Pacing — What It Is and How to Manage It

“Pace yourself.”

In my running days in the Marine Corps, I heard this imperative regularly. Perhaps you’ve heard it too. It means managing how quickly or slowly you run your distance. If you plan to run a mile, you don’t run the whole distance at a sprint like you would the 100-yard dash.

You can apply this same principle in establishing the pacing of your story and each scene. Not every scene is a dash; not every scene is a slow walk. Over the full length of the story, the pace will vary. But your story must have a continuous forward progression.

“Nearly all narratives…require forward motion and change over time, whether that change occurs in the narrator/characters or in the reader’s perception of the narrator or characters.” ~ Laurie Alberts, Showing & Telling

We want to know the story is moving forward to an end result.

What Is Pacing?

We’ve all experienced a book or movie that moves so fast through every scene you’re breathless when you get to the end. Or one that bogs down, leaving you feeling like you’re trudging through 3 feet of mud. The culprit is pacing.

Laurie Alberts, in her book Showing & Telling, defines it as “the balance between fast and slow elements of your story.”

James V. Smith Jr., in his book The Writer’s Little Helper explains that a story with a fast pace is one with “the ability to make your writing feel like a quick read.”

Readers state it this way in their reviews: couldn’t put it down, a real page turner, kept me up all night reading.

Many elements go into creating that “kept me up all night” story. Pacing is one of them.

The Element of Time

A critical element to remember with pacing is the passage of time occurring in your scene. That scene can be ticking by in agonizing seconds, yet be fast- or slow-paced.

Let’s look at some examples:

From my book Claiming Her Inheritance, chapter 14.

My left hand clutched the reins, and both hands gripped the saddle horn in my effort to stay on the horse. My knuckles turned white. I’d never ridden so fast. The cattle bawled. Their hooves pounded, creating a thunderous roar and a cloud of dust that obstructed my view. I feared my horse or Michael’s would hit a hole and both horse and rider would crash to the ground. The fear nearly rivaled facing a terrorist’s rifle.…I searched the cloud of dust for Michael. I could hear his voice but failed to see him. A froth of sweat appeared on Sandy’s neck.

This is a scene moving in seconds, which could feel too slow, yet the scene clips along. Note the use of action verbs—clutched, gripped, bawled, pounded, obstructed—and description, knuckles turned white, thunderous roar, terrorist’s rifle, froth of sweat. Also note the use of shorter sentences. All these things control the pacing.

You could write a scene that passes by in seconds and drag unbearably. This could happen if you were giving too many details to your scene that weren’t important to the scene.

Another Example

From my book Discovering Her Inheritance (still in the draft stages).

But the farther north we drove, the heavier the snowfall grew. By the time we reached the Oglala Grassland, the snow had escalated to blizzard conditions. Fierce wind gusts pounded the car and blew the snow horizontally. Only the tall golden grass along the roadside gave clues to the edge of the road. The blizzard conditions forced my speed down to 35 mph and less. My hands ached from gripping the steering wheel against the buffeting of the wind. The wipers, running on high, failed to clear the snow from the windshield. Despite the heater blowing, also on high, I shivered from my toes up to my waist—nerves, most likely. But then again, all the heat was aimed at the windshield to melt the onslaught of snow. Still the snow accumulated under the wipers.

We know several minutes are passing with nearly every sentence in this paragraph, which gives the reader a sense of a fast pace. Again note the use of powerful action verbs and description: escalated to blizzard conditions, fierce wind gusts pounded, forced, hands ached, buffeting, shivered, onslaught. The sentences are longer and keep the pace in tune with the passage of time and tension I’m working to build.

With these examples under our belt, let’s move on.

How to Manage Pacing

As we saw in our examples above, one element of pace is the length of your…

• Words
• Sentences
• Paragraphs
• Scenes
• Chapters

You can pick up the pace of your scene by cutting

• Long words to shorter words
• Long sentences down to the right size
• Passive voice to 0 percent.

Use short words, active voice, and short paragraphs. In The Writer’s Little Helper, Smith says “You get the fastest pace in a high-energy scene when the scene averages ten words per sentence.”

If your scene is moving too fast, slow it down with

• Scene or character description (or both),
• Internal thoughts
• Action beats with your dialog instead of simple dialog tags
• Longer sentences, words, paragraphs

Pacing is a difficult balance. Do the scenes that are supposed to move fast actually move fast and vice versa?

Consider creating a graph to chart the pace of each scene on the scale of 1 to 10. Then connect the dots. Does the finished chart look like a heartbeat on the monitor or is it flat-lining?

As you read your story, are there places that drag? that move too quickly? Mark them so you can go back and examine what they need.

You can have wonderful characters and an amazing plot, but if your pacing is out of whack, it will negatively affect the story. Take the time to examine this important element of your fiction writing and make it what it needs to be.

Have a question? Leave it in the comments below.