On Writing: How to Master Pacing!

greetings fellow nerds it is i some call me tim so you can have fantastic descriptive pieces incredible dialogue amazing prose but unless you understand things like tension structure and pacing you're going to have a stilted novel and that's why today we're going to focus on that last one pacing it's super important and yes i'm going to be wearing a different shirt throughout the video don't think about it too much i filmed this the day after after i realized that don't have a really exciting beginning to the video and what better way to do that than with two swords because swords always make things more exciting okay maybe not onto the video pacing is the speed of experience of events for the reader in your story but fast pacing is not necessarily good pacing slow pacing is important good pacing is about knowing which parts of your story need to feel fast and which parts of your story need to feel slow and there are kind of two levels of pacing in a story there's the minutia of pacing a particular scene or chapter and there's the pacing of the overall narrative and a lot of pacing videos and articles and books focus on that first level of minutiae techniques and while it is important and we will discuss it we will also narrow in on that second half that i think is less understood but arguably more important so the minutia sentence structure literary devices and grammar can all be used on a paragraph to paragraph basis to accelerate or slow the pacing consider the section from robert ludlum's the born identity he was crunched by the wall jason stood up and fired at the sound of his gun the beam swung over to him he was the target two shots came from the darkness a bullet ricocheting off a metal strip in the window steel punctured his neck blood erupted racing footsteps the executioner was running towards the source of the light short punchy sentences move through events quickly giving the feeling of speed sentences are action reaction the instant switch between decision and consequence compressed time there is no time to ponder the sharp clear language isn't poetic it's gritty to create this very real fear this chapter also finishes on a cliffhanger all of these techniques together give the feeling of fast pacing to the scene so the reader feels they are moving through events quickly making them want to turn the page because any sentence could be the character's last these techniques are most easily exemplified in action scenes but they can be applied to any scene of tension in contrast consider the scene from patreon this is the rest of us just live here back when i first went to hospital on the night of the accident steve gave me this oil to put on my scar to keep it from stretching and getting bigger i often get caught in a loop with it rubbing it in wiping it off rubbing it in wiping it off and until i'm sure that i'm doing far more stretching damage to the scar than ever would have happened by just using my face these sentences are longer more complex lingering on actions and full of introspection like we're traveling at the same speed of the character is thinking there's repetition and poeticism taking page time to articulate the feeling beyond the action with greater space between action and reaction whether a fast or slow paced technique they're aimed at broadly mimicking the experience of the characters at hand fast pace gives the reader the feeling that there's no time to stop and think that we have to keep moving while a slow pace gives emotional beats more weight by allowing the reader to simmer in them simmering those emotions it's because of this that pacing is intricately tied to tension fast pacing tends to work better for scenes of high tension like fight scenes because the reader is dragged by the scruff action to reaction action to reaction unable to ponder because any action could be fatal in contrast authors like john green use a lot of slow pacing in moments of introspection to let the reader feel the emotional turmoil and emphasize the difficulty of character growth forcing the reader through such things too quickly would make the decision or trauma feel inconsequential or easily resolved that it happened and then they just moved on how you spend your page time says this is important or this is interesting but this understanding of pacing techniques does lead to a misconception that moments of high tension require those techniques typically aimed at a fast pace which is simply not true you can use those slower paced techniques james bell in elements of fiction writing calls this stretching the tension lee child squeezes an amazing amount of tension out of a few seconds because he's not at all afraid to make us wait and that's the key to tension it is waiting the longer the better this passage here in lee child's worth dying for features jack reacher calculating and throwing a single punch and while he does use a number of techniques to accelerate the pace like sharp non-poetic language child also allows for detailing reaches thought processes and longer sentences indicative of a slower pace in summary this relationship between tension and pacing well they're more guidelines than actual rules and bell sentiment to stretch the tension is true to an extent it's why waiting to reveal who the serial killer is and a thriller is so satisfying the weight gives it payoff but using the stretching technique too often can weaken its effect you shouldn't use it in every fight scene every moment of tension because if you did it would result in often a slow plodding pace scene of what is meant to be high tension when it should feel fast hence why doing what bell describes at a few very important moments of high tension in the story works consider maybe once per act stretching these few seconds or a very short moment of tension in the world into a long passage of text but at the same time bell's advice is holy sound for stretching emotional tension in stephen shop's geese the perks of being a wallflower we spend a lot of page time