Pacing, pacing and pacing. · 7:24pm Aug 21st, 2022
Everyone has this idea that bad pacing can ruin a work of fiction, but when people try to define what pacing is, things often get muddy. Sure, someone can say that the pacing is too fast and it makes it hard to follow the work, or say, it's too slow and they got bored with it. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just expressing a view of how they feel a work failed them.
Recently I have been thinking about the subject though, and I feel it's quite a bit more muddy than just "too fast" or "too slow". There's no account for taste, of course; some people just want things to flow faster while other wants the story to take its time. But that's not really what I want to get at, it's more so that when people talk about pace, it sometimes feels like the subject matter is unclear.
Basically, I think there are three completely different things that exists in the context of "pacing", and I will follow with a summery of them shortly. I should note that I'm not a arts or literature student; I have no formal education in the subject, so I'm sure better expressions for these things have already been adopted as standard within academia.
1. In-universe pacing:
This is how much time happens between events within the universe the narrative takes place in. In this case that means things like: How long does it take for a character to adapt or deal with their grief? How much time passes between major events? How long does it take to travel between two locations in the setting?
Some of that might seem self evident, after all, if you define a distance between two points and the method of transport, you should even without calculating be able to make a decent estimate how long it would take. But it can get complicated, take the simple question of: "How long does it take to take a train ride from Ponyville to Canterlot?"
You'd think there'd be a simple answer for that, we have a map, but no sense of scale. Using existing narrative and visual clues we can conclude that it shouldn't take *too long*, but how long is it exactly? In truth, the exact time is irrelevant; what matters more is that you're consistent after having decided it, and most importantly: That it *feels* reasonable.
I think that to most people I could write that the train ride takes either thirty minutes, two hours, six hours, or eight hours, and a reader would be unlikely to bat an eye. After all, how long the train ride takes is going to be a side detail in the otherwise narrative, it's unlikely going to get a lot of attention unless the story is specifically about train travel. (And if you're curious of my experience, as someone who as been on a lot of train riding in my life, I'd estimate it at roughly an hour following canon distance depictions).
It might have seemed like a tangent, but I feel this is important. Because what happens when something feels wrong? If an author described the train ride to take two minutes, that would take me out of the story, and likely other readers too. It wouldn't line up with ones expectations of the physics of the setting. This becomes way worse if the thing that feels wrong is more central to the story. A protagonist having their marriage one day, attend a funeral for a relative the next, followed by their sibling giving child birth the next would seem unrealistic. Sure, these sort of things could happen like that, life gets crazy, but it feels like things just progress too fast.
I rarely, if ever, see in-universe pacing issues where it's paced too slow. But events happening too quickly is incredibly common. This happening in isolation on occasion isn't an issue; sometimes the plot just moves rapidly and events happen; see a Canterlot wedding. But if it's a consistent thing with the entirety of the plot then there is a problem.
I wouldn't say romance is one of those things where it happens the most in fiction, but it is one of the ones that is the easiest to highlight without a direct example. A relationship going from meeting for the first time to being partners for life in a week isn't exactly a realistic depiction. That's not to say it can't work, or that it doesn't happen in real life. But I think a key point if so would be that you'd have to showcase that both characters involved are rash and generally rush into things without thinking.
For most, a relationship is something that is built slowly as one gets to know the other. There's a reason why "love at first sight" is a trope that is generally considered unrealistic; even if it might very rarely happen in real life. Because of this, a romantic relationship, or a relationship in general, progressing to fast in a narrative can cause one to take notice and lose immersion.
2. Verbose pacing, or linguistic pacing.
This concerns how much detail is put in the actual written text. How in depth a scene is described, how much space of the text is dedicated to a singular moment or object. When a written text goes too far to the reader then it will often be described as either too verbose or having "flowery writing".
This one is common both ways, and can be hugely damaging to the reading pace. Truth of the matter, I don't think there is a text that is "too verbose", also don't think there is a text that is too lacking in detail; it comes down to audience. Different readers want different things here, and while part of it is preference, a lot of it comes down to reading comprehension an reading speed.
