100 Things You Should Know About Writing (Part 1)

25) How to Pace Your Story

Here we are, finally at the last pillar that makes tension stand. Pacing, or how fast you're revealing new events and information. It's a subtle thing, though, which is probably why most new writers have this aspect lacking in their stories. 

Don't worry, I'm sharing tips. 

But first, let's just establish how pacing establishes tension. For ease of understanding, I'm going to say there are two types of pacing: Story-wide and scene-by-scene. The reason why I'm separating the two is that every scene shouldn't have the same pacing. I'll explain that in a bit.

First, let's get into story-wide pacing. When we're looking at pacing across the entire plot, pacing plays a helping role, similar to information release, in maintaining tension. Rookies make the mistake of thinking that the faster the pace, the higher the tension, but this isn't necessarily true. Yes, faster pacing does create a sense tension. However, forcing the pace to be fast when it doesn't suit the story will pull the reader out of the story. Why? Because it doesn't feel natural. 

"Natural" here doesn't mean "I woke up, then brushed my teeth." I'm referring more to a sense of what fits given a particular story that's being told. A story about a guy with 24 hours to find an atomic bomb will probably shoot through the pages like a bullet. Lots of things will happen on top of each other, hardly giving the reader a chance to breathe. And it fits because the whole story is limited to a small period of time. The whole idea that time is of the essence is enough to get the reader to understand that the main character will be experiencing a ton of things in a very short time, so the super-charged pacing feels natural. 

However, slower pacing also helps tension if done right. There's a fine difference in how it works. Fast pacing creates tension. Slow pacing simply has to focus on not diminishing the tension.

The simple way of looking at this is by referring back to my definition above and thinking about it as a spectrum. One one hand, there's the fastest pacing, which has a lot of action driving the plot and the bare minimum of information. On the other, there's the slowest pacing, which relies on information to immerse the reader in the story and uses the minimum of action to keep the story going to the end.  

Depending on the story you're trying to tell, neither is wrong. Besides that, you're probably going to end up somewhere in between. However, even if you're writing a book that's naturally slow paced, there's too slow. Just as there's a too fast at the other side of the spectrum. Getting either of these two wrong ruins tension. 

Which brings me to my tips for fine-tuning pacing.

1) Chapter Lengths

Longer chapters tend to slow the pace right down. So if your pacing is off, first look here. Be careful, though. Manipulating chapter lengths is an easy way to make the pace feel unnatural. But do take a hard look at any chapters that are much longer or shorter than the ones before and after them. 

2) For Fast Pacing: 

Often times, writers wanting a fast pace write in event after event after event. This does not create tension. It does the opposite, because all action with nothing else becomes real boring real fast. So break things up a bit with scenes where the characters take stock. This can take a variety of forms: Dialogue, flashbacks, description, showing the reader what the character's thinking, or just showing the character taking a break. The point here is when the character catches the breather, so do the readers, and it refreshes them to handle more action.