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Reading and Writing 6-8 / Week 06 / Tuesday
2/6
Week 06 · Narrative Writing

Tuesday

Sequence, transitions and pacing
// From the hook to the last line
⏱ about 20 min

Tuesday: Sequence, Transitions and Pacing

Rocket reads his draft aloud at the Signal Desk, very fast. "The board fell. We fixed it. The end."

Raven waits. "That was eleven words. What happened in the middle?"

"Lots of stuff," Rocket says. "Picking up. Sorting. The hook. The screw. Dinner almost."

"Then the reader needs to walk through it," Raven says. "In order, with signposts."

Nova lays her light along the row of index cards on the table. "First, next, meanwhile, finally," she says. "Those are the signposts."

"And slow down where it matters," Raven adds. "Rush the boring parts. Linger on the good ones."

Rocket picks up the fourth card. "The sorting," he says. "That is where I linger."

Learn it: moving the reader through time

Events in a narrative unfold in an order the reader can follow. Transitions are the signposts: first, next, then, meanwhile, an hour later, finally.

Pacing is speed. A writer rushes through small moments in one sentence and slows down for big ones with detail and dialogue.

Raven thinks aloud: "The text gives one sentence to the new hook and five to sorting the cards. So the sorting is the heart."

  • Put the events in order on cards before you write.
  • Start each new moment with a transition word or phrase.
  • Give one sentence to each small step.
  • Give several sentences, with detail, to the moment that matters most.
PICK THE TRANSITION
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
The board fell. ___ we picked up the cards.
Rocket found a hook. ___ I sorted the cards into rows.
We tested the hook. ___ we started pinning.
Which phrase moves the reader forward in time?

Read it: the mentor text

Read it
The Day the Corkboard Fell (part two)
First, we picked up the cards. There were sixty-one. I know because I counted them twice while Rocket kept saying sixty.
Next, Rocket lifted the board. The hook on the back had bent, slowly, all year, until one more pin was one too many.
"So it was not me," he said. "It was time." "It was time and you," I said.
Meanwhile, Nova drifted along the wall and found the real problem: the screw had worked loose from the old wood.
For the next hour we worked. Rocket found a new hook. I sorted the cards into rows on the table, week by week.
The sorting went slowly. Every card was a day we had spent at this desk, and I kept stopping to read them.
Then, just before dinner, Rocket held up the board and I pushed the new hook into place.
It held.
Finally, we started pinning. Sixty-one cards, in order, the way they had been.
Almost the way they had been.
PART TWO, IN ORDER
  • ?The crew picks up the cards.
  • ?Rocket lifts the board and finds the bent hook.
  • ?Nova finds the loose screw.
  • ?Raven sorts the cards while Rocket finds a new hook.
  • ?The new hook goes in and holds.
  • ?The crew starts pinning the cards back.
WHY THIS EXERCISEThe transitions are the signposts. Put them in a row and the whole middle falls into order.
CHECK IT: PACING
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
Which moment gets the most sentences?
Why does the writer linger on the sorting?
It held is two words on its own line. The pacing here
Almost the way they had been does which job?
How many cards did Raven count? Type the number.
WHY THIS EXERCISERaven counts twice and Rocket says sixty. The number is both a detail and a bit of character.
SentenceTrue or false?
Meanwhile tells the reader two things happened at the same time.?
The writer gives one sentence to the moment the hook holds.?
The hook on the back of the board bent all at once.?
The crew finished pinning before dinner.?
Raven counted the cards twice.?
Nova found the loose screw.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEThe hook bent slowly, all year. Pinning only started just before dinner. Raven counted; Nova found the screw.
Try it
Tell someone at home what you did this morning using first, next, meanwhile and finally.
Then tell it again and spend three sentences on the one moment that mattered most.

Write it: the middle

Checklist
My events are in an order the reader can follow.
Each new moment starts with a transition.
Small steps get one sentence each.
My most important moment gets the most sentences.

Signposts keep the reader with you; pacing tells them where to look. Tomorrow is Writing Lab: the crew starts talking.

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