An article on Industrial Scripts discusses the importance of narrative pacing and how to master it. “How do you get narrative pacing right? And what does good narrative pacing look like?”
Narrative pacing controls the flow of your story and how much information is provided to your audience and when. It can affect the mood of the story, as well as the audience’s emotional responses, and of course, it can create suspense and tension. Poorly handled, pacing can slow your story to a slog, or can result in importance information being omitted or spit out in a short burst. You can overwhelm your audience or bore them. Even consistent pacing can feel repetitive and tedious, if it doesn’t work for your story.
The culprits of poor pacing? Unnecessary scenes, scenes that are too long or too short, uneven rising and falling action, and bad dialogue, the article says. To keep your audience’s attention, it’s important to vary your pacing. Action sequences and your climax will need gradually increased tension and pacing. The aftermath of a high-stakes scene demands a slower pace. Balancing your tempo will help keep your audience’s attention and let them catch their breath after a big action sequence.
So, how can you control your pacing? Here are some ideas:
- Scene Breakdowns. Use scene breakdowns or an outline to identify the pace of each sequence. Then consider your story as a whole and look for ways to vary your pacing. Map out your scenes in a graph to see if you have any unbalanced pacing.
- Genre. Genres have different pacing needs. Thrillers tend to have a slow burn building to a fast pace, as the stakes for your protagonist increasing get higher.
- Holding Back. Selectively reveal information to your audience. Hold back information to create suspense and encourage your audience to actively participate. Mysteries and suspense stories are notable for holding back information. Use reveal scenes to determine your pace.
- Reading Out Loud. Read your work aloud to find spots where your story moves too fast or too slowly.
- Be Ruthless. “Ultimately, you need to be able to strip your story down to its essence,” the article says. “Ask yourself what has to be included and what doesn’t. Is every scene completely necessary?” If it’s not, cut it. If you’re not sure, the scene needs work.
The article also suggests ways to slow down your narrative pace, including subplots; flashbacks and backstory; and moments of reflection. To speed up your pace, try removing or limiting subplots; adding snappy dialogue; increasing the action; opening scenes in medias res; and adding cliffhangers.
