the craft. pacing.

Have we talked about pacing? I feel like we may have grazed over it in some of the other broader subject matter but I think this week is the week. Pacing is as simple as it sounds, how fast or slow the story is moving for the reader. However, it’s a delicate balance to make sure you’re achieving the right pacing in your storytelling.

One of my biggest hindsight moments of publishing Good Morning, Love was feeling like I could have done a better job with the pacing in the beginning. I know, I know, it’s out in the world and all now, but I’m not sure you ever feel like your work is totally complete as a writer. You’ll always read back over your work and think, “I could have done or said that better.” So, maybe it’ll help me, if I can help you avoid some of my pitfalls. Lol.

In passing, I’ve gotten some feedback that readers felt like GML had a slow start. Once they got into it, they were in it, but not every reader is going to give your book the benefit of the doubt. The funny thing about that is my editor wanted to cut out one of the chapters in the beginning but I was very hellbent on trying to showcase the relationship between Talia and Carli. It felt essential at the time. After reading the book one hundred million times after that, it felt a little less essential. My bad, Lashanda!

My first note I would have about pacing is to “Get to it!” At the end of the day, sometimes you only have that first few pages to draw someone into your story. This is important to think about for your readers, but also when you’re querying agents. Many of them are often only requesting the first ten pages, in fiction, specifically. More on that later as I’m hosting a “First Ten Pages” workshop this fall. But also, have you ever been in a bookstore and after you read the jacket copy flipped through the first couple of pages? When you come from the world of journalism, you know you need a hook to keep the people reading.

Personally, I feel like I wanted to get to Tau and Carli a bit sooner as well. That’s the meat and potatoes and people don’t want to wait for that. I think the second and third chapters still could have happened, but maybe at a different point in the story.

Sorry for my lamenting, but what I’m saying to you is, get into the story. Yes, you need exposition, but you need enough of the character arc and their main goals to help usher the reader into this new world that hopefully they’re excited about. Of course, you don’t want to give it all away at the top, but you need to give just enough so readers feel invested in the characters and where they’re going.

This is not to be confused with starting in the middle of random action. You do have to give us some backstory to the moment and then as quickly as possible ease us into the inciting incident.

You also want to keep your genre in mind. Not every genre has the same pacing. I mean, think of literary works. A writer may spend five pages describing a landscape. However, in contemporary romance, they want to know the main character, the love interest, and how they feel about one another right away. If you’re trying to build suspense, you may want to take things a lot slower, create a build up. Pacing is not a blanket thing. It ebbs and flows and depends a lot on the category in which you’re writing.

The easiest thing about pacing is getting rid of filler words. We all have them as writers. I promise you I have likely edited fifty-leven “thats” and “justs” out of this newsletter alone. Those extra words slow up pacing. Great writing is concise while packing a punch. Often, we can add unnecessary detail trying to sound like we’re great writers. But the real greats have this innate ability to say things simply yet knock your socks off at the same time. “Won’t you celebrate with me that every day, something has tried to kill me and failed.” This Lucille Clifton line was on my mind a lot lately. I like that I can remember it, that I know what it means, and by God it is such a powerful statement. We don’t have to be all “art thou” and “et tu brute” to be profound. Say it simply, say it well.

In a similar vein, sentence structure contributes a lot to pacing. You may not notice it but you start to learn how to group longer sentences and shorter ones that keep a great pace. Things can get monotonous when every sentence has a similar length. So play with that all the same when you’re working on pacing. Even one word can be a sentence. Period. See what I did there?

Lastly, reading out loud can be a big help with pacing. I find, sometimes, that I am stumbling over whole phrases. And guess what? If you’re stumbling and you wrote them, it’s likely a reader with no context is going to stumble as well. In general, reading aloud is an important tool I think people skip. Yes, I’ve read very large chunks of Good Morning, Love out loud. But I also found the “Read Aloud” tool in Word which has been a game changer.

These are a bit of the foundational elements of pacing but it gets deeper. You know as you dive into dialogue, exposition and narrative, that greatly affects pace as well. Ensuring that your characters are also moving during dialogue. At the end of the day, pacing is all about variety! How are you keeping your writing engaging and adding dynamics that will keep your story from falling flat?

Writing/Job Opportunities

NYU Press is looking for freelance copy editors to diversify their pool. Must have experience with Chicago style and editing academic/nonfiction texts—email: ainee.jeong@nyu.edu. https://nyupress.org/ ($28/hr).

The Commuter—Open for PROSE, POETRY, and GRAPHIC NARRATIVE submissions Monday, August 22 (12:00am) through Sunday, August 28 (11:59pm).

Vox is accepting submissions for their Future Perfect Fellow program.

Bloomsbury Children’s Books is hiring an Assistant Editor. (NY, NJ, CT, or PA, 42K salary)

The Verge is hiring a Space Reporter. (66k)

Cal Matters is hiring a Senior Investigative Reporter. (100k)

NBCUniversal is hiring a Reporter, Culture & Trends.

KYW News Radio is hiring a Digital Audience Engagement Editor.