Slow Motion: The Elasticity of Time
Series: The Art of Time - Explorations in storytelling and perception
Over the last two months, we’ve wandered a little in the untamed places—the wild, intuitive spaces where creativity moves before we can name it. Let’s pause, just for a moment, and pull something solid from the air. This is craft, not instinct; technique, not luck. Now, let’s play…
Let’s start here: You’re waiting for something. The results of a test. A response to a text. A lover’s next words. In these moments, time doesn’t just pass—it stretches, thickens, lingers. A single second expands, swallows whole minutes. The brain records high-intensity moments differently, embedding details with such precision that time itself seems to warp.
This is why stories dilate during the significant: the first kiss, the near accident, the confrontation in the rain. Time doesn’t just move in fiction—it breathes.
How to Write in Slow Motion
So how do we make time stretch on the page? How do we slow a moment, expand it, make the reader feel its weight?
Layer Sensory Detail – Don’t just say it’s cold. Make the cold something physical, something lived: the frost settling at the base of a throat, the metallic taste of winter, the air stiff with silence. Details slow the reader down.
Break the Sentence – A short sentence. Then another. And another. Then, suddenly, a long, meandering one that circles back on itself, hesitates, pauses, the way a thought does in the middle of something important. Rhythm creates pace.
Zoom In – The way the spoon trembles slightly in her hand. The way the light slants across his face. The tiny, barely-there movements that betray a person’s inner world. Focus on the minute to make time stretch.
Use White Space – A single-line paragraph, standing alone, carries more weight than one buried in a thick block of text. Space on the page mirrors space in time.
Creative Connections: Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love
Watch the corridor scenes. Watch the way Maggie Cheung’s silk dresses trail behind her like echoes of time itself. The film unfolds in slow motion, but not mechanically—it pulses, heavy with unsaid things. The camera lingers, refuses to rush. Every moment matters.
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE | Official Trailer | 20th Anniversary Restoration
The Era-Defining Aesthetic of “In the Mood for Love” | The New Yorker
Invitation to Play
Write a scene where a single second unfurls into an entire paragraph, a full page. Slow it down so the reader feels the weight of it. Let the moment swell. What details emerge?
About Me
I’m Rena—a writer, teacher, and explorer of the questions stories ask us to follow. My work has appeared in Brevity Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, Five on the Fifth, New Flash Fiction Review, Headland Literary Journal, and more. Along the way, I’ve collected more rejection letters than I care to count—a badge of honor for any writer hunting the next story.
I’m also the Founder and Director of an International K–12 school in Costa Rica, where my love for learning and storytelling collide. My work is about helping writers stay curious, stay wild, and stay open to what they don’t yet know.
Let’s dig deep, howl loud, and keep the chase alive.