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Marianna Marlowe's avatar

"Pace and pursuit"---a great way to define goals in writing. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the different advice, but this will be much easier to remember!

A question: was the book in translation?

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Beth Kephart's avatar

I have not found evidence of that — though I have searched (and could be wrong). I have listened to interviews with her, and she is enormously fluent in English..... Thank you for your kind words here.

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Char Wilkins's avatar

I have never thought of plot as pursuit. And I’m not sure what that means except as in pursuit of. Perhaps you’ll say more Sunday. But I agree, the quoted passage is orchestral and I hear that it’s not just the words that create the movement, the heartbeat, but the punctuation as well. Since I’m visual I see the scene rhythmically. If I study the passage as music, I see the story on a staff with clefs, key and time signatures, sharps and flats, notes scurrying, holding, shifting my heartbeat. Very interesting, Beth, thank you for this expansion, this incorporation of all the senses.

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Charlotte, the BEST is when you say, I'm not quite sure what that means. Because there the conversation begins. I'll have all kinds of examples. And then I'll wait to hear, or see, what you write in response. Thank you.

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