I want to go back to my previous post How to Get Pace into Your Writing and look more closely at the complexities of pace for the writer. In How to Get Pace into Your Writing I looked at the importance that an understanding of pace, brings to your work. As writers we need to know how to write with pace, what drives it and therefore how writing with pace can work for you.
But once you have the tools (see Ten Tips for How to Get Pace into Your Writing) you need to think about how you will use them and also the subtleties of pacing your novel because not every narrative will be fast paced and action packed.
Stephen King in his great book, On Writing, defines pace as ‘the speed at which your narrative unfolds.’ He suggests that the belief that novels have to be fast-paced to be commercially successful is misplaced and he quotes successful novels which have bucked that trend
‘…like Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose or Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain,’ which, ‘ suddenly break out of the pack and climb the best-seller lists, publishers and editors are astonished. . . .Not that there’s anything wrong with rapidly paced novels. Some pretty good writers—Nelson DeMille, Wilbur Smith, and Sue Grafton, to name just three—have made millions writing them. But you can overdo the speed thing. Move too fast and you risk leaving the reader behind, either by confusion or by wearing him/her out.’
Writing with pace is not the only trick in the book.For Stephen King pacing your novel is a question of allowing each novel to unfold at its own pace. To do this you need to match the pace of your novel to the mood. So for instance with my current novel which might loosely be termed a ‘coming of age’ story the pace will not be anything like a fast-moving thriller or like my previous crime novel Blood Tide. I can afford a more languid pace. However I cannot afford to linger to the point of deadening the pace or turning the reader off so I’m attempting to use my tenth tip, which is: have a hook at the end of most chapters, stop just short of revealing something of interest so that the reader wants to turn to the next chapter to find out what it is.
I’m not suggesting doing this if it means risking the integrity of the writing and your novel, but it ‘s a very useful tool in your writing with pace armoury.
Pace should match mood…
it’s all about the music, the rhythm of the story and you as the master. You are the conductor, the bringer of light and shade, fast and slow and one of the best ways of learning more about this orchestration, this writing with pace is to see how the masters do it. Read as a writer, look at great novels, or novels you’ve enjoyed, especially contemporary novels, and ask how is it paced? If you notice a change in pace ask how the writer has achieved this, what have they done? There is no better place to learn about pacing your novel than from the successful novelist.
Three further tips – for writing with pace:
Consider the white space on the page – it makes for a faster read. Very dense prose can be off putting for the reader, shorter paragraphs work well.
Write in an active not passive voice – ‘Sue changed the flat tyre,’ as opposed to ‘the flat tyre was changed by Sue.’
Don’t be afraid to use fragments, one word sentences, one line paragraphs, they can all help in the pacing of your novel.
