When my best friend and her fiance went to see Wonder Woman,  I was really excited to hear their thoughts. In particular, her fiance loves to write little reviews on Facebook. When I scrolled over to his review, he criticized the film. His biggest beef was that there was too much talking and not enough action (which immediately made this song get stuck in my head). 

I immediately mentally fist pumped and thought: “Now I can’t wait to see this film!” My major problem with superhero movies is the pacing. For example, in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, there is dramatic music for everything. I swear, if Superman grabbed a toothbrush, the background music would be at a crescendo. Every scene seemed to have an explosion, which caused the fight scenes to lose their punch (yes, I have been waiting to use that pun for a long time now). 

Wonder Woman did it right. No, not every scene had an explosion, but that is a good thing. Why? Besides increasing the impact of the fight scenes, it gave us a chance to get to know the characters. You know, understand them well enough to care if they lived or died. It also gave the movie room to interesting ideas, such as the question: “Are broken people worth saving?” 

So pacing is everything when it comes to a story. How do you make sure your pacing is correct? Outlining. If you have an outline, you are not throwing scenes together at random. You can thoughtfully create them in advance and make sure they are in the best order for the biggest emotional impact.

Are you struggling to create your outline? Book a Novel(ty) Day with me, and we will make sure your book just doesn’t include one explosion after another. We will make an outline that ensures you feel like a superhero. (Lasso of Truth not included.)