Copyright © 2023 Jerry Dunne
If you are not familiar with The play’s 3-act plot arc structure and The scene’s plot arc structure, it might be a good idea to read those posts before this one.
Pace concerns how fast or slow the plot movement feels to the audience as the drama plays out before them. Good pace enables the drama to offer a feeling of smooth and constant movement, with no sense of sluggishness or anti-climax anywhere in the story. Good pace isn’t just about a perception of fast plot movement, though. A slower sense of pace at certain points is crucial to the drama; for example, in order for suspense to build or to give the audience a chance to catch their breath. A feeling of variation in pace contributes to the plot’s overall rising tension and so helps prevent the audience from losing interest in the play.
So now you might be thinking, ‘but surely if our plot arc and scene arc structure is crafted correctly, with all the right elements incorporated in the right order, with each scene bringing about the necessary plot-related changes, then what is there to worry about? Surely the script will automatically have the appropriate pacing throughout. Although all these things are necessary to the play overall, including its pace, no, this is not strictly the case. You will still have to worry about other factors here.
Pacing is one of the toughest skills to develop because it is entangled up with other playwriting skills, (and as emphasised above, it isn’t necessarily about how physically fast or slow the story moves, but how fast or slow it feels), and until we have mastered these other skills we will simply not be able to pace our story well. So, pace is best understood by describing how it works within other characteristics of the play. Amongst these are included scene setting, scene placement order, scene structure (not its plot arc structure), and dialogue.
In this post, we are going to be looking at scene placement order from the perspective of pace. The other three features of the play just mentioned will be tackled from the perspective of pace in other posts.
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We will discuss two aspects of scene placement order here. The first concerns the balancing of high physical activity scenes against low physical activity ones. The second looks at the balancing of scenes with two distinct subplots, with at least one different major character in each of these separate strands.
High physical activity and low physical activity
High physical activity involves what it sounds like: fighting, acrobatics, dancing, singing, playing of musical instruments, rioting, screaming, shouting, and so on, on and off the stage. Low physical activity is obviously far less hectic and makes for the (on the surface at least) physically less demanding and quieter scenes. But now it is important to get one thing very clear. High physical activity is often not particularly interesting to many theatre goers of drama, except when it truly adds to the story. These types are usually more interested in the low physical activity areas of the play because it is generally here where the real psychological and emotional dramatic action, conflict and crisis occurs, and often by way of undercurrents.
So before we go any further let’s stick a little warning in here! If you find yourself desperate to heighten the dramatic impact of the play by resorting to high physical activity because you believe it will save an otherwise low impact scene, don’t do it! High physical activity is used solely to underpin the psychological and emotional action and conflict of the scene. In other words, the high physical activity grows out of the drama of the scene. It does not create the drama. It is not to be used as a crutch to prop up a flat scene. You won’t bring such a scene back to life like this. You will simply kill it twice over. And the smart audience will know what you are up to. You can only bring a scene to life by growing it from the roots upwards. And even then be careful overdoing the high physical activity. Otherwise, pace, amongst other things, will suffer for it.
But now let’s assume that our high physical activity contributes healthily to the drama. We have it in four scenes out of ten, only these scenes are coming one after the other, all in the first half of the play. Does this trouble the balance, the rhythm and the pace of the play? Why aren’t they spread out more? Can’t we mix these high physical activity scenes in amongst the low physical activity ones right across the play? By thinking on it from the perspective of pace, or even balance and rhythm, both directly related to pace, such questions come readily to mind. Why is there so much high physical activity so early on, and none later? Does this clutter up the first half? How will it affect the second half? Will it leave it feeling a little ‘empty’? What will the audience make of that? What about breather scenes in the first half for the audience, if not for the characters, where they get to rest from the high physical activity scene with a low physical activity one? And, don’t forget, generally, the real psychological and emotional dramatic action, conflict and crisis occurs in the low physical activity areas of the play. So how much of this are we getting when we are receiving so much of the opposite in the first half?
