pacing the thing that makes some stories while breaking others pacing can appear to be this elusive writing term thrown around by all sorts of editors Educators and writing advice givers pacing can often feel like a magical esoteric term that only really works off of feels and vibes but I hope to kind of dispel that idea or at least give a little bit better understanding of what pacing is and how to write it better pacing is something that every writer probably at some point or another has been told that their pacing feels off or maybe they've been told that their pacing is doing a good job but isn't really given further explanation beyond that as an editor and a writing coach I know I've seen and I've even told clients of mine that they have a pacing issue or that there is something wrong with their pacing and as a writer who has worked with editors and Educators I've also been told that there has been a problem or an issue with my pacing but let's look at a few points that I prepared as to how we can better Master the pacing of our story and understand pacing a little bit better welcome back to the wrestling with words podcast my name is Cameron I'm a writer an editor and your host here we talk about all things related to writing and storytelling and the goal is to help you tell better stories while also understanding how the best stories are told pacing is often talked about in two camps one being the overall pace of your story from the beginning of your story to the end or the progression of the plot but also being on a scene or even a chapter level I hope to kind of first start by talking about these two different camps but a good way to sort of visualize it is looking at a wavelength or some kind of sound wave the overall progression of this wavelength is sort of like a visual representation of the tension of our story we have a point at which we are starting our story and then we have a point at which we are ending our story as we move through our story we have these peaks in valleys representing high tension and low tension we can also look at the overall progression of this as the movement of tension Climax and resolution and we can start to consider how we want our story to to feel but more importantly we can look at how we want our pacing to feel this isn't necessarily looking at how our plot is being structured and it isn't necessarily looking at how our story itself is structured this is more of a heartbeat for the tension and the resolution the overall pacing and the field that our story is giving off chapters and and scenes of course will fall on the progression of our wavelength here and they also don't have to fall neatly within the highs and the lows in our tension keep sort of this figure in mind for the rest of the video as this is really the basis of how I think of pacing or at least how it starts to manifest itself in general we can look at having a story start at a place of high tension and by the end of chapter 1 we've entered into a state of familiarity or maybe there's some resolution but at the start of chapter 2 we are starting to build that tension back up and just before we are given a sense of resolution or at a new point of climate climax we then end that chapter leading into chapter 3 this e and flow is really what pacing is it isn't necessarily the speed at which your story progresses being faster or slower but more of the Rhythm that a series of events are unfolded making your story and the overall wavelength of a story doesn't have to necessarily look like this one it can be a slower bird instead looking something more like this something more gradual with fewer climactic moments and fewer points of resolution something like the leftovers for instance where we have these gradual declines and these gradual buildups and keep in mind too that these don't have to be even the space between our Decline and our incline of tension does not have to be equal or perhaps we have a pacing that looks a little more like this a whiplash of action and fast moving plot points like in uncut Gems or a Tom Clancy novel where we have many points of resolution and climax resolution and climax happening throughout the story and pacing is a lot about the control that we have over the tension within and between scenes and chapters it's more about the Rhythm and the subsequent events of a story as opposed to really the speed or the length at which a story is told this can sometimes play a factor but pacing will mostly depend on the delivery and the sequence the overall progression from the first point to the final Point wherever that wave ends is going to be the progression of your story but specifically looking at these waves the low points here are usually points of resolution or some kind of reflection even and the high points as we said are points of climax or a climactic moment the slope coming up the valley is typically points of Discovery and the points of building tension this is is where anticipation and tension will begin to take shape and be developed then on the other side you will have the realization phase and we will pick up steam as we release that tension and anticipation coming to a point of resolution or reflection once again it is usually in the downward slope where the pace starts to pick up speed and get a little bit faster sometimes being in an action sequence and other times being these plot progression if you're getting value out of today's video please consider liking and even subscribing or if you can even becoming a channel member it's a good way to help support the channel and let me know what topics are resonating with you or what topics I might do in the future but that sort of Segways into the second point and that's to really understand the dials that you have to increase the pace in general A good rule of thumb to sort of think about especially when we are in the process of actually writing a scene is that more detail will begin to slow the pace down while less detail tends to Quicken the pace similar to the wave that we might think of if this is our Hill or the general slopes of our story if we are to drive a car let's say up the hill we will typically go slower up these Hills therefore if you are outdoors and you're driving your car or maybe you're on a train and you are moving while you are going slower you can see more clearly you can pick out the Finer Things that you are going by however on the descenting side or as we descend into a valley we tend to see more of a blur of color we don't really see the details that are pass passing Us by this faster Pace will tend to have less descriptions and details Exposition and the delivery of Your Action will