The Art of Pacing
How to get readers to stay up for one more chapter, regardless of genre (plus an exercise in pacing)
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In fiction, pacing refers to the speed and tempo of the narrative. Pacing depends upon a number of factors, including scene length; the balance of action, description, and interiority; the relative quickness or leisureliness of the dialogue; and syntax. Within most novels, the pacing varies, with fast-paced scenes of action balanced with more relaxed scenes of intimacy or contemplation, or scenes heavy on description.
Of course, fast-paced scenes can also have description, but the description will be pared down, sprinkled in rather than appearing in chunks of text. If you want to keep a quick pace but keep the reader grounded in the scene, you can use short sentences of description, or sentence fragments, to keep the eye and the brain moving along.
Here’s a leisurely sentence by Laurie Stone in Streaming Now:
It’s evening, and trees are stretching to the sky. I remember a Shiba Inu who was standing by the entrance to my building.
And here’s the same type of image, conveyed more briskly (with apologies to Stone for my far-less-captivating-than-the-original version):
Night. Tall trees. A small dog barks.
One passage invites you to stay within the moment, to contemplate it along with the speaker. The other urges you along, propelling you swiftly toward the next moment in the story, whatever that may be.