Pacing & the Passage of Time

[E McD]

Is the phrase "pacing" referring solely to the amount of action/reveal happening per chapter? Or does it also deal with the passage of time (in the story not in the amount of pages between)?

I've just been thinking a lot lately about transitions between scenes, what's important to mention and what isn't. In a straight-forward linear story, let's say the whole book covers the span of a week in the life of the characters, not every single potty break has to be written in order for the reader to still feel close to the narrative. Some authors do this well, and some have clunkety "Meanwhile, back at the ranch" sequeways.

Maggie Stiefvater, the author of SHIVER, said she determines how pacing should be handled by carefully analyzing the transitions between scenes in movies she likes. She said she too struggled with feeling the need to painstakingly express every single insignificant detail in her early drafts. Yet J.K. Rowling takes it all the way to the color of the curtain ties, and I gobble it up thinking it submerges me deeper in her world. (Pacing and detailing are two very different beasts, I know. Am I talking myself in circles?)

Anyway, it's my struggle *this* week, so I thought maybe somebody could chat with me about it. Any epiphanies? Helpful hints? Clarifications? Help a sister out. -xo

[Down the well]

Pacing, to me, is really more about the tension in a novel. Is what is written on the page critical? Is it moving the story forward? Is it revealing plot or motive or character? Is it raising new questions or mysteries that the reader must know the answer to?

Pacing is about making the reader turn the page.

Extraneous details don't add to the pacing. Instead, they tend to veer the car off the road. It's lovely to describe the table linens, the place setting, and the curtains, but what does it have to do with anything? Unless, of course, someone is stabbed with a steak knife, and the murderer has to draw the curtains before they can wrap the body up in the table cloth to dispose of it.

Also, I don't think pacing has much to do with the passage of time. Stories can take place in a day or even decades. But it's the page to page tension, the dialogue, the necessary description that moves the pace forward at the proper clip. That's my take anyway. I'm curious what others think.

[polymath]

Narrative pace takes two time signatures, story time and discourse time. Discourse time further breaks down into equal to story time, accelerated time, and decelerated time. Story time is the passage of time a reader experiences reading a narrative.

Reading rate varies. The average is about two hundred fifty words a minute, or about one page of Standard Manuscript Format a minute. Discourse time varies as well, internally as well as externally. Readers' reading rate accelerates during high tension scenes and decelerates during tension relief. Accelerated discourse time might take up a day's passage across several pages. A scene that takes place over several seconds internally might take readers a minute or two to read.

A real world equivalent to decelerated time happens when an observer experiences an exciting or traumatic event, like during bungee jumping or an automobile wreck. Andrenaline charged events. Flight or fight instincts. Fear responses or other primal emotional reactions. A jilted lover, for example, time slows down during emotional pain episodes. Time also slows down during long periods of inactivity, like for summer vacations. Giving readers too much vacation time can be disastrous.

E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series is about the most breathless-to-a-fault writing I've read. Nine of his novels are accessible at Project Gutenberg for investigating rapid narrative pacing methods.

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/s#a9515

[cheekychook]

Things like pacing and passage of time vary tremendously from book to book, but there are some things that make a reader more "comfortable" than others.

While it's crucial to have tension/drama that peaks at numerous times within a story (en route to the "big" climax), and keeps the reader on edge and ready to turn the next page, it's also crucial to give them some down time to recover from these tense moments...they need to rest a little between the mini-climaxes. There are ways to plot (as in plot on a graph) the emotional weight of your scenes so you can see whether you're taking your reader on a rollercoaster (lots of ups and downs) or more of a log flume (long way up, then plunge---you're screaming and all wet). Generally, even if the ending comes with a plunge, the graph should appear more rollercoaster-ish---ups and down. Some teachers actually recommend going through your novel scene by scene (scene being every time the setting/location changes or another person enters the conversation) and giving an emotional weigh to each one (a scene where a character is staring out a window wondering what to have for lunch would be an emotional weight of zero...a scene where a character finds out about an unexpected pregnancy might be a 7...a scene where a spouse or child dies would be a 10)...plotting those numbers on a graph in the order they occur will give you a visual of the emotional pacing of your story.

