If so why? I have my characters in a heavy pace of fighting my villains near the end of my book 2 (P.S I haven't written it yet I am making a series of storyboards of it to sort it out. pictures for myself with descripion on each picture explaining the scene, which I can move many of the scenes to where I think they can fit the best switching to different spots or add more). My good characters had just finished fighting powered humans in chapter 19 and then in chapter 20 they find their demon enemy has attacked the good guys home base. (for retaliation for ruining their plans in chapter 9) So the good guys fight the demons and manages to repel the bad demons away in defeat out of the building. then they discover 1 enemy hadn't escaped and that demon takes a younger sister hostage and because he know he can't escape he pushes the sister through a portal to an alien world. Where then the older sister and the friends goes through the portal to go save the younger sister. (there book 2 ends and then book 3 will be them saving younger sister and exploring the alien world looking for a way back to there world). What think I want to do is add the sisters parents to come in having the girls reunite with the parents after the parents thinking the two were dead for a month or so; the parents are happy but now very protective and want to keep the girls out of danger which isn't really possible. I don't really see an opening for where to fix in the parents the last chapters of the story?, is there a way too? does putting the parents in ruin the flow of the action/ pace of the story? any ideas of what I should do? I would appreciate any insight or advice anyone might bestow, thanks.
You need some calmer scenes - relentless action is exhausting for the reader and it all becomes one long blur after a while, plus they can't appreciate danger and tension if it is ever present
Just as long as the characters are aware that it's a lull that they should enjoy while they can and as long as they're still thinking about what's going to happen when it picks back up again.
Hi, I am know what you're going through, and yes giving your characters a moment to breath easy for a short time. before applying pressure back down. So yeah its normal to let your gorehounds feel like the pressure is up for a smidgen. You have to use that time to show development and growth. Nobody faces an endless onslaught in combat. Though letting them get 'comfortable' is another story entirely. If the war ain't over, there is work to be done, and even then the shadows of the past haunt them to the grave.
I'd say that: To care about the action, you need to care about the characters. To care about the characters, you need to know them. To know them, you need a little time with them. I'm not clear about why you're having trouble including these scenes? I'm not saying that there can't be plenty of reasons, I'm just not clear on what your reasons are.
Think about a roller coaster. It's not all constantly downhill, even though that's the exciting part, right? But without contrast that becomes dull. You need ups to build up to the big down, and then at the bottom you need a flat part to let everyone relax and get back to normal again. And a book is the same. You need to let the reader (and the characters) regain their equilibrium before you yank them off balance again. You have to let them re-set to zero before you can get another emotional response. That doesn't mean that these scenes need to be there in any specific time or place. It should be a thing that you feel as you read; if back to back punchy, exciting scenes feel good to you, say that the end of that first exciting scene raises the stakes and we see that it was only half the battle, then no problems. But if you read the first scene and feel that the next scene isn't punching enough because there isn't contrast, that's when you take the time to bring it back to zero. Quiet time matters for other reasons beyond pacing though. It's important for the characters to have quiet moments to reflect on their humanity and show themselves to be vulnerable human beings and not just high-stress, high-intensity killing machines (or whatever fits the genre). They have to have these moments to themselves to show how they are coping with all this and to share moments of closeness and normalcy; that's how you build sympathy for these people. So, yes, you should have quiet time, you should have breaks. When exactly you should have them is up to you, but remember the roller coaster. Remember that for things to keep impact you have coming zooming back to the ground then slowly build the tension again.
John Grisham has a talent for making the end of one chapter into a cliffhanger that makes you went to read the next chapter. But the next chapter often picks up on another story line and ends with its own cliffhanger. And on it goes.
