And so you ask, “What are these moments?”
To be honest, they’re a little hard to pin down, since the context will depend on the rhythm and the requirements of the individual story. Generally though, what we’re talking about here are scenes in which the action actually ends up being tedious instead of thrilling—simply because readers want to be somewhere else. They know something good is coming up, and they’d much rather focus on that, rather than the lengthy action required for the characters to battle through the courtyard to finally get to that showdown with the evil king.
Academ’s Fury by Jim Butcher (affiliate link)
As an example, consider Jim Butcher’s fantasy Academ’s Fury, in which he demonstrates a keen sensibility for when to show the action and when not to. In general, this is an extremely action-packed book. But there’s a notable exception late in the Second Act. Here, we find the hero breaking into a prison to free a friend so they can both get back to the main conflict.
Butcher shows the action, the conflict, and the tension as the character is breaking into the prison. But when it comes time to sneak back out, Butcher obviously realized readers aren’t going to be nearly as interested in retreading the same action—perilous and exciting though it may be. What readers want is to get back to the relational conflict back at the base. And that is exactly what Butcher offers by neatly skipping back to the good stuff. It’s an example we can all learn from.
