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Pacing- How The Heck Do I Do It

I wrote a short story recently and I had a lot of fun writing it, but when I reread it so I could revise it and I knew I'd messed up. I let my brother read it and he confirmed by fears. Although it had some structural issues, the main problem why nothing worked was in pacing. I've ran into this issue before, and now I realize that it's a problem I heavily suffer from.

I understand that more detail added to less eventful scenes can create slower pacing and that quicker sentences added to more eventful scenes can create faster pacing, but I still feel like I'm failing somewhere. Everything comes off as either monotone or confusing with too many things happening.

I think part of the problem to is that pacing is not something I notice in other people's work and thus I have a hard time identifying it in my own. I've not read something and thought 'woah, that pacing was really off.' I hardly ever see other writers discuss it or have problems with it too. But it seems like such a huge part of writing because it makes or breaks a story, and I just do not know what I'm doing when it comes to it.

tldr; how do I improve pacing or get a better understanding of it?
 
Pacing problems aren't exactly a simple fix. For myself, I mostly go off my gut instinct, and that sees me through fairly well, but sometimes I have to sit and think about it too to make sure I'm not overlooking something. Pacing for every story will be different, some benefit from a relaxed pacing, some are better with a feeling of rushing through to the ending. It really depends on the story you are telling and the feeling you want to invoke.

See if you can determine where your feelings of something being off start, or perhaps your brother could you give you an idea as well. Take a look at that specific section and determine if it is speeding up or slowing down the story too much. Is the scene too long and filled with too much stopping and smelling the flowers? That could kill the pacing of a story if it is misplaced. Or maybe the story is rushing through an important scene that should be taken slower with more time for the reader to digest it, which could cause the story to feel overly-rushed.

You might also double check the opening scene? What kind of expectations for pacing does that scene promise? Is it an opening suited to a high-action, fast-paced narrative? Or is more subdued with lot's of detail and introspection? Does that match the rest of the story?
 
C

Chessie

Guest
Do you outline?

It's more about how you're constructing your scenes, if at all. Let's take a look at what a scene is, for just a moment: a scene is chunk of your story, a moment in time that either--

a) starts out negatively and ends positively
b) starts out positively and ends negatively
c) starts out postively and ends positively positive
d) starts out negatively and ends negatively negative

Now, a scene is going to have an inciting incident, a climax, and a resolution. Let's say your scenes are right around 2k words, and that one scene is a chapter. For simplicity's sake, let's do chapter 1.

CHAPTER ONE: (Evolution's Novel) will introduce the main character, problem, and plot. So, this chapter will...
-introduce the main character in his ordinary world
-introduce the reader to the story world
-pose a problem. On this point, I typically prefer to show the hero's character flaw right away in the way they behave. It's not apparent to the character, necessarily, that they're flawed in this particular way but it should be obvious to the reader. It makes your character interesting, and you want readers to take interest in the hero--to connect with him somehow--so they keep reading.

*The way you would, then, pace this chapter, is slowly. You are guiding the reader into this world you've created, taking them on a learning curve about who the hero is and what their life is like. Here, you want to add description and preferably whatever type of scene best fits the genre or subgenre of your story. Like, I know urban fantasy novels seem to start in bars (some, anyway). That's going to be an environment where people are engaging in conversation. For an arranged marriage fantasy romance story, one might start with the heroine on the way to her wedding or to meet her betrothed. She'll typically have handmaidens or a pesky mother over her shoulder, so expect some intimate dialogue. What I'm saying is, the more dialogue there is the more character you'll reveal and the faster your pace will be, VS if your character is hunting game in a forest during the opening scene, there will be less dialogue (more internal dialogue) and be slowed in pace.

Finally, you'll take how many words you have per scene (2k) and mold your scene to fit within the scope of that target word count, which will give you parameters for pacing.

