9 Everyday Things That Are Actually Awesome In Slow Motion

Sometimes a scene needs to be slowed-down so as to highlight all the important events and actions in the scene. The reasons for the slow-down can vary. When a character is trapped or in pain, every movement is highlighted to show just how in pain the character is. When something important or major happens in a character's life, the scene can be slowed-down to show the character's thought process in the crucial time. Essentially the point is to highlight the little things and to show how important they are in that scene, instead of just giving the plot points and telling the scene objectively.

Although the reasons for a slow-down can vary, it tends to be a difficult thing to write. Therefore, a great writing exercise is to take a scene that you already have written and try to write a slow-mo version of that scene. In this way you will be able to practice highlighting what might be important to the character and try and portray that importance to the reader. The following is an example of this writing exercise, with the scene of a car crash being portrayed both in real time, and slowed-down:

Kristin led a hectic life. Coffee in one hand and cell phone in the other, she held her foot on the brake waiting for the light to change. She glanced at the dashboard clock and it gleamed back at her with the time of 5:05. She set down her coffee and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, listening intently to the voice on the other end of the cell phone. The light switched to green, and Kristin slammed her foot down on the gas. A quarter of the way into the intersection, Kristin lost control of her car as a small black car slammed into the driver's side. Disorientated, cell phone now laying on the ground, Kristin tried to stop her car from spinning into something or someone else. She succeeded, stopping her car facing the opposite direction she was heading. Taking a deep breath, she glanced out her driver's side window when another force pushed her body forward, slamming her head into the steering wheel, knocking her unconscious.
As you can see from the previous scene, a lot happens in a short amount of time. The scene is portrayed as if it is happening in real life, and since a car crash happens in seconds, the portrayal of the car crash in told in a few sentences. However, if Kristin is your main character, or an important character of some sort, brushing over a major event like a car crash can hide the reader from important details about Kristin's character. In a scene like this, we as reader's may want to know how Kristin acts under pressure, or if this scene causes major harm to her, we as readers want to see all the details of a life-changing event in Kristin's life. Therefore, the scene can be told slow-motion, as seen in the following example:

As a driver, Kristin was taught to look both ways before entering an intersection, even if the light is green. However, already 20 minutes late in picking up her daughter and stuck in rush-hour traffic, Kristin assumed that everything was normal. This assumption was a costly gamble for Kristin.
As she entered the intersection, Krsitin's speedometer jumped from 0 to 35, even though she was only going about 5 miles per hour after those first 15 feet. Krsitin opened her mouth to respond to her husband's last comment when her body bucked to the right, her grip on her cell phone gone. As her cell phone dropped to the floor of her car, her car turned its first 180 degrees. Based on gut instinct, Kristin shifted her body weight back to the left and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and slammed her foot on the brake. After spinning another whole rotation, Kristin's car finally came to a stop.


9 Everyday Things That Are Actually Awesome In Slow Motion

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