inside charlie's head delving into the mind of a mentally unwell teen struggling with his friend group breaking apart the author doesn't just say charlie had a breakdown and move on he stretches the emotional tension for pages by showing us charlie repeatedly saying that he is totally fine before we read his thoughts spiraling more and more until suddenly we end up at i'm so sorry that i wasted your time because you really do mean a lot to me and i hope you have a very nice life because i really think you deserve it i really do i hope you do too okay then goodbye chapter close emotional beats can't be action reaction because you lose the emotion at that speed but this is pacing on a scene by scene level when it's also important to consider the pacing of the core narrative those techniques deal with the visceral feeling of a scene but you can have fast and slow paced scenes and still not have a well-paced story you've probably heard the advice keep the story moving stephen king probably and that's what pacing is about and one way that your narrative comes to a grinding halt is with what we'll call the sidequest problem if you've ever played a video game you'll be familiar with the kind of stories the quests where your hero has a goal to do zed maybe let's say slay a dragon but to do that he needs the sword of reckoning goal y but to get that he has to find the temple of sky gold x but to do that he needs to convince a witch to tell him where it is gold w this kind of storytelling manufactures obstacles between the player and the end goal that feel pretty arbitrary aimed at lengthening the game without too much complexity and even if you're doing things you don't feel like you're necessarily moving the story forward because these obstacles are largely arbitrary they don't really mean anything especially if the player isn't uncovering a mystery in the meantime or the challenges don't force the player character to evolve as a person the result is bad pacing it feels unnecessarily slow and dragging regardless of how tough it is to get the sword of reckoning or kill the guardian to the temple of sky because you don't really feel like the narrative is moving forward director and writer ryan coo highlighted one of reasons for pixar's storytelling success simplify focus combine characters and hop over detours these manufactured obstacles side quests are practically detours from the core narrative you could take out this obstacle and you wouldn't lose anything of value because there isn't really a narrative reason for these obstacles to exist this is the side quest problem and it happens in books as well when considering the pace of your core narrative figure out which obstacles make your ending more meaningful and which ones could be removed does the obstacle a fundamentally alter the ending b fundamentally develop your main character's character arc or c reveal something new and a mystery to the reader if not then consider cutting it because it's probably just a side quest that halts the pacing of your core narrative or if it's a grey area consider combining that obstacle with one which certainly isn't a side quest restricting your obstacles in this way means that the narrative is continually moving forward it's got pace whether written to be fast or slow side quests don't really give any pace to the core narrative because it's functionally brought to a standstill flashbacks often feel out of place for similar reasons they don't make the ending more meaningful they don't necessarily reveal anything and they don't necessarily help develop the main character meaning that there's the stilted halt in the pace all of a sudden no matter how it's written the 2013 game beyond two souls by david cage is a narrative-driven game about jodie who has psychic powers finding herself and avoiding those who would abuse her abilities chapter 14 is called navajo detailing her ventures to join a small native american family living in the isolated midwest because every main character needs a spiritual side quest featuring indigenous populations it is an incredibly long and slowly paced chapter to the point of being one of the most unenjoyable parts of the game by its end now the main character jody does evolve significantly by the end of it but we don't uncover any new information in the mystery nor do its events alter the ending for how much game time that the story and the player have to spend there there is very little payoff in terms of moving the core narrative forward at its heart it was badly paced for its place in the narrative you've got to think about how much page time you're spending and how much payoff you're getting in terms of moving the core narrative forward what i'm getting at here is that good pacing for your core narrative is about whether the reader feels they're getting closer to the big thing in a mystery like thomas harris's red dragon it's whether they feel they're getting closer to figuring out who's been murdering all the people in jasmine warger's young adult my heart and other black holes it's whether as well as getting closer to resolving her mental health suicidality issues so when editors tell us that we need a fast-paced beginning because we all have the attention spans of four-year-olds these days they're not talking about opening with a fight scene or an intense argument or even using those fast-paced techniques that we discussed they're talking about how quickly the author puts the reader on the track towards the big thing this is done with the hook a question the first twist the first reveal in the inciting incident and then after that how quickly does the reader feel that they take the next step towards the big thing slower pacing of a narrative usually throughout the second act slows down page time between these steps towards the big thing because they're already immersed in the story but within all of this we have to talk about side quests versus subplots when it comes to pacing a subplot by interacting with the main storyline adds complications at least it should