Forums » Writing Workshop » Read Thread

I don't understand the concept of pacing a story very well. Can anyone show me what would be considered "good pacing" and "bad pacing"? Or if it's more of a "story overall" kind of thing, could someone describe what that would be like?

 

To some degree, I know what it is, but in writing, I'm not 100% positive on the meaning.

 

(I'm hoping this can improve the quality of my comments for storygames as well as help me write my own storygames.)

Wow. *is waiting as crickets chirp loudly*

I'm sorry you had to suffer through six entire hours last night in which no one dragged themselves out of bed to check CYS and respond to your post, but maybe you shouldn't be an ass about it if you're genuinely wanting advice.

Sorry. I didn't mean it in such a way. I was emphasizing how I'm bad at starting threads. :)

...

I mean, you started it at midnight. Any reasonable person would have waited until noonish the next day before even starting to get concerned.

You are right. My bad then.

I view pacing as a series of events. Good pacing is essentially making the reader like the pacing. If the story seems to drag on at a sluggish rate or if the story seems to be quite rushed, that's bad pacing. In most instances, good pacing occurs when you've sucked the reader into the story. It doesn't rush over the plot (he shot you. you dIEd. LOL. The ENd.) nor does it spend an entire page babbling on about about the Great Bush of Timbuktu for no apparent reason.

A fine example of bad pacing is this thread. You rushed the pacing when you posted that cricket post. Thus, people didn't like it, for it was bad pacing. These types of threads can go for quite some time (especially from when you posted) without having a reply post. You rushed the pacing.

XD I like that example. Thank you.

Certain kinds of scenes call for different kinds of pacing, and a well-paced story will use a good mix of fast and slow throughout. For example, action scenes should move very quickly, and leisurely dialogue scenes should be slower. You control pacing through the amount of description and sentence structure. Short, punchy sentences create a sense of speed and urgency, whereas long sentences with a lot of clauses and detailed descriptions are slower.

It's hard to explain how to do good pacing in a short space. Read some books and study the pacing.