Pacing–walk this way

It looks like my first round of edits will arrive just when I start to teach classes. Isn’t that the way things work? Nothing happening. Then everything all at once! In life we can’t control the pace at which the plot advances; in writing we can.

Pacing is how fast the story carries you along, and there is no one right pace for every story. Fast- paced stories are not always better. Different stories need different pacing. A slower pace can let the reader become immersed in another time, another place. Stephen King in his book On Writing says that he likes “a slower pace and a bigger, higher build.”

The trick is finding the pace that holds your reader captivated. It means combining action and dialogue with description and reflection, which tend to slow the narrative down. Readers need a balance in a story just as they do in their lives.

Different audiences need different rhythms too. In middle-grade and YA novels pacing and voice are two of the most important considerations. Books can be long, think H.P. and George RR Martin, but they have to be paced so that there is always something going on. Longer books just mean that we get to spend more time with the characters immersed in their worlds. Let’s see if I can pull it off when the Wolfproof Trilogy become two books rather than three.