by way of emotion or physical means with the subplot charging right into the main plot and wrecking all sorts of havoc a very simple and well-known example of a subplot is in shakespeare's romeo and juliet the main plot is the romance between 18 year old romeo and 13 year old 13. romeo the rivalry between the capulets and montagues is a subplot because it invades the main plot by complicating their relationship it plays an intricate role in their character arcs and fundamentally alters the ending by culminating in their deaths though not before a very long monologue because who can die in a shakespearean play without a six minute monologue first if it was a side quest though then romeo and juliet would just have to defuse tensions between their families halfway through the story in order to meet up one time only for the rivalry to never resurface never alter their character arcs and not change the ending with this understanding i want to talk about something that editor september c fawkes brought up that i hadn't considered can undermine pacing subtext i was once editing a manuscript that had all the right beats and emotional draws but it felt slow and boring i discovered was because it had next to no subtext and i wasn't intellectually invested in understanding and figuring out the text subtext enriches a story because whether subconsciously or consciously the reader is continually investigating the text for extra meaning it's an understanding the text hints at or gives implicitly it's reading between the lines without it the pace can slow down because there is less information being delivered in the same words and there is less intrigue for the reader to uncover and follow consider the following passage from ned vizzini's it's a funny kind of story you alright man this should be my name i could be like a superhero you alright man uh i stumble don't bug craig ronnie is like he's in the craig zone he's craiging out yeah i move the muscles that make me smile see how words work they betray your mouth and walk away are you okay he asks i'm fine i tell her the abstraction of craig's feelings from his action to smile tell us about his true emotions and something of his depression the fact that ness chooses to paste this passage as slowly with him saying he's fine and having difficulty getting words out tells us something about his character on the surface the events of the story say that craig is fine like he says but the way it's written tells us there is something seriously wrong and that he isn't okay if used intelligently subtext can help the writer feel like every scene is getting them closer to the big thing even if what's happening on the surface may not feel like it's directly contributing to the ending it's like they're following breadcrumbs through the scenes that they can only sometimes find but we gotta turn to world building we gotta talk about how fantasy and sci-fi have a particular hurdle to overcome a challenge to meet a bird to hit with stone don't ever hit birds with stones and that is pacing with world building whether it's details about the magic system the politics the religion or otherwise unless woven expertly into your story world building can seriously hamper the pacing of a scene or your core narrative forcing the reader to stop and learn about the roses anjaro's book's sufficiently advanced magic features a complex magic system and though enjoyable it can be criticized for the stop start pacing of its fight scenes they lose a lot of tension because roe has to continually segue away from an emotional or action beat to remind the reader how the magic system works in the middle of characters doing things this isn't a video on succinctly delivering exposition i have two whole videos on that that i really recommend you go watch i'm really proud of them i actually think they're one of the best parts of the on writing series but this video is about pacing world building that halts the pacing tends to interrupt the scene to explain something so it makes sense and sometimes this is necessary but most of the time it isn't if you do need to do it repeatedly then chances are a you aren't trusting your readers to be smart enough to know what's happening or b you haven't explained things sufficiently beforehand in contrast world building that works with the pacing supports the emotional beats of the scene a piece of michael wright's numinous that i had the pleasure of editing did this beautifully and i know this is unconventional but it's really good as much as the intricate lines and patterns were beautiful they all meant nothing the sanctum tower and bailing bell was made in the image of one of gina's great towers before they had fallen but it was all form without function here only designed to try and echo how the first towers looked as much as nim wanted to laugh at the people's attempt of reproducing one of gina's great works it only made the immortal sad the emotional beat here is an immortal reflecting and longing for a golden age when a godlike being ruled the continent now only a shadow of its former self this beat helps us understand who the character is and the word building describing the architecture supports that emotional beat when world building interrupts you can remove the segway and the scene will still flow well when world building supports the pacing removing it would damage the flow or emotional beat of the scene go through your world building segways and ask if they interrupt or support the emotional beat and whether you're trusting your readers enough lastly though let's talk about pacing and genre and this i'm excited for because i really like this it's really nerdy it's cool specifically the young adult genre exemplified in books like paper towns they hate you give and it's a funny kind of story so basically what defines good pacing is not universal it's incredibly dependent on genre structure and pacing are conventionally tied together like this you've got to have a fast first act a slower second act and a fastest third act now while