Moderation: How Much is Too Much?
August 25, 2022Narrative Lens and Narrative Distance
September 9, 2022Hello fellow word-nerds! Today we’re going to dig into a writer’s best friend and worst enemy: pacing.
What Is Pacing?
Pacing is the rate at which your reader progresses through the story. It is a combination of the physical speed at which your reader goes over every word and the rate at which they go through the plot.
For example, info-dumps are notorious for slowing pacing to a crawl, while action scenes tend to speed the pacing up. As a rule of thumb, pacing is fast when things are happening, and slow during periods of reflection and description.
Why Does Pacing Matter?
I am one of those people who will argue that pacing is one of the most important elements of telling a story. If you want to keep your reader flipping pages, then you have to get this right.
Think about it. If the pacing is so fast you have a hard time following what’s going on, you start to get confused. When you get confused, reading becomes less enjoyable, and you are much more likely to put the book down. The converse is also true. When the pacing is slow, you are waiting for the writer to get to the point! When that happens, you are much more likely to put the book down. We don’t read books just to wait around while the writer gives us pages and pages of scenery. We want action. We want change. We want plot.
This brings us to the meat of this post.
Three Tools to Control Pacing
- Action-Reaction Ratio
- Mindful Use of Beats
- Skillful Sentence Construction
Let’s dive in.
Tool 1: Action-Reaction Ratio
Wide-spread pacing issues happen when there is a ton of plot stacked together, then a top of reaction/description/info-dump stacked together. Here’s a tip to help avoid that issue.
For every important, fast-paced action scene, there should be a reaction scene. For every scene where the MC’s world shatters, there needs to be a scene where they pick up the pieces and try to make sense of the new world.
One wonderful example of this from the 2019 Disney production of Aladdin occurs in the beginning. After the chase scene where Aladdin and Jasmine escape from the law, they slow down. Jasmine introduces herself as Daliah, and Aladdin deduces that she is the handmaiden to the Princess. They take a moment to enjoy a wonderful view of Agrabah, and explain that the princess has been kept in the palace ever since the queen was killed.
Tool 2: Mindful Use of Beats
Beats are the emotional foundation of a story. Every emotional transition is marked by a beat, but not every beat is emphasized to the same level. For more information on techniques you can use to emphasize beats, see my mini series on beats.
Emphasized beats delve more into the emotion of the moment, and thus tend to decrease the pacing. They slow the narrative enough to help your reader fully process the moment. When used in conjunction with heavy plot scenes, they help to create a more full story.
One example of this (also from the 2019 version of Aladdin) is the moment during the song One Jump Ahead, where Jasmine hesitates to jump to the other rooftop. The narrative narrows to show Aladdin urging Jasmine to overcome her fear and jump. This makes the moment so much more real, shows Jasmine’s fear, and provides a break from the unrelenting action of the chase scene.
Not all beats should be emphasized. In scenes which already have slow pacing, emphasized beets can slow the story down too much. It’s a balancing act, for sure!
Tool 3: Skillful Sentence Construction
Sentence length and construction is a wonderful tool to control pacing. Longer, more complicated sentence structures require more effort and attention from the reader. This slows the pacing down. On the other hand, short, simple sentences are fast to read and easy to absorb.
Here’s an example.
Alice turned down the street, listening to whistles in the distance which bounced off the tall buildings to either side.
Suddenly, a man with long flowing robes appeared in front of her.
Alice stopped and looked up at his shadowed face. “Who are you?”
He pulled a musty-smelling scroll from the recesses of his robes and shook it out. Dust billowed off the top. He unrolled it and began to utter words.
Now, let’s try it with shorter, more concise sentences.
Alice turned down the street.
A man appeared in front of her. Long robes swirled around his ankles.
Alice stopped. She looked up at his shadowed face. “Who are you?”
He unrolled a musty scroll and began chanting.
See how the second example seems faster? Short, concise sentences do that. The extra information which was cut could be important, and could be added later. If this moment is supposed to happen quickly, though, then short sentences are fast.
Always remember, more words and more complicated sentence structures take longer to read.
I hope these three tools to help control pacing are helpful. Did I miss anything? Leave your favorite pacing-control technique in the comments below!
