Hi Bryn! I’ve been following your blog a while and really appreciate all the resources you provide. I’m a newbie writer trying to chug along on my very first first draft! I was wondering if you had any advice on how to perfect pacing. It seems like I’m so anxious to get my ideas down (because it’s hard to) that it all feels very rushed when I work in my large draft. I can write drabbles with appropriate pacing, so I’m not sure why it’s happening on my draft. Thank you so much! Have a great day!
How does pacing work?
A quick apology here, because I fully meant to do a long post with in depth explanations, so I put it off a bit because I didn’t have enough time to sit down and write something like that. But now that I’ve finally gotten to it, I’ve realized that my take on pacing is very vague and relies on a lot of simplistic concepts. Realizing that you can looking at pacing from this vantage might be helpful in and of itself though!
From a fundamental perspective, here are the golden rules of pacing:
1. Alternate between high tension and low tension. 2. Always steadily but gradually increase the tension.
You do this on every level of storytelling.
Paragraphs introduce a concept (lowest tension), develop that concept (mid levels of tension), and reach a conclusion (highest tension).
Chapters and scenes alternate between description (lowest tension), dialogue (higher tension), emotion (lower* tension), and action (highest tension), generally in that basic order.
Stories start with a point of low tension and move through arcs in which the tension gradually increases until the climax.
*Emotions created by tense situation can be very tense, but when you take a full paragraph to describe them, it slows down the story a bit.
If we break this down to its core components you get a neat little guide that your scenes, chapters, arcs, and full story should all follow to some degree:
The initiating moment: The moment when the goal is made clear. This generally happens very early on, and in some cases is just a reiteration of the goal decided upon in a previous scene/chapter/arc.
The rising tension: As the characters pursue their goal, things grow steadily harder and the consequences for failure become more extreme.
The climax: The period of highest tension, with greatest consequences vs greatest success, where the protagonist’s choices have a major impact on the outcome of the situation.
The falling tension: A short period of rest where the reader is allowed to bask in the accomplishments of the last climax (or mourn for the failures).
Not all scenes and chapters must fulfill this pattern, of course, but it’s a good outline to follow if you want your pacing to feel natural and the reader to remain engaged but not overwhelmed.
You can find more writing advice by Bryn here!
