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PACE-KILLERS AND PACE-MAKERS…WHAT GIVES A BOOK AN AMAZING PACE?
From www.plotmonkeys.com

Thank you so much, Plotmonkeys, for inviting me to join in on the Saturday fun. I love the craft discussions – they are my favorite. When Julie asked me to guest blog on a topic, I decided to offer up my thoughts on pacing for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I did a workshop on it in Atlanta in 2006 and I was devastated that the taping of the workshop had a technical glitch and about 2/3 of my talk is…gone. It isn’t evident from listening to the tape, so I sort of sound like, well…like my pacing’s off.

But that’s not the only reason I decided to share my thoughts on pacing. I think the pace of a book is right up there with character and conflict as one of the most important elements of storytelling to me. When a review or reader letter that comments on the “can’t put down” pace of my books, it thrills me. So, I’ve plucked out my notes from the pacing workshop-that-wasn’t, and decided to take this opportunity to share some of the guidelines that help me write (I hope) page-turners.

Remember that pacing is subjective. One writer’s “leisurely, descriptive, flowing prose” is a wall-banger to some and pure poetry to others. One author’s breakneck speed leaves some readers breathless, and others just plain tired. The speed your story progresses from beginning to end – the speed of each scene, of each chapter, of the entire book – can really make or break your story. Not only that, butpacing is actual invisible and ethereal, sort of like beauty. You just know it’s there, but it’s very hard to say why.

And all that makes it very difficult to “teach” pacing. While there is no formula to ensure your pace is perfect, I can tell you what I believe are the elements that ruin pace, and offer some tips to turn these pace-killers into pacemakers.

The Number One Killer of Pace - BACKSTORY. Backstory can slow a book and a backstory dump can lose a reader in the first chapter. You know this dump. You’ve read this dump. Here it is: when the heroine spends the first four pages of chapter one thinking about how sick she is of being a goody two shoes because her sister was always the wild one and now it’s her turn, damn it, to go out and get laid for the fun of it and that’s why she’s in this bar, on this night, staring at that stranger in the cowboy hat. Sorry, you lost me goody two shoes. Just put her butt on the barstool next to the cowboy, and let’s find out he’s done her sister. Banter and conflict beat backstory any day.

My tip on backstory is simple: keep it to a minimum, wipe it out of your first chapter and remember the reader doesn’t have to know everything about a character, YOU do.

INTROSPECTION. This is backstory’s evil cousin. When used properly and in a deep POV, introspection can be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. However, it can be overused, misused, dropped in the wrong place, or even become the crutch that helps hobble the opening of every single scene into action.

This is not to say you can’t have backstory and introspection. You must. But you need to drop that backstory in gracefully, through dialogue, action, and lots voice-filled clever thoughts interspersed in dialogue and action.

My tip on introspection: be sure your character’s internal voices match their dialogue voice, and don’t all sound the same. This will help keep introspection in character and interesting. Also, bonus tip: don’t drop into introspection in the middle of a high action scene. It’s not realistic and it really pulls the reader from the story if the heroine is musing over the breadth of the hero’s shoulders when they’re running from bad guys.

INFORMATION EXCHANGE. This can kill the pace of any book. Often these scenes are there as the solution to backstory dump, but they can be out and out boring. You know the scene - the shared meal, the car ride, the morning after scene where the hero and heroine reveal their defining moments and dark secrets.

Here’s my tip to fix keep those info exchange scenes lively and “readable”: don’t have one character tell something the reader already knows, unless the character there is going to be an emotional reaction that the reader doesn’t anticipate. And make something else happen in the scene besides information exchange – a little action goes a long way to smoothing out the bumps on the info exhange road.

IMBALANCED DIALOGUE AND NARRATIVE. Without a doubt, the more dialogue you have, the faster the book reads. But the actual speed of the dialogue is important, as well as how many tags you use, and how many lines start with dialogue or start with “thought.” Try reading a book you love for no other reason but to watch how dialogue is handled: a great writer will shake it up, keep it real and make it fast.

Snappy dialogue should be balanced by the length and flow of narrative paragraphs. Long, meandering paragraphs full of lovely prose are certainly acceptable in certain genres, but they will slow your pace. If you love them, keep them at a minimum. My tip (but not a rule!) is: try to limit your paragraphs to no more than about five or six sentences to keep things moving quickly and vary the length of every paragraph.

NUMBER OF SUBPLOTS AND NAMED CHARACTERS. Too many or too few subplots can have a powerfully negative impact on the story pace. Introduce too many storylines that are ancillary to the romance and main story arc, and you will drag that arc too low. Introduce too few and your reader will wish the story had “more going on.” As well, a character, as you’ve probably heard, should have a reason for being in the story. Make sure you know that reason.

My tip for subplots: interweave them so seamlessly into the main plot that the reader doesn’t even realize they are being introduced to a subplot. If the subplot is the main “plot point” of a scene, it should not be so separate from the main action that the reader feels she’s been dropped into another book, another love story. For characters: the use of non h/h point of view is very helpful in developing a subplot, as long as that person is intrinsically involved in the main story and not just a secondary thrown in for the sake of another POV or subplot.

PLACEMENT OF PLOT TWISTS and TURNING POINTS. These are, as Jenny Cruisie says, the poles that hold your story tent up and prevent a sagging middle. In romantic suspense, they can include finding the dead body, eliminating a major villain, ratcheting up the stakes, or increasing the threat to the main characters. In straight romance, they are just as important, but the “number of times they occur” may be different. How many and how often? That absolutely depends upon you as a storyteller.

I like to introduce a major plot tornado at the quarter points of a book – every 4 or 5 chapters in a 20 – 22 chapter book. In between, I throw in some storms, a mini plot twist or new clue in every other chapter. My secret pageturning tip: try to end every scene and every chapter with a hook that could be a plot twist.

THE SPEED OF CONFLICT & STORY RESOLUTION. You’re certain to have lots of conflict and story lines that need to be resolved in a good book - internal and external for both characters, family issues, history, villains and mysteries, other potential sources of problems for the characters. Be careful how and when those storylines and conflicts are “solved” for the reader. Too soon, and the end of the book is draggy and dull. Too late, and the reader doesn’t feel satisfied.

The tip: think very carefully about the order of conflict resolution. You don’t have to end with the romance. Sometimes closing with a little, sweet moment of the secondary romance, and showing how it relates to the main romance, can really tie a great bow on a story!

Bottom line, ladies (and gents) – everything impacts pacing. Think of it as a numbers game: too many chapters, too many scenes per chapter, too many pages per scene, too many unbroken paragraphs, too many sentences in a paragraph, even too many long words or similar sentences….all pacekillers and not pacemakers!

Hope that gets you thinking! I’ll be around for comments and questions all day!

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