Pacing the Floors, er...Story

Story Pacing. That thing that keeps the reader from getting bored. The most common definition is to keep the plot from meandering. The main character must stay on task, the story shouldn’t introduce unnecessary characters or places, and the scenes and conversations should be relevant and succinct.

That’s great and all, but what does it mean? I’m going to answer that with another question. Is each person or place in your story necessary? If so, how is it necessary? What will fall apart if you remove one of these items? If the answer is nothing, then it may not be necessary. It’s the unnecessary things that bog things down, take the story to irrelevant places, and make it feel too drawn out, even boring. This sounds a lot like creating a strong plot, but plot and pacing go hand in hand. If you have a good, solid plot, chances are you’re going to have good pacing as well. For the big picture, anyway...

But what about the details? Those can have just as much of an effect on pacing as plot can. I’m talking about specific scenes and conversations between characters. Pick a scene and examine the direction it takes. If it took a different direction, what would happen to your story? If nothing, then perhaps it’s not necessary. If you’re not sure you can honestly answer this question, then do this with a published work that you feel has good pacing. Choose a scene, give it a different direction, then see how it would affect the rest of the story. A tightly woven story will always feel the effects of this exercise.

Conversations are a little trickier. The information in a conversation may be necessary to the story. But what about its delivery? Does the conversation feel too long? If so, the answer may not be to simply shorten it. Rather, take a look at what your characters are doing. Aside from talking, that is. Is there emotion? Body language? Gestures? Reactions? Action is what keeps things interesting. It’s also what moves a story forward.

This is partly why backflashes are so troublesome – they stop the story to “tell” the reader an important piece of information, then come back to the story later. It’s really easy to fall into this trap, and you don’t even need a backflash to do it. Telling the reader any important piece of information stops the story. Let’s look at an example:

Mark pointed to the tiny town of Statz on the road map. “See? It’s right here. There aren’t many roads on this map, but I’m sure I’ll find it.”
Jerry laughed. Mark was notorious for getting his directions mixed up. Once, he’d been trying to get to St. Louis and ended up in Chicago. His friends had learned the hard way never to let him navigate on road trips.
“Don’t call me when you run out of gas,” said Jerry.

In this example, the story stops when we’re told about Mark’s lack of navigational skills, then starts again when Jerry speaks. Rather than telling the reader that Mark is terrible at directions, show us.

Mark pointed to the tiny town of Statz on the road map. “See? It’s right here. There aren’t many roads on this map, but I’m sure I’ll find it.”
Jerry laughed. “You couldn’t find your way out of a paper bag, even if you had a flashlight and a pocket knife.”
Mark glared at him. “I have a sixth sense with directions, you know.”
“Oh. Is that how you in Chicago instead of St. Louis?” Jerry cleared his throat, hiding his grin.
“Well – that’s just–” His mouth opened and closed, like a fish. “That could have happened to anyone!”
“Sure,” said Jerry. “Don’t call me when you run out of gas.”

Here, we’re shown how Mark made an enormous navigational error, and Jerry clearly doesn’t believe him capable of anything better. This exchange gives us more insight into the story, the characters, and their personalities than the other version.

The same principles can usually be applied to backflashes. Bring the information out through the characters rather than setting them aside so the reader can find out something important.