I hope this helps. :)
 
Graceless Liar- I'm definitely going too fast with my pacing. I try to get more detailed in scenes I want slower paced, but I'm not going far enough. Part of it is my want to eliminate everything that isn't necessary to the story, which means less description in many areas, as well as just general improvements in description I need to work on.

Chessie- I do use outlines heavily, but I suppose I need to work out the mechanics of each scene individually better like what you posted. I found that helpful. I was working on a novel for over a year that I had to shelve because of the pacing issue, and in that I wrote each 'chapter' as a day, and I suppose I was too concerned about each day that I forgot about each scene within that day, causing everything, humorous scenes and horror scenes and drama scenes, to sort of meld together inappropriately.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Sometimes pacing isn't about pacing.

I'm a big believer in scene/sequel (you probably know about this, but you can look it up), but that alone did not really turn the trick for me. What did was when I realized that pacing is very much about the hand-off from one scene to the next, and that this hand-off must be driven by the character.

If you look more deeply into the scene/sequel, or at MRUs, you'll soon see that the structure is as much about reaction as it is about action. When my readers (beta; I don't have paying readers yet!) complain the story moves too quickly or jerkily, it's nearly always because I have things happen but don't give the characters space to react--even if it's just for a sentence or two. Note that reaction can be internal or external (it's best if it's both). In those stretches, I'm basically moving my characters around on the set. They're following my script.

In the other direction, when I'm told that a section is too slow, it's because I've got stuff that neither reflects the moment nor drives the next. However witty the dialog, however vivid the scenery, they do not connect with the moment, either in terms of the characters or what's happening at the time. It's not usually as easy as cutting, either. Usually, there's *something* in there that really does belong. So, it's a matter of compressing and rewriting, more than highlight-delete.

In both cases, I think I have noticed another thing. It's me, the author, who is less than fully in the moment. In the former instance, I've got my authorial eye further down the road and I'm too eager to get there. In the latter case, I've distracted myself with the shiny. I don't usually fall for this in description, but I'm very much guilty of indulging in dialog. There are some specifics attached with that, but I've gone on long enough.

The central point behind this is that "pacing" isn't the issue or, if it is, the term is too broad to be useful to the author. Works fine for the critic and the reviewer, but it doesn't really help us with the rewrite. The game here is to identify what specifically you are doing at the points where the story lags or jumps. You have to catch yourself at it. It's like trying to analyze your own batting stance, or trying to improve your guitar technique by listening to your own tapes. It can be done, but it's subtle. The more feedback you can get, the better. Especially for the guitar. :)
 
I know about Scenes and Sequels, but I probably need to be more strict about it. I did not, however, know about MRUs and after looking it up I plan to follow it. I'm intimidated by the notion of strictly following these formulas because of how limiting it feels, but what I'm doing at the moment isn't working so I'm gonna have to try it out.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Part of pacing is about structure. Knowing where in the story a scene takes place can help you construct it in a way that will speed things up or slow things down as needed.

I feel like a parrot because it seems like I've been spamming this bloody article I wrote in every gosh darn thread that pops up, but it explains the three act structure and using that helps in pacing.

Big Picture Story Structure ? Part 1: Three-Act Structure

In addition, I suggest you check out he scene-sequel structure for writing scenes. I haven't written an article on that yet, so no spam for you, but here are a few links.

Jim Butcher on scenes & sequels: icefallpress
SCENES: jimbutcher
SEQUELS: jimbutcher
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Pacing is a Medusa, problems can come from any given snake, and better, people won't necessarily agree about the problem let alone the fix. Whether it's a micro or macro problem also counts. Scene/Sequel, MRU's might help, but who knows. I won't even take a guess as to the fix without seeing the patient, but, from what I've seen with people's pacing issues, it tends to get "fixed" by repairing something else.

The MRU would be effective if the writing has a fundamental problem, I suspect. But the prescriptive method it espouses? Consider it a foundation, IMO.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I never regard these things as prescriptive. Where I have found them useful is in two areas: editing and outlining.