Time passage is another thing altogether. Even if you have a book that takes place in the course of one day you still don't have to tell every nuance of every last thing that happens---only the ones that are pertinent. Likewise if you're telling a story that spans weeks, months, years, decades---you don't have to address every single time period with equal amount of story---you can fast forward time and jump ahead, the most important thing is to make sure the reader feels comfortable with where they land in the future. For example. You can have a dating couple go away together for a weekend, show the majority of time they spend together that weekend, details of what they're thinking, where they stay, what they ate, their mood, etc...the weekend can end with them getting engaged...you can start the next chapter with their wedding. You don't have to show the weeks/months of planning for the wedding if you basically need them to just be married already for the rest of the story---you DO need to make sure the reader feels they have ENOUGH information that they're comfortable. They would already know the couple was going to get married because they witnessed the engagement. Now they know the wedding day has arrived. A few well-placed sentences about "the months of planning to find the right dress and the countless arguments among the bridal party members finally seemed worth the effort" or whatever else you think your audience would want to hear about ---again, stuff that makes your reader comfortable with the amount of time that passes and confident that they know all they need to know about what's going on with your characters.

The addition of setting is important to all scenes---readers always need a frame of reference for where the character is---it helps in understanding the scene and in creating a mental image. Setting can vary from "he sat down at Mary's kitchen table" to "The room was huge, filled with ornate...blahblahblab"---it's up to you to decide how much detail is needed to create the mood you're hoping to create. Like pacing, and emotional weight, description of setting can vary---you can use simple descriptions for a lot of scenes then launch into a particularly detailed one for a scene that merits it. In a high tension scene, for example, a character can become hyper-aware of every nuance of his surrounding----if that's the case, that's a good place to tell the reader every last thing to bring them into the characters experience.

Generally speaking it's good to mix up all these things a bit, to keep propelling the reader forward through the story. Too much tedium gets, well, tedious.

[J. T. SHEA]

Interesting topic, E McD, and interesting comments by Down the well and by Polymath regarding 'accelerated time'.

My WIP is literally action-packed, with so much happening so fast at times I found events taking longer to describe, even outline, than they would take to happen. I decided to have my protagonist openly acknowledge that fact in his account. The effect is not unlike movie or TV slow-motion, or the apparent slowing of time noted by witnesses of dramatic or traumatic real life events, and outlined by Polymath, and by Cheekychook as hyper-awareness.

Cheekychook, I broadly agree regarding downtime, but the Australian techno-thriller author Matthew Reilly does not. His openly seeks to omit all downtime from his novels. The effect is interesting.

[cheekychook]

Cheekychook, I broadly agree regarding downtime, but the Australian techno-thriller author Matthew Reilly does not. His openly seeks to omit all downtime from his novels. The effect is interesting.

I could see where "techno-thriller" could be a genre where one could get away with omitting downtime---but for most genres if you keep the reader on the literal edge of their seat for the entire book you'll either wear them out before they finish or give them a heart attack---which is not good for repeat business. ;)

Seriously, the amount of tension vs. down time will vary greatly from book to book and certainly from genre to genre, but GENERALLY speaking it's wise to give the reader a breather now and then---we need time to recover (or get a cookie).

[Down the well]

My WIP is literally action-packed, with so much happening so fast at times I found events taking longer to describe, even outline, than they would take to happen. I decided to have my protagonist openly acknowledge that fact in his account. The effect is not unlike movie or TV slow-motion, or the apparent slowing of time noted by witnesses of dramatic or traumatic real life events, and outlined by Polymath, and by Cheekychook as hyper-awareness.

I once witnessed a roll-over car accident involving a black pick-up truck. He got broadsided at an intersection. I can still see the whole thing in my mind as if it happened in slow-motion. It was like watching a stuffed garbage bag lumber down the street on a windy day. It is weird how these events can get slowed down by the mind into almost still-frame movements.

[Nathan Bransford]

Here's my take from way back when: http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2007/03 ... -pace.html

[wilderness]

I could see where "techno-thriller" could be a genre where one could get away with omitting downtime---but for most genres if you keep the reader on the literal edge of their seat for the entire book you'll either wear them out before they finish or give them a heart attack---which is not good for repeat business. ;)

Seriously, the amount of tension vs. down time will vary greatly from book to book and certainly from genre to genre, but GENERALLY speaking it's wise to give the reader a breather now and then---we need time to recover (or get a cookie).

I agree, especially the part about the repeat business. Another important reason for downtime is that this is where your readers get to know your characters. The reader needs to time to form an emotional bond with the characters. A very plot-driven action thriller may ignore downtime, but if you want fully developed characters that your readers just fall in love with, you just have to slow down the pace so we can learn all of the character's kooky, lovable traits by seeing what they're doing when they're not getting chased by the baddies.

If the book is all non-stop action, a reader might finish the book in a day or two, but be left emotionally unsatisfied afterward. The high tension kept them reading, but they never really learned to care for the character and they're not sure if they will bother with the next in the series.

[E McD]

Here's my take from way back when: http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2007/03 ... -pace.html

Thank you for this!