broadly true this isn't that helpful because different genres thrive on different speeds of pacing because different people get invested in stories in different ways i see that a lot different the contemporary young adult genre is an interesting case study in this let's look at the first chapter of john green's looking for alaska the first chapter features miles preparing to leave his boring world for boarding school because quote i go to seek a great perhaps that's why i'm going so i don't have to wait until i die to start seeking a great perhaps this is the hook an exciting question posed of what his adventure could hold but oddly enough the chapter is actually paced very slowly the sentences are long lumbering and can feel meandering conversation feels aimless on the surface but all of this is intentional the young adult genre revels in subtext and introspection which is what we see a lot of in green's work and other contemporary young adult novels these techniques give a heaviness to every thought and action of miles a depressing weight where life feels futile and sounds vacuous slow paced writing is important for investing readers in the personal arcs of your characters because it takes time to examine the thoughts and feel the consequences of their decisions and mistakes in a way that fast-paced writing really isn't equipped to do and contemporary young adult authors lean hard on this tactic because this is how their readership gets invested in a story often through issues that they can personally relate to like youth depression and suicide deep psychological introspection is what they're there for and it's also why it's a lot more common to find first person narration in contemporary ya like slower pacing it complements that method of getting readers invested compare this to the writing of lee child or robert ludlum authors in the spy and thriller genres which lean hard into fast pacing they attract different audiences and while fast-paced scenes do happen in waya like quentin desperately searching for margot on a ticking clock in green's paper towns contemporary yeah uses that slower pace because the actual events of the story are less immersive than the deeply personal psychological journey this often results in a slowly paced first second or even third act without it being bad pacing for the core narrative because they still feel that they're getting closer to the big thing that they're there for that they're invested in fundamentally good pacing is also about the audience that you're writing for and the kind of tension that you want to cultivate i could tell you to write a fast pace first act a slower second and fastest third but that wouldn't be good advice because each story is paced differently even on that level i can't tell you how to master pacing so you know in your story that readers feel they're getting closer to the big thing i can only help identify and help you get past the obstacles in doing so so to summarize firstly you can alter the pacing on a scene by scene level using sentence structure word choice action reaction framing and other techniques like cliffhangers introspection and removing filter words secondly high tension does not necessarily mean using fast paced techniques however it's effective to stretch the tension like this only a few times to highlight important moments thirdly the side quest problem arises when plot obstacles have no narrative reason to exist halting the pacing of the core narrative entirely consider whether an obstacle fundamentally alters the ending develops your mc or reveals part of a mystery to the reader as well as the ratio between page time and how big of a step this really is towards the big thing fourthly a subplot complicates the main plot supporting fast pacing by adding tension or slow pacing by adding emotional moments while a side quest halts the pacing of the core narrative entirely fifthly subtext enriches the reader's experience by accelerating the pace because the reader is continually following implicit points of intrigue and investigating the text sixthly world building segways work when they support the pacing through underpinning emotional beats segways that interrupt the pacing are often because authors don't trust their audience enough or they haven't made it clear enough and seventhly good pacing is also dependent on genre with action or thrillers leaning fast and contemporary young adult leaning slow know your audience whoa and there we come to the end of it wow i really enjoyed making this and i know this is not going to get as many views because it's like a technique one and people like learning about tropes but seriously the technique stuff is super super important that's where you're going to get good at writing i hope you enjoyed this i really loved learning about this one thank you so much for the suggestion if you want to support the channel please do consider doing so i really want to be you know wholly independent of pretty much ad revenue that would be so amazing uh and thank you to all of you the thousands of you i think i'm coming up on 8 000 books or something 9 000 books is like i don't know uh of the people who have bought on writing and world building seriously amazing thank you so much please do come follow me on social media that's where i chat with all the people you can ask me questions in the meantime stay nerdy and i will see you in the future you

Channel: Hello Future Me

Views: 290,830

Keywords: explained, theory, lore, analysis, how to, on writing, pacing, on worldbuilding, advice, tips, writing, authortube, author, writer, john green, hank green, the fault in our stars, paper towns, young adult, beyond two souls, detroit, david cage, narrative, story, bourne identity, genre, thriller, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, worldbuilding, looking for alaska, patrick ness, rest of us just live here, perks of being a wallflower, shakespeare, romeo, juliet

Id: bkM1KengtYA

Length: 23min 29sec (1409 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 31 2019