When I have already written a chapter or fifty, going back through it to analyze how each scene actually plays out is useful. MRUs and scene/sequel (almost wrote sql!) are useful in analysis.

Now that I'm being serious about outlining, I'm finding scene/sequel to be incredibly helpful in seeing just how I exit a scene, how I go into the next scene, and in making sure there is full participation within the scene (mostly about reactions there). I admit it is sort of exhausting, and while I've been a true believer in the early scenes, by scene 9 or 10 I'm already just making sketchy notes. Even that is useful, I suppose, as it is showing me clearly that I have not thought through those (roughly around Chapter 4 or 5) the way I should.
 
I never regard these things as prescriptive. Where I have found them useful is in two areas: editing and outlining.

When I have already written a chapter or fifty, going back through it to analyze how each scene actually plays out is useful. MRUs and scene/sequel (almost wrote sql!) are useful in analysis.

Now that I'm being serious about outlining, I'm finding scene/sequel to be incredibly helpful in seeing just how I exit a scene, how I go into the next scene, and in making sure there is full participation within the scene (mostly about reactions there). I admit it is sort of exhausting, and while I've been a true believer in the early scenes, by scene 9 or 10 I'm already just making sketchy notes. Even that is useful, I suppose, as it is showing me clearly that I have not thought through those (roughly around Chapter 4 or 5) the way I should.
So would writing without thinking about the MRU formula, and the configure it into an MRU shape during the editing process be a good idea?
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Scene/sequel and MRU can be useful, no doubt, in particular for folks having some fundamental problems with their writing/story telling. And they can be used to diagnose particular problems, or to analyze your work from a distinct angle (like you seem to do), which is good. Do I worry or think about them one lick? No. Honestly, I don't even think in scenes anymore. I left that behind in screenwriting. Of course there are scenes and sequels, but that's an intuitive necessity just like motivation begets reaction, and reactions follow a proper order... but digging deeper into the MRU kind of hits my gag reflex.

I never regard these things as prescriptive. Where I have found them useful is in two areas: editing and outlining.

When I have already written a chapter or fifty, going back through it to analyze how each scene actually plays out is useful. MRUs and scene/sequel (almost wrote sql!) are useful in analysis.

Now that I'm being serious about outlining, I'm finding scene/sequel to be incredibly helpful in seeing just how I exit a scene, how I go into the next scene, and in making sure there is full participation within the scene (mostly about reactions there). I admit it is sort of exhausting, and while I've been a true believer in the early scenes, by scene 9 or 10 I'm already just making sketchy notes. Even that is useful, I suppose, as it is showing me clearly that I have not thought through those (roughly around Chapter 4 or 5) the way I should.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
That is a well-written article, but it's an exemplar of lots of writing advice: it says what to do without saying how. Vary the tension. Fine. Here's a chart that shows rising and falling tension. Neat. There's more than one kind of tension and you could swap them out. Uh-huh. But not a word on how to create tension or how to release it. Or, and this is the really difficult one, how to recognize false tension. Lots of times we think our scene contains tension when it doesn't. How're we supposed to know?

Here's an example: questions. Questions raise tension. Not usually by much, but you don't always want to go full-bore. Cuz that's boring. <groan>

Dialog is the easiest place to raise a question. "What do we do now?" That sort of thing. The character does not have to give an explicit question. She can state a position or propose something, which is contradicted by someone else. Now there's a choice to be made, and the question is, which will they choose? Each choice needs to be perilous, of course. Raising a question works will in a sequel section because it sets the table for the next scene.

As Demesnedenoir says, if you're thinking about all this as you write, it'll probably get in the way. It'd be like thinking about color theory while painting, or chord inversions while playing. All that needs to be internalized during the actual execution. But when you are aware--either in planning or in revision--that your pacing is off, looking at the mechanics can be helpful, especially for the noob. That'd be me. Once I have three published (which means professionally edited) novels, I'll pretend to be authoritative.

