5 Practical Tips For Pacing Your Story

If there’s one thing that writers don’t think about much is pacing their story. Pacing strategically controls the speed at which information and events flow in a story. 

What many storytellers struggle to understand is that poor pacing can cause your story to come off as drawn out or hurried. Readers typically get bored or feel lost when they sense the pacing is off.

Something that will help you with pacing is the plot of your story. So, before diving into writing, outline the plot. Determine the beginning, middle, and end, as well as key plot and subplot points and character arcs. Don’t forget to refer to your outline as you’re writing your story.

As a way to maintain pacing throughout your story, consider taking these 5 approaches:

1. Layer your story by adding multi-dimensional characters with a range of emotions, thoughts, behaviors, struggles, and complexities. In other words, readers should be able to connect or relate to the characters in your story. You may also want to consider creating events that help your characters grow and change throughout the story.

2. Steadily increase the emotional and psychological tension between characters to move the story forward and keep the readers’ attention. One way of building tension raising the stakes so that certain characters would gain or lose something important to them. This will also keep readers invested in the outcome.

3. Create interesting dialogue that brings your characters to life. This can include making each character's voice unique. For example, give characters distinct speech patterns, vocabularies, and mannerisms. Consider their background, education, and personality when crafting their dialogue. You can also use dialogue to reveal your characters' motivations, fears, and desires through what they say (and don't say) Let dialogue highlight your characters’ growth and changes over time. Make every line of dialogue move the story forward or reveal something important.

4. Make sure to include interesting or exciting moments in the middle part of the story. You can do this by allowing the characters to start disagreeing, competing, or misunderstanding each other. This will also help to build tension. If the midpoint of your story is simply a continuation of the beginning chapter with no new characters, conflict, or events introduced, readers may lose interest and put the book down. It’s hard to win back disinterested readers.

5. The story should continue building up so that it leads to a satisfying conclusion. Take the time to research the best practices for ending a story. To quote well-known crime novelist, Mickey Spillane, "The first page sells this book. The last page sells your next book."

Think of pacing in your story as a rollercoaster ride. Just like a rollercoaster doesn't immediately start with a big drop and then coast, it gradually builds up to the climax before delivering the thrilling moment.

If you reveal all the exciting parts too early, the rest of the story will be dull. On the other hand, if you save all the excitement for the end, readers will lose interest early on in the story.

Once you learn how to pace your story, basically by escalating suspense, your readers will remain engaged because you will have roped them into the story.

By maintaining intrigue in your story from start to finish, your readers may become loyal followers and look forward to your next best seller.