Crucial Moment

How to find it...
• Who is the most important character?
• When is the biggest moment?
• Where would you make a slow-motion movie scene?
• What is the most vital word, phrase, or sentence?
• When does the most exciting scene, character unveiling, etc. happen?
• Where does the piece take a turn?

THESE are your crucial moments…so, what should you do with them?

Make the reader feel, see, understand every aspect of that moment:

1) Slow Motion: make a second last a paragraph, a moment a page…
2) Tint a Moment: focus only on thoughts, dialogue, setting, or feeling
3) Suspense: purposefully describe everything but one aspect, then unveil
4) Full-blown Moment: snapshot + thoughtshot + dialogue
5) Mix EVERYTHING together!

EXAMPLE:

Fig Pudding by Ralph Fletcher

But as the plates were cleared away, and everyone started eyeing the sweet table, I started getting this funny feeling in the pit of my belly. Nate sneaked a smile at me. Cyn looked down at her fingernails. Teddy caught my eye; his face looked serious, almost too serious. Mom and Dad were sitting directly across from each other but they avoided eye contact when Aunt Pat put the bowl of fig pudding onto the table.
“Ah!” Uncle Billy said. He smacked his lips.
“My favorite!” Aunt Marilyn said.
“There are so many other great desserts,” Dad was saying. “I think I’m going for Grandma’s blueberry pie.”
“Pass down that fig pudding!” Uncle Eddie cried. “I’ve been dying for that pudding all week!”
The bowl got passed down. Uncle Richie passed it to Nate who passed it to Aunt Marilyn who passed it to me who passed it to Mom who passed it to Uncle Eddie. Uncle Eddie weighed two hundred sixty if he weighed a pound, and he had a tremendous appetite. Out of the corner of my eye I watched him put two large dollops of pudding into his bowl. He took a bite. I tried not to look, but I couldn’t help it. Suddenly, he sat up. Looked at Dad. Took another bite.
“Say!” Uncle Eddie said to my father. “This is dee-li-cious! I mean it! The best fig pudding you ever made. Did you add some new ingredient this year?”
“Not really—“ Dad began, but he stopped as mom made a funny sound, half gulp and half choke. She put her napkin to her mouth, got up, and quickly rushed into the kitchen.
“Excuse me,” Dad said, getting up to follow her.
“You really ought to try this fig pudding,” Uncle Eddie was saying, digging in again. “Terrific stuff!”
“Scuse me,” I mumbled, rising and pushing back my chair.
I found Mom and Dad at the small kitchen table, leaning against each other, eyes closed, tears running down their faces. Dad’s shoulders were shaking. He grabbed his gut, as if in pain. Mom was red-faced, gasping for breath.
“Some new ingredient!” Mom choked, and they both let out a howl of laughter, almost a scream, a wild animal sound that startled me as it rang out and bounced off the walls and brought the other kids in our family running into the kitchen.
“Good job, Dad!” Cyn said with a huge grin.
“Couldn’t have made it without Josh,” Dad said, cracking up again, falling against Mom. And suddenly I was laughing, too. We all were, laughing hard, mouths open, roaring, barely able to stand.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” a voice boomed. Uncle Eddie’s big face looked down sternly at us. The very sight of him made everyone laugh even harder.
“Some new ingredient!” Dad said, still red-faced and squeezing his belly. “I can’t stand it!”
Uncle Eddie had a confused look on his face.
“Everything all right?” he asked. Behind him, Grandma Annie’s face appeared.
“What on earth are you all laughing at?” she demanded.
“It’s just…so…funny!” Dad said, shrugging and laughing some more. Uncle Eddie walked over and punched Dad lightly on the shoulder.
“Hey, nice pudding, Clifford,” he said with a big smile. That cracked up everybody again. He shrugged and left. Grandma Annie stayed behind, a bemused look on her face, watching us gasp and belly laugh, with the tears running down our faces.