Use Pacing to Maintain Sense of Tension in Story – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for July 22, 2025

Plotting Your Book: Use Pacing to Maintain Sense of Tension in Story
As developing your story, maintaining a sense of tension is vital. Without dramatic tension – a feeling of uncertainty in the reader about how the main character will solve (or even if he will resolve) the central problem – the story will be flat and vanilla. Creating tension involves controlling the story’s pace. READ MORE

The Best Guide to Writing Your Novel!
You dream of being a published author. You don’t have time to write, though … work or school is hectic, the house needs to be cleaned, the kids demand your attention … But we bet you can find just 7 minutes a day to pursue your dream. If you can, 7 Minutes a Day to Your Bestselleris the book for you. This practical, how-to-guide takes you step-by-step from coming up with a great story idea to seeing your pride and joy published – with just 7 minutes of writing a day. You’ll complete short, skillful exercises that allow you to build a short story or novel as you read the book, all the while receiving the encouragement and motivation needed to keep you going. SEE BOOK.

Writing Tip: Stay Inbounds when Writing Descriptively
Sometimes in our efforts to succeed, we overdo it – While training for a marathon, we run too many miles at first rather than build our strength, or while baking a cake we add too much of one ingredient in hopes of spicing it up. The results usually are disastrous and require that we start over. So it is with descriptive writing as well. As striving to deliver vivid, engaging writing, we actually can make our writing sound worse. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Should I Copyright My Manuscript?
You’ve just put the finishing touches on your book and are about to send it off to an editor, a literary agent, or maybe even a publishing house. Seemingly countless hours of thought and sweat went into your novel or nonfiction book, and it’s pretty good stuff, if you do say so yourself. But then a dreadful thought comes over you: “What if some slimeball tries to steal my work and pass it off as his own?” READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Don’t let a rhinoceros in the room smash your plot
Often the setting of a story contains some item that later plays a role in the story’s plot. A strange looking statue on the mantle, for example, may hold some clue or jog a memory, allowing for the story’s mystery to be solved. When describing the setting, however, be careful not to place a “rhinoceros in the room,” This term is some item or attribute that is obvious to everyone except the people closest to it. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Offer Readers a Sample Chapter Page on Website
If the book you’re promoting is the first one you’ve published, readers most likely will be unfamiliar with you or your writing. Further, given the vast number of other authors out there, a potential reader might decide to pass over you for another one who is slightly better well known or who has more writing credits to their name. You can counterbalance this by giving readers a free sample of your writing, proving to them that you’re the superior writer with the best book. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Blood Tide” by Larry Grubbe
A recent client of mine has published his book that I edited and helped self-publish! Larry Grubbe’s Blood Tide tells the story of INECE Agent John Owns Brittles, who encounters militarized poaching operators getting rich by taking advantage of the world’s food shortages, as they continue poaching throughout the South China Sea, the swamps of Louisiana, and the Pacific Ocean. Not only is he fighting to stop the poachers from destroying thousands upon thousands of animals, he must prevent these men from killing his friends who work side by side with him trying to stop them. Can Brittles save this world and his friends while keeping his faith alive as one terrible event after another is thrust upon him? CHECK IT OUT

$25 Off Your Next Edit!
For being a newsletter subscriber, please take $25 off your next edit with Inventing Reality Editing Service. When scheduling your edit, be sure to mention you’re a subscriber and give the email where you received this newsletter. Minimum order of $200. Offer expires July 29, 2025. SCHEDULE EDIT

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of both aspiring and published writers and offers a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of a novel, the Storytelling 101 Quick Read series, four children’s books, more than 25 bestselling hiking guidebooks, and even a book of poetry. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.