Here's an e-mail I received from Sally--the fabulous Sally from Already Pretty, a blog I flog frequently--about pacing in fiction: I'm curious about resting places in writing. I'm a very anxious person, and although I adore tension and action and suspense, I am always SO HAPPY when a story hits that spot where the characters aren't in any immediate danger. For a short time, everyone is just taking a break, the villain or threat is temporarily at bay, and the reader is given a chance to breathe. I'm working my way through SITS right now - at the pace of an elderly snail, thanks to my overbooked
life - and just got to a scene where Julia is having tea with Hortense after the first big drama has gone down. And, once again, found myself so pleased that I was given a chance to relax.
I'm curious about how a fiction writer chooses to place those resting
spots. I have only ever read one book that felt like the ENTIRE story
was at rest - Barbara Kingsolver's "Prodigal Summer." I loved it to
pieces, but was also amazed that a remotely interesting story could be
spun from rest and rest alone. I mean, there was plot and action, but
it was so mild that I never felt myself truly tense. Everything else
I've ever read sprinkles quiet moments sparingly amongst the action.
However, I imagine it would become overly predictable if those rests
ALWAYS happened directly after a big spike in action ... How do you
know when it's time to give everyone a breather?
An excellent question. I'm seldom asked about pacing, and I confess, my first reaction was, "Good grief, how do I know?!? It just happens!" (Y'all know by now that I am fairly superstitious about some things and analyzing my writing too closely is one of them.) But Sally deserves a better answer than that, so I'll give it a shot.
Writing is, to be mildly poetic, a form of alchemy. Writers transform base metal into gold by taking various mundane ingredients and tossing them into the crucible and applying heat. We can be secretive and possessive of our methods at times, and I can promise you that when I am it is simply because I haven't yet peeked behind that particular curtain. When I'm writing, I write from point to point. I know that when I start a book, I have to set the stage and introduce characters. From there I can introduce complications, and when those complications come, they require a breath in between so the reader can take stock of what I have done so far. There have to be levels, otherwise the entire book reads the same--usually a very dull thing.
When I think of the pacing of a novel I'm working on, I envision a sea. The reader is carried along on a little coracle, completely dependent upon the motion of that sea. If I raise the waves too high, too quickly, the craft capsizes, spilling the reader out and leaving them confused and bewildered. If I becalm the sea, the little boat sits too still for too long, exposing the reader to boredom and wandering fancies. But if I pitch it just right, each wave building a little higher, with perhaps a shorter lull between, the reader rides along happily, cresting the top of each wave and catching their breath in between. (And yes, I realize a coracle is not seaworthy, but it's my metaphor, so I get to make the rules.) And, to be completely prosaic here, lots of my pacing decisions are made for me simply because a certain piece of information must be discovered at a specific point or because two characters have to be brought together or torn apart. (My editor is also keenly aware of how many times I let them sit down to tea, so it's an issue I'm becoming more aware of myself with each book.)
Some writers are masters of pacing. I've mentioned several times that Mary Stewart was the finest I've ever seen at giving a tense, taut scene that lasts a hundred pages in which NOTHING HAPPENS. It's due entirely to the atmosphere of ramped-up tension she creates. I'm sure there are loads of writers who are gifted at dragging the reader along by the throat through three hundred pages of screaming tension, but these are not people I read, so I'm going to leave it there. The beauty is that whatever sort of tension you like to create, there is a reader who will be thrilled by it.
I also think that pacing--far more than plot or characters--determines the mood of a book. Summer is when I want something slower and more languid, long rivers of sentences that take their time. Winter, I might want something more complex and blood-stirring, with short, staccato constructions and heightened peril. What about you? Is pacing something you are aware of as a reader? Or are you simply, like many of us, just along for the ride?
