As a reader, many different things will pull me and entice me through the narrative: empathy with a character; questions: how are our heroes going to get out of this? What is the answer to this puzzle the author has set up? what is going on here? (all variations on “what happens next?”); expectations: am I’m correctly reading the signposts the author has left for the reader? (reading them correctly or incorrectly can be pleasurable); anticipation if I’ve read the book before: I know what’s coming next and it’s good.

But except for the signposts, it’s hard to pick these apart and say how they work and why they work.

One way I approach pacing is to keep in mind my story arcs–collections of scenes of rising tension that reach a climax–a resolution or revelation that introduces a new problem, twist, or complication. After that small climax, I try to leave my readers some breathing space before starting the rise again–without letting down totally at any time. And always with more at stake as we move forward to the major climax, of course.

Carol

Love, C.

My favorite, overused chapter-ending ploy is not the cliffhanger, but the “ticking clock,” in which the characters are up against a time constraint. I love that tool for tension, and putting a calendar or time element goes a long way toward world building. It gives the reader something to look forward to.

I won’t even touch the more intricate details of sentence structure and use of description. I find that to be the most instinctual part of writing and I have such a hard time talking about it without specific examples.

Interesting post. Got me thinking, since I’m trying to keep up the tension in the current WIP, while also inserting significant amounts of pertinent backstory.

There are also big differences between short stories and novels. A short stoy you want to keep the reader there, finishing it in one sitting. In a novel, while that might be an aim, it isn’t really practical to expect readers to do the “I couldn’t put it down” thing. In a novel, therefore, you need to let people have nice natural points (chapter breaks) to put a book down - but you want them to pick it up again. The hoary old cliff-hanger is a ocmmon method, but that largely dates back to the days of the serial and I’m not convinced (pace Dan Brown, or even Zelazny in “Doorways in the Sand”) that it’s appropriate or necessary nowadays. Ideally, there should be more of a hook to your novel - characters you care about, events that have been foreshadowed - so that you don’t need to dangle the “you must come back next week!” carrot.

I’m currently working on a novel that’s wayyyy more structured than anything I’ve previously tried to do. I’m planning out sections with all manner of thematic counterpoints, trying to resolve plots inside plots, even getting to the level of determining how long given sections need to be in order to match other sections. So far it’s coming together nicely and I think the flow is working; there’s both an individual flow to the various sections (almost like short stories in their own right) as well as the overall flow to the over-arching plot. Sometimes the two pacings coincide, but sometimes you need to be doing something that’s lively in terms of the core plot without appearing to be lively in terms of the subplot (or vice versa).

I’m given to understand a number o fpeople use graphign techniques to plot out the tension in a story. I haven’t physically tried that, but I kind of have an idea in my head about what should go where.

In detail, how do you do this? Sentence structure, and the amount of sensory detail, would be the two points I think I’d stress. Normally, I try and balance short and longer sentences, but the balance will definitely change depending on the level of tension. And sensory detail… there may be a lot of detail in an action sequence, but it’s all relevant detail, whereas in a spacing sequence you might be giving a lot more “irrelevant” detail - stuff that builds the overall atmosphere and sense of reality, but isn’t tied to specific action events.

However, while the suspension of disbelief gives you a little bit of leeway, it only gives you a little bit, and if you lose character sympathy or believability–or worse, both–your tension goes all to hell and your reader starts snickering at the tale of the incompetent wolf unable to eat the unlikable children.

Part of suspense is also foreshadowing. The scene of Little Red Riding Hood pausing to pick wildflowers would be dull as dishwater if her mother hadn’t warned her to both not delay and not stray from the path, because that sets up the sense that something bad’s going to happen It’s like having sex in a teen horror movie–you do what’s forbidden, you’re in danger, and we completely ignore the fact that wolves smart enough to talk and cross-dress might also be smart enough to wait on the path that has all that tasty human scent on it and eat dutiful obedient children with the same savor as the slightly naughty ones.

Of course we’re talking stock characters and perils here, but once you get into a novel, you get more space for depth on all ends. Wham-bam action won’t work because it will quickly become ludicrous unless there are lulls for suspence, rather than a white-knuckle ride the whole way.

And there needs to be scenes that don’t have gravity. A book I was recently reading, I put down and haven’t really had the “umph” to pick it back up (and it’s book 3 of a trilogy) because EVERY SCENE HAS TOO MUCH GRAVITAS. It’s too much emotional work for me — kind of like a day time soap opera.

Kate — one thing I really like about the Jaran novels, is that you’ve got a great balance/mix between heavy and light scenes, humor and intense scenes, information and description.

My own personal metaphor is based on weaving. There are different threads, interlocking in different ways, and if you’ve got your pacing right, you’re creating a nice, solid fabric. Where the pacing’s slow, the threads don’t fit as tightly, and you can kind of poke your fingertip through the fabric. Where it’s too fast, you’ve pulled the tension too tight, and it’s rucking the fabric into an uncomfortable little lump. And I sense all of this in some weird back corner of my brain that can’t really explain to anybody how it determines whether the fabric’s right or not.