determine the pace on a seam level these dials or at least this second part is more so about addressing that scene or that chapter these finer tuning dials really won't necessarily have an impact on your overall story's pacing but will more so have an impact on a scene to scene level in our next point will more so deal with either the peaks in The Valleys but will more explicitly impact your overall pacing of your story and that is the selectiveness when it comes to delivering information and setting up hooks hooks and controlling the flow of information will help you take control of the speed of your plot and the amount of tension you want to have typically when it comes to the information we're delivering or the information that we are relaying to our audience the amount of information will tend to release any suspense or tension while withholding information or withholding some bit about the plot or the narrative will increase the tension and suspense this is important because you don't want your story to be seen as predictable and by predictable this means in general en the things that are happening but you also don't want the pace to feel predictable you don't want your reader to necessarily always be on steady ground and being able to anticipate when tension will be released or built this can also give you a chance to set up Cliffhangers and I don't mean the cheap Cliffhangers that leave us with more questions and no answers these are mostly just hooks to keep the audience engaged and wondering what is going to happen next we also can use this to build a climax this adds tension and suspense and gives the reader a feeling that the plot or the narrative or the scene is going somewhere tension can be stretched or it can be compressed but it should be building to some kind of release typically if you want to visualize that tension and release the valleys are really where we are going to be getting that release there's typically going to be a low portion of tension while the slope building up to that Climax and then the outfall of that climax is the tension either being built or released and adding to that there is then the mechanisms we can use and those being the introspection and respon resp of the characters on the page when we are thinking about pacing we don't want to neglect the character development we don't want to just think of the plot and forget about the characters in the story we need these points of reflection to build and create emotional buyin with the characters introspection usually slows things down on a pacing sense but introspection can also add a massive layer of tension a book that really turns the introspection that slows the plot down on its head is alone with you in The Ether this book almost the entire letter half is all introspection and it feels like a blurry dream that we're being ripped through each page and each line filled with emotion and tension but again these releases and the introspective elements of your story will help us connect and segue from the hooks and the selective nature we've had with the information we're delivering to deeper levels of understanding and meaning your character development and the progression of the plot don't have to mirror each other these can be happening sort of on different wavelengths but they should be somewhat influencing each other as we progress through the plot and undiscover more things about the story The Character should be internalizing and interpreting those things as well having a story that is moving too quickly and having some very big plot moments happen but with no reflection on the character's behalf will the immersion and buyin between your audience and the characters either on the page or on the screen remember to add introspection during those big plot moments and important bits of revealed information we want to kind of understand and know what the emotional temperature is based on the things that have just happened and this next point will be a little bit more specific to the story that you're telling maybe the genre that you're in or even the age group but we want to find mechanisms within our story that we can use to either speed up or slow down our pacing we won't linger too long on this point in particular because there are a number of plot convenient devices or even story elements that that we can use to create a artificial acceleration or maybe an artificial deceleration of your narrative but some ideas and just to sort of illustrate this point might be to add some kind of timeline that your characters are operating on this can be something like a ticking Time Bomb where they are racing against the clock or if we need to maybe slow the pacing down maybe nothing can happen until a certain point in time therefore our characters have to stop and think or stop and Converse but the other thing that might be specific to your style and your Pros will be the varying length of sentences paragraphs and chapters now this alone isn't going to make your story faster or slower but it is a way to sort of change how the reader is interacting and consuming the portion of the story that they are currently in but the application of this and some of the points mentioned earlier are how we can start to change how the story is being perceived and finally trying to get the pacing right on the first pass of your manuscript or your story is often the wrong way to go about impacting your pacing a lot of times I think that the pacing really comes out while we are doing revisions revisions are sort of the polishing mechanism and it is often times easier to polish the pacing of our story by first taking a step back and reading it often this is always hard to just sit and read our story if we haven't written the whole thing yet but also understanding pacing and understanding how pacing works and what is good pacing what is bad pacing comes with a lot of reading we should try to read many different types of stories and explore different genres or even different types of age groups and styles this will sort of give us a feel of what sort of pacing resonates with our own writing style we also can maybe beta read for other writers so we can recognize when someone's pacing is off or on but when it comes to pacing let me know in the comments down below if this is something that you've struggled with or if this is something that maybe comes more naturally to you I'm always curious to hear how you all are doing in the different projects you're working on a special thank you to the channel members and their support but let me know what you're wrestling with as always thanks for watching thanks for listening and I'll see you next time [Music]