Guest Fonda Lee, an author specializing in pacing in storytelling, joins the hosts to discuss the importance of pacing in writing. They explore the subjective nature of pacing, controlling pacing and balancing tension, creating tension and variation in pacing, and how pacing impacts the reader's experience.
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Pacing Is Subjective Rhythm
Pacing is subjective and depends on genre, tone, and reader expectations. - It is best understood as the story's rhythm and tension perception, like a soundtrack.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
How To Speed Up Pacing
To speed up scenes, cut description and exposition and make dialogue punchy and economical. - Use scenes that accomplish multiple purposes and increase white space to help readers move faster.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Slowing Down To Build Tension
Slow scenes by giving characters quiet moments to process events and adding interiority. - This ebb and flow of tension gives readers breathing room and keeps pacing dynamic.
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Pacing is one of the most subjective and difficult aspects of storytelling to get right. What is pacing? How do you know what the right pace is for a story, and what techniques can you use to speed up or slow down your narrative?
Homework Assignment from Fonda Lee:
Take a page of a work-in-progress project and experiment with the pacing. Ideally, this should be a page with some dialogue or tension between characters. First, try to speed it up: cut description, be tight with dialogue, move the scene quickly. Then do the opposite: rewrite the scene but this time slow it down. Include more context, character interiority, exposition, and scene building. Compare the two versions. Which serves your story better?
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
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