Of course, you could place breather scenes in between the high physical activity ones in the first half. But if you’re doing it simply to break up those types of scenes for the sake of it then that means those breather scenes are irrelevant to the plot which means they are irrelevant. If they are a necessary part of the play, fine. These scenes will then be stuffed with plot-related purpose and change (and therefore character development), each helping the plot progress in a logical and smooth way, and helping build suspense and tension. As they are usually where the big changes in the play are happening, it may be more than likely than the high physical activity scenes are now our breather scenes. Does that make sense?
Only you still have all your high physical activity scenes in the first half of the play. The balance and the rhythm may still appear to be out. Isn’t it yet possible and better to spread them across a far wider stretch of the play? This redresses the imbalance and creates a greater interest for them because they are being doled out over a wider time period. Our appetite is whetted but not satiated too early on. And in the scenes between we are getting more character development, which in turn will make every high physical activity scene with these characters easier to relate to. Breather scenes (whichever ones they turn out to be) will also be spaced out far more fairly. Now we can readjust the balance, the rhythm and the overall pace of the play.
Naturally, depending on the type of story we’re telling will depend on how easy it is to pull this readjustment off. So let’s work with an example and see how we manage.
We have a play about the life of a jazz musician from his early years to his dying days in a hospital bed in early middle age. Let’s assume the high physical activity scenes are from his youth where he is playing in the clubs or the music studio and the last decade of his life are the low physical activity scenes where he is too ill to play. We could still write the play in linear order but surely we want to hear his playing in the second half of the play, too. We want some of these high physical activity scenes where they matter the most. They will add poignancy to the story if we get them toward the end of his life. This way, we juxtapose his early high physical activity days against scenes of his developing illness where he can no longer play. We go back and forward like that. We don’t write in a linear fashion. We have the first scene and maybe a few brief scenes of him lying in the bed scattered throughout the play, ending with a penultimate scene of him lying there with the end approaching. This way we can much more easily pick out the most important scenes of high and low physical activity and then mix them to create the most dramatic plot arc throughout the play. Because it is a biopic the audience can readily follow the back and forth time-wise simple logic. Even after he has passed on, we want a final tribute to him where his younger and fitter version is sitting on the stage playing. His music is such an important part of the story. How could it be otherwise?
By working the time sequence in this non-linear way, there is no need now to attempt to fit in more scenes in the earlier half of the play, scenes that may not have been useful, anyway, and, besides, would still have left us with no high physical activity scenes in the second half. Yet, as we can see from our example, we need some high physical activity scenes later on in the play. The chances are strong that if these types of scenes are necessary to the play, and not just there for effect or ornamentation, then you will need them throughout the story. And look how the redistribution of our necessary scenes will only help ramp up the overall dramatic effect of the play, as the scenes now work with one another and not against one another as they would undoubtedly have done when they were out of balance. With a better balance and rhythm and a sharper rise of dramatic effect, we will also naturally quicken our sense of pace. It’s a win-win situation.
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Distinct subplots
The second example to examine here is a play with distinct subplots, with at least one different major character in each of these separate strands. Again, we are striving as far as possible to create a healthy mixed balance in the scene placement order so that the entire story will have a smooth rhythm and pace to it. We do not want to overload one area of the play with a particular strand and then hear nothing more from it for ages. This breaks the tension created in that plot strand while giving us too much too quickly of the other plot strand. This might seem obvious, yet it is surprising how many writers fail to see it, even after five or six drafts. But it is not always an easy thing to accomplish, as plot strands are always vying with one another for attention and one can easily gain the upper hand at the expense of the other. Only the writer must learn to realise this and take steps to deal with it. Below is an example of how we may do just that.
The play Falling Molly Twist could perhaps be described as an off-beat psychological thriller. Here is a quick blurb for the play. Molly’s life is torn apart when she is brutally raped and beaten. She goes into freefall, growing increasingly self-destructive. Then she meets Damien, a quirky little character, who conducts himself with a mysterious, philosophical and slightly comical air. Who is Damien? Could their budding and odd relationship offer any positive influence over Molly’s potentially tragic future?
Below we see the scene placement order of this two-act drama with character and word length in mind. (Word length gives us a rough idea of each scene’s playing time.)
