we have that cute moment that we already read, “as he reached the mask, Devroe glanced up. We locked eyes. His brows rose. My finger gripped even tighter. Here I was dangling from the ceiling, like Mardi Gras beads” and then Devroe waves, right? And it's so cute. And then “my face was on fire. So much for plan A.” So then we have failure. And then we have some more cuteness with Devroe, “still absolutely delighted, like he'd read my mind, Devroe reached into his vest pocket, leaving me some type of multitask tool atop the glass. Then he took several steps so he was standing right under me and in the most frustrating, look, I'm such a gentleman, display I'd ever seen, he held out his arms to catch me,” which of course she's not gonna do and…
[00:33:53] Anne-Marie Strohman: So offensive
[00:33:54] Erin Nuttall: I know, but it's so cute too. And so we have this romantic tension and also] the tension of time is ticking and she did not, Devroe and Kyung-soon got the mask that she wanted. So we have this tension that comes and then we have the transition to the next scene where, she says, “so he got the mask, whatever. That's why I had plan B. Onto the ring.” And so we have that movement, that kick to the next scene and also the next chapter. If you notice that the scene is in an arc shape, almost like you would with the overall story, we have tension building and plans being made until the action takes place. And then we have, you know, either success or failure. So we have failure, which we talked about last time um, the end of a scene you can also have things go sideways. And so right now things have gone sideways. She goes in pretty confident and now things have gone, awry. If only she had joined Devroe and been his partner.
[00:34:59] Anne-Marie Strohman: If only.
[00:34:59] Erin Nuttall: If only, but, so then, and have that kick to the next scene. I thought this was such a well-designed scene for looking at how to, we have some breathing space. We have a lot of action and a lot of tension. We have a ticking clock, and then we have that sideways.
[00:35:18] Anne-Marie Strohman: And that last little bit that you read when she's saying so much for Plan A onto Plan B, that is a sequel. We were talking about scenes and sequels, the action and reaction. So there's the action of failing to get the mask, and now we have a moment of reaction to that.
[00:35:38] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, that whole part where she says, “despite an urge to scream, I kept calm like a professional. So he got the mask, whatever. That was why I had a Plan B. Onto the ring.”
[00:35:50] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right, so she makes a decision there about what's next, and that is one thing that a sequel can do. Having this moment reflecting on what just happened and transitioning us, moving us onto the next scene.
[00:36:02] Erin Nuttall: The other thing that that does is like we talked about last time where you have a puzzle that is solved quickly. So even though this initial puzzle is not necessarily solved, it results in failure. She doesn't sit and wallow, she moves quickly. But yes. So you might think that you would need it to be longer where she's like, oh, poor me. I didn't get my ring and Devroe made fun of me. But she doesn't, she has that sequel right there.
[00:36:36] Anne-Marie Strohman: And a sequel can be half a sentence. Right here we get four short sentences and that's all you need.
[00:36:44] Erin Nuttall: For sure. I mean, I think sequels can be of different lengths. And like we talked about in the last episode when she was on the balcony and she was caught handcuffed to the balcony it was at a pivotal time for their overall mission. It was a difficult time for her 'cause she might die. And so we have these hard things. She never let her aunt teach her how to dislocate her thumbs, so she didn't know how to get out of this situation so we get that sequel in that scene where she sobs and then she has a regret that she didn't kiss Devroe when she had the opportunity, and she doesn't have a, a decision in that part. It's just her feelings. It's when she sees the little kids next. So sequels can do a bunch of different things.
[00:37:35] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. In thinking about overarching structure of a novel, to go back to our last episode, when you have that All is Lost Dark Night of the Soul time, I think of the All is Lost as the action of everything being falling apart. And then the Dark Night of the Soul is a sequel, and it tends to be a longer sequel where we're kind of in the dark. That's where the character faces the reality of the situation and then makes a decision to move on. Uh, so that's an opportunity for a longer sequel that maybe wouldn't work earlier in a story.
[00:38:08] Erin Nuttall: No, I do really like that idea where you have, All is Lost is the, is the physical and then the Dark Night is the mental or emotional, however you wanna do it. And like we mentioned last time, that's the only time we see Ross sobbing and I don't think she's there like crying her eyes out.
I think it's just like a, oh, you know, kind of immediate sob. And then she gets herself together which is really appropriate for her to have a short, dark night of the soul for her character and for the overall pacing of the book.
[00:38:41] Anne-Marie Strohman: So Erin, what are you taking away from today?
[00:38:44] Erin Nuttall: I am taking away the reminder that a scene should be in an arc and sort of mimic the overarching pacing, the overarching tension, the overarching trajectory of the book. I think we hear that and then we're like writing and it's like, or at least me, and it's like fallen outta my ears.