Right now, though, I find this topic to be interesting. How do we create tension? How do we raise the level from the previous scene? How do we lower the level? I've just finished reading Cotton Comes to Harlem, and the mechanics there are pretty obvious. There is violence followed by a discussion of that violence (the detectives come to the crime scene, for example). That's followed by description that sets up for the next violent scene. And, over the course of the novel, the violence comes closer and closer to the protagonists, culminating in a final gun battle between the detectives and the main thugs. It's pretty straightforward. Within that we get marvelous descriptions of Harlem, and we get plenty of room for social commentary. The structure is not complicated or subtle. Maybe that's why I could see it!

Anyway, I feel like I'm graduating from just getting the story told in some comprehensible way, to being more aware of how I tell the story. Pacing.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
But not a word on how to create tension or how to release it. <--Agreed but in the author's defense, we all tend to do the same thing. I think it's because when we understand a concept and are trying to explain it, we skip over the little details that also make it a concept to begin with. Yeah?

So, how does one create tension in a story? One point of entry is the character's flaw. I'll use an example from a recent book I read that did this masterfully (Tempered Hearts, S.A. Hutchinson). The hero's flaw is actually a common romance trope: a man who stubbornly holds on to the love of his past and runs away from relationship with the heroine, who is his arranged bride/wife. Throughout the story, his flaw is what makes him HER antagonist; and her flaw (which is persistence) is what makes her HIS antagonist.

She won't stop trying to get him to love her. He refuses to let go of his former love and try to get to know his wife (basically, he believes he is betraying his former lover even though they decided to end things before the wedding).

Now, in one scene before they get hitched, hero takes the time out of his oh-so-busy-day to tell the heroine he doesn't want a honeymoon (because why would he pretend to be happy when he's not?). She doesn't like this, and they have a bit of a spat. Tension is created in the scene with heroine pushing for a honeymoon because it's what she wants, it's what she deserves. He agrees it's what she deserves, but only internally, this isn't something he voices. Tension on his end comes from stubbornness. If he agrees to a honeymoon then he's betraying the love of his life, who isn't his betrothed.

The more she pushes, the angrier he gets.

And the more he refuses, the more hurt she gets.

He never relents, but she eventually gives in because it's too much for her. But she's a lady trained to restrain her emotions (tension, social obligations and expectations). All of us know what it's like to be in a social situation where you are upset and have to hold back from crying or whatever...it's like being a balloon, right? Anyway, the pov character is the hero, so the reader can see her being upset physically and also be in hero's head...who feels guilty for hurting this sweet woman who has done nothing wrong to earn his wrath.

The scene resolution happens when heroine acts to expectation (flaw, again tension) and shakes it off, so to speak, giving the hero a kiss on the cheek as a sign of forgiveness, good grace, and just plain persistence to get him to like her. It's super obvious in that one! This final act of hers is what begins to stir his heart, though. He feels something when she kisses him and he flogs himself (emotionally) for it, for betraying his ex. So, the scene ends with tension, too.

I hope this is clear enough to see the scene's inciting incident (he tells her there will be no honeymoon), the climax (the fight), and the resolution (the kiss). There is tension woven throughout that simply from both of the flaws the characters bring to the tables. If we keep going back to their flaws during a scene, and having them act from THERE, tension naturally presents itself. :)
 
Ok, I just want to reiterate everything Skip said here—and add my own spin. A few points to get started:

First: Brandon Sanderson has commented, in various WE podcasts on various subjects, about the fact that, no matter what a reader is reading, she should be experiencing progress. This is very important. The plot is progressing, the story is progressing, the theme is being progressed, whatever.

Second: "Pacing" is not so much only a format/structural issue—for instance, whether there is description or dialogue, long sentences or short—as it is about a reader's ongoing experience of the story. This idea hit me pretty hard recently in another thread discussion when I was thinking about how tension affects pacing (or the reader's experience of the pacing.) I started thinking about the first LOTR movie and my experience in the theater seeing it for the first time: 178 minutes of run time but boy did it seem to go by fast.