Act 1
Scene 1 Molly’s monologue (set up), 846 words
Scene 2 Molly and her assaulter (inciting incident), 868 words
Scene 3 Molly and the detective, 574 words
Scene 4 Molly’s monologue, 297 words
Scene 5 Molly and the detective, 334 words
Scene 6 Molly and a man’s voice, 388 words
Scene 7 Molly and Damien – first time, 1, 650 words
Scene 8 Molly and Damien, 273 words
Scene 9 Molly alone, voice of TV host, voice of the detective on TV, 447 words
Scene 10 Molly and Damien, 998 words
Scene 11 Molly and Damien (big argument with Damien), 1, 359 words
Scene 12 Molly and the detective, 504 words
Scene 13 Molly and Damien, 958 words
Scene 14 Molly’s monologue, 641 words
Interval
Act 2
Scene 1 Molly and Damien, 844 words
Scene 2 Molly and the detective, 488 words
Scene 3 Molly’s monologue, 188 words
Scene 4 Molly and Damien, 610 words
Scene 5 Molly and man, 538 words
Scene 6 Molly, Damien and a waiter, 776 words
Scene 7 Molly and the detective, 488 words
Scene 8 Molly’s monologue, 331 words
Scene 9 Molly and Damien, 991 words
Scene 10 Molly and Damien 412 words
Scene 11 Molly and the detective, 1,760 words
Scene 12 Molly alone, 697 words
Just by glancing at the scene placement order in this simple way we are fully aware that there are two distinct plot strands and also of how they balance out against each other. This layout also gives us a rule of thumb of its potential rhythm and pace. The mixing of scenes isn’t perfect but the play is still fairly well balanced. In Act 1, Molly and Damien are in two scenes in a row, scenes 7 and 8. Of course, we don’t know what’s going on in these scenes, both might be riveting, but the point is we are looking at the play coldly from an angle of scene placement order in order to figure out how this might affect the balance, rhythm and pace of the play. Anyway, because the second scene is so short and Molly and Damien just met one another in the previous scene, we can easily leave these two scenes together. However, in scene 10 and 11 we again have a potential problem. These are two long scenes both involving Molly and Damien slotted in side by side. Only, the second of these scenes involves a big argument (we’ll add that in as part of our cold assessment), so just maybe we can let this one go, too. Also, scene 9 and 12 both involve Molly and the detective in some way, and fit either side of scene 10 and 11, so the balance is still pretty good and we aren’t guilty of losing the momentum of that plot strand.
In act 2, we have Molly and Damien in two scenes in a row in scene 9 and 10, but the second of these scenes is only half as long as the first and the first is not really long. We also have the detective in scene 7 and again in scene 11, so we keep the momentum going again with that side of the story. Yet, if the detective did not appear in Act 2, scene 7, if the scene was absent, and she appeared only in scene 2 and 11, what would be the consequences? Consider, scene 8 is a monologue and a rather short one at that. Yet before it and after it we have three scenes altogether between Molly and Damien. So, if we were to erase scene 7 with the detective, this would throw off the balance and more than likely slow the rhythm and the pace of the second half of the play.
Summary
By writing out a short scene summary with balance, rhythm and especially pace in mind, it is amazing how easily we can get on top of any problems that have surfaced. The same can be done with the example of the high physical/low physical activity scenes. You can even add these two together for a single scene placement order map to gauge your play’s balance, rhythm and pace. It is actually quite an interesting thing to do, and really gives you some simple and stunning insights into your own work. At some point, you may also like to consider adding scene setting to this map. Only don’t complicate things! Try to keep the map simple and straightforward.
But whatever else you do, never force new scenes into your play just for the sake of attempting to redress an imbalance. Each scene must play a fundamental role in the plot. Otherwise, you will end up with pointless scenes that will only confuse the audience as to their relevance and probably slow the overall pace of the play even more. As shown above, the scene placement order doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective.
Suggested reading:
Pace and scene setting
The play’s 3-act plot arc structure
The scene’s plot arc structure
Inspiration from inside an empty matchbox
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