And so it's a good reminder and it's good to look at…I would highly recommend doing this kind of thing to any book that you like and you like how things unfold and just pick a scene and go through it just like I did. I feel like I learn a lot when I look at people who successfully do what I'm trying to do. What about you? What are you taking away?
[00:39:31] Anne-Marie Strohman: I'm taking two tiny little bits that kind of go together in my head, and one was that idea that a sensory detail can evoke something for the reader as well as something for the character. When that she says a memory of the handcuffs. And then also that little bits of interiority can, well placed, guide us through the story. I tend to do like either all sensory or all in the head
[00:40:02] Erin Nuttall: Yeah.
[00:40:02] Anne-Marie Strohman: So this idea that you can use little bits of both to, in some ways, achieve the same purpose of guiding the reader like sparking something in the reader.
[00:40:12] Erin Nuttall: Yeah. And, and you're right. I think Lewis does that really, really well. It's like, hey, I'm just gonna throw these crumbs your way and you're gonna pick 'em up and you're gonna know what I'm talking about. And because she does it so often we're like, oh yeah, I do know. Thanks. And then we read a little bit more, oh, here's some more. Thank you.
[00:40:31] Anne-Marie Strohman: And that makes readers feel really smart, which is really good.
[00:40:36] Erin Nuttall: Yes, I love it when I feel like I'm such a smart reader.
[00:40:39] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yes.
[00:40:40] Erin Nuttall: Okay, so what is today's Cool Gadget? I always like to find out what you have discovered.
[00:40:47] Anne-Marie Strohman: Okay, so I wanna go back to a useful gadget that I ignored completely in episode seven when I talked about sarcophagus jigsaw job. It's Mylo's pen that cuts and welds. And we first see this on page 81 during the museum heist, which we've been spending a lot of time with. He is going for the Elizabethan ruff, and Ross sees him, and this is her narrative.
“He was using some sort of laser pen making little incisions in the metal locks around the glass.” He kind of goes away after that. She brings it up at breakfast after the museum heist. They've been talking about the tools that they had brought and no one had mentioned Mylo's pen, so it gets really highlighted here. “‘What was that pen you had? I asked. He laughed nervously. ‘You mean like a writing pen?’ ‘I saw you cutting through metal with it yesterday. Too late to lie.’ Mylo sighed. ‘Alright, you got me.’ He tugged his sleeve up until a slender and unassuming silver pen slipped into his palm. Kyung-soon gawked. ‘You can cut through metal with that like a light saber?’ If I'd been drinking something I might've choked. Never had I heard the word light saber used so seriously. ‘He's a Jedi thief,’ I couldn't help but say.”
So here in this scene it's highlighted, it's separated from the other tools, and it's at the end of a chapter so it's especially highlighted and it gives us this nice opportunity for humor which we might think that's all that Lewis is using it for, but no, no, no. Lewis always uses things for more than one purpose.
So then we see it again after the sarcophagus heist. When they're moving the pieces of the real sarcophagus. Ross asks Mylo and Kyung-soon if they have everything under control. And here's what happens.
“Mylo twirled his strange metal welding and cutting pen in his hand. ‘I took it apart and I can put it back together. Don't worry, we'll get this thing loaded up and sent to our safe house in no time.’”
And so this is another example of Lewis setting everything up so well that we have Ross seeing the pen being used and it's haloed. Then, the last mention comes right after Ross calls this a jigsaw job for the ages. And this bit about the tool just explains how they did it without explaining how they did it.
So if you remember when we talked about the sarcophagus jigsaw job, it was Mylo who mentioned that the sarcophagus had been cut apart and put back together multiple times, and that's such a nice touch that he's also the one who does the cutting and putting it back together. So clever.
[00:43:12] Erin Nuttall: It is so clever. There are so many thoughtful things throughout this whole book. It's, it's kind of amazing.
[00:43:21] Anne-Marie Strohman: I should say that those are the only three times it's mentioned too, like it doesn't take a lot of times to make it really useful and clever.
[00:43:31] Erin Nuttall: Well, and that is not surprising because she is so tight with every piece of this story. There are no threads left dangling. It…You gotta know if that lightsaber pen is gonna be brought up, then it's gonna serve a big purpose later.
[00:43:50] Anne-Marie Strohman: Pay attention to everything.
[Music outro]
[00:43:51] Anne-Marie Strohman: All right. That's it for today. If you enjoyed this podcast, you can find more content like this kidlitcraft.com where you can also sign up for the Ask the Author book club, workshops, and classes. Find us on social media @KidLitCraft, and you can support this podcast on Patreon. We've also got t-shirts. You can find Kid Lit Craft t-shirts at Cotton Bureau. We’ll put a link in the show notes.
[00:44:15] Erin Nuttall: Please download episodes; like, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen; and let your friends and family and grandma and neighbors and everybody you know about how amazing we are on this podcast and we can't wait to nerd out with you.
[00:44:31] Anne-Marie Strohman: Thanks for joining us. See you next time.