Third: Maybe we should think of pacing through three lenses: Fast pacing, slow pacing, and no pacing/broken pacing.

I add "no pacing/broken pacing" for a very important reason. This is what happens when the reader begins feeling that progress of some sort isn't being made. Beta readers might say the pacing seemed slow at those points, but really it's nonexistent, broken.

I did a quick search for images to illustrate this, but couldn't find any and don't have a drawing program handy at the moment. So I'll describe them instead, heh.

Fast pacing would be a straight line. The story/plot is heading straight forward, making constant, obvious progress.

Slow pacing would be a curvy line. Something is still being advanced, there is still progress, but it's not direct. This may mean, however, that the progression isn't 100% obvious to the reader at the moment, but what's happening still seems significant to the reader vis-à-vis the story or at least permits a feeling that what is happening will become more obviously important later.

No pacing/broken pacing would be a line with breaks in it. Above or below the line, where the breaks occur, there'd be other squiggles or lines not attached to the line. When the reader has been moved off the line and is on one of those squiggles, there's no sense of progression. It stops.

So what do I mean by being "moved off the line?" One example could be side quests that don't seem to progress the story or theme or whatever. Let's say that you, the author, decide X side quest would be "cool" or "exciting" for some reason, and you write it just to have that coolness or excitement within the story. OR, let's say that you decide to insert a side quest, a side encounter, a side patch of dialogue, simply and only as a convenience to show something about your character or the world. When the reader is reading, enjoying the progression of the story, and comes to this point, the forward progress is stopped.

Sometimes the difference between slow pacing and no/broken pacing is merely a matter of execution. You know when you are writing that lengthy conversation that you are introducing ideas or elements that will come into greater significance later—but unfortunately, you don't in any way include elements that will leave the reader feeling as if the story or theme is being progressed. The forward pace seems to have stopped (although the reader might suspend disbelief, or give the story some benefit of doubt, and later report that the pace felt "slow.") It's A-OK to include dialogue because you want to show something about a character or the world, or a side quest to show these things, or to lay down foreshadowing and clues about future developments—or to add some excitement or coolness!—but not without progressing the plot, story or theme for the reader.

Sometimes, a scene or conversation is simply in the wrong place. It'll have more significance, seem to progress the story better, later in the story. Earlier, a reader comes upon it and might experience a Huh?

So...here's where the execution of scene/sequel and MRU's relates to the above. They help to keep the line from feeling broken when they are executed well.

MRU's are more of a granular level:

So I got home and started pounding my head against the front door. The last straw. My wife had left a "Dear John" letter taped over the knob.

Yeah, so you're reading along in this story and suddenly the guy is pounding his head against the door...Huh? The line is broken, the progression is broken, just for that length, until the explanation is given after the fact. (Of course, rules are made to be broken, and there is a certain wonderful style that does this sort of thing at the granular level. But chances are, if one is consistent in doing this sort of thing for a particular story/voice, it'll not be a break in the line. The reader will have come to expect the explanation after the effect.)

Skip's idea about transitions for scene/sequel relates. Skipping ahead (heh, couldn't resist) might feel like a break in the line, similar to the way the MRU example above feels like a skip to the reaction before the cause is revealed.

I also think that when you have a sequel after a scene, this improves the sense that some sort of progress is being made. Change is occurring; cause and effect are flowing logically, sensibly, unbroken in a line (although it can easily be something like a curvy line.)

So...for me it's not just about description vs dialogue, long sentences vs shorter sentences, although these may affect the pacing. Dialogue can drag, and descriptive prose can hop along.


Sometimes pacing isn't about pacing.

I'm a big believer in scene/sequel (you probably know about this, but you can look it up), but that alone did not really turn the trick for me. What did was when I realized that pacing is very much about the hand-off from one scene to the next, and that this hand-off must be driven by the character.

If you look more deeply into the scene/sequel, or at MRUs, you'll soon see that the structure is as much about reaction as it is about action. When my readers (beta; I don't have paying readers yet!) complain the story moves too quickly or jerkily, it's nearly always because I have things happen but don't give the characters space to react--even if it's just for a sentence or two. Note that reaction can be internal or external (it's best if it's both). In those stretches, I'm basically moving my characters around on the set. They're following my script.

In the other direction, when I'm told that a section is too slow, it's because I've got stuff that neither reflects the moment nor drives the next. However witty the dialog, however vivid the scenery, they do not connect with the moment, either in terms of the characters or what's happening at the time. It's not usually as easy as cutting, either. Usually, there's *something* in there that really does belong. So, it's a matter of compressing and rewriting, more than highlight-delete.

Edit: Began typing the above some time before I finished, and didn't see Skip's and Chessie's latest comments. Also, interruptions at works, yadda yadda, and didn't go as far as I wanted, especially when it comes to those curves re: slow pacing. Will return when the free time returns, heh.
 
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Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I'm all in on the sense of progress being a huge part of pacing, you can follow scene-sequel and MRU's dutifully and still feel like you're on a treadmill if they aren't taking you anywhere. I think the OP was on pacing being too fast... this could happen due to scene-scene-scene more easily than messing something up in the Motivation-Reaction process. MRU errors tend to create herky jerky reading, I'd think. So, scene-scene rather than scene-sequel, or skipping a logical beat in a story to make the pace too fast, or just a lack of depth in the sequels, or even the scenes being "too easy". Very difficult to diagnose without seeing the patient, but I'd look at the sequels first when things feel too fast.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
I'm all in on the sense of progress being a huge part of pacing, you can follow scene-sequel and MRU's dutifully and still feel like you're on a treadmill if they aren't taking you anywhere. I think the OP was on pacing being too fast... this could happen due to scene-scene-scene more easily than messing something up in the Motivation-Reaction process. MRU errors tend to create herky jerky reading, I'd think. So, scene-scene rather than scene-sequel, or skipping a logical beat in a story to make the pace too fast, or just a lack of depth in the sequels, or even the scenes being "too easy". Very difficult to diagnose without seeing the patient, but I'd look at the sequels first when things feel too fast.

I think an example of too much scene-scene-scene would be a typical Michael Bay movie. :p
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
One thing I noticed about places where I did too much scene and not enough sequel was that it tended to happen when I was just trying to move the pieces around. I was so focused on telling the story--by which I really meant merely getting characters from A to B (physically or emotionally)--that I failed to show their reactions. Which really meant I was failing to give the reader emotional hooks--reasons to keep reading.
 
In a way, the bold section below reminds me of the process of writing formalist poetry.

Sometimes, a mediocre poet will follow the form well enough to meet the requirements of meter and rhyme but fail to consider fully the content or flow of the content over the form and as it interacts with the form.

The content in fiction also affects pacing. How that content is revealed, whether there is extraneous content or not enough significant content or flabby content. <----Another reason why tension is something to be considered when trying to improve the pacing. But this part of pacing is fairly difficult to discuss!

I'm all in on the sense of progress being a huge part of pacing, you can follow scene-sequel and MRU's dutifully and still feel like you're on a treadmill if they aren't taking you anywhere. I think the OP was on pacing being too fast... this could happen due to scene-scene-scene more easily than messing something up in the Motivation-Reaction process. MRU errors tend to create herky jerky reading, I'd think. So, scene-scene rather than scene-sequel, or skipping a logical beat in a story to make the pace too fast, or just a lack of depth in the sequels, or even the scenes being "too easy". Very difficult to diagnose without seeing the patient, but I'd look at the sequels first when things feel too fast.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
You're not going to pace the story well if you don't understand your characters. This conversation is getting more complicated than it needs to be. Really, the pacing is going to depend on what type of scene it is, the purpose of the scene, how many characters are in it, and what their goals/flaws are. Everything else comes out of that naturally.
 
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