There is a reason why books meant for young children are the opposite of verbose; they likely don't have the vocabulary to understand more. Vocabulary is also something that you can't ever really stop growing, there is a huge variance there among adults. Why that is can range from now reading books very often to simply prefer simpler written stories.
There's also the matter of disabilities, one trait that is classified under dyslexia is ability to read text. Since I have first hand experience with this I can describe my issues: It's very easy for me to just lose what line I'm reading on unless I have a marker following the text. Text also has a tendency to blend in on itself, this can make things very hard for me to parse, a poignant example is numbers: If I read 83901, I will need to count the number of numbers to discern that the number is in the tens of thousands, this gets worse the longer the number is.
This is not the only form dyslexia can hamper reading, since it's a general term for reading and writing disabilities in a sense. But people have issues with reading will generally have to read slower than people who have read around the same amount of material. This can make extremely verbose text more tiring than it otherwise would.
I still don't think there is a right or wrong here, it all comes down your audience and specific examples. Those more into literature as an art form could potentially tell you where and when to be more verbose; and where to be less. But the overall level of the work should be dictated by how you like to write and what audience you want to read the work.
3. Meta or scene pacing.
This is a bit more abstract, and has to do with how a story flows from scene to scene. Does the scene feel like it fills a use within the narrative? Are you reading things that feel completely pointless? Is a critical scene missing?
This shouldn't be confused with foreshadowing, or referential details. It's worth considering that you might not have ever read a story where there was any pace breaking of this type as to highlight it. Some times these issues only become evident in hindsight, those who take part in a lot of fiction get used to set-ups and foreshadowing being common; so seeing a sudden scene that seems to have no purpose wouldn't cause one to take notice.
I find that this rarely comes up as issue at all in most works, yet in the works where it comes up as an issue it comes up a lot; and it's exactly when it comes up a lot that it becomes evident that the scenes serve no greater purpose, or that scenes are simply missing.
It sometimes easier to describe what isn't wrong, rather than to try and pose an example of this being an issue, but I will do my best. When the pacing is too fast of this variety then you notice a lack of scenes. Events that should have been described weren't. This is not equal to an scene not being shown and only refereed to later in the narrative, that can be a powerful tool. It also shouldn't be confused with a reader wanting said scene to be shown in full, (a common here being sex scenes being cut). Rather, it's when the story breaks down or immersion is broken because something happened in the past and suddenly it's relevant, yet it has never been mentioned before.
A more direct example would be the continual adding of traits in a characters backstory, yet they are only brought up much later than they should have, often only mentioned in passing. Again, not to be confused with a plot twist, or the intentional holding back of a character's backstory for drama or effect. Rather, things are just added seemingly out of the blue and could even be brought up even when not relevant for no effect what-so-ever, we just now learn of the thing.
We don't need a scene to see this part of the character's backstory, we just need a proper introduction to it. If they have a character trait then it needs to introduced, not just suddenly be there. This tends to become worse and more prominent if it isn't backstory, some event happened at some point that should have been made known to the reader in some form, but wasn't.
Too slow pacing in this aspect, on the other hand, and you're left with a story that has a bunch of scenes that clutter the narrative but don't add to the overarching plot or purpose of the story. Scenes that are just fluff is not wrong, in fact, they can serve as very valid breaks from the action or core narrative. But in those cases, those scenes server a purpose. What would happen here is scenes that serve none.
One can also be further harsher here, I'd like to note; but it's easier to explain extreme examples. Too slow pacing in this sense might not necessarily mean that a scene is completely useless, but rather that the form is wrong. If a story takes the time to fully explore an entire event that might have been better of just being mentioned in passing, then that's also slowing down the pace from scene to scene.
I hope that makes sense, this is the type I struggle the most to put into words.
In-universe pacing issues is something that comes up a lot for me when I read fanfics; things just seem to happen to fast. To take an example that I have seen on numerous occasions: A young character is without (perceived) parents, yet within the very same day is designated foster or adopted parents, or an otherwise guardian to take care of them.
Someone getting properly adopted takes a long time usually, it's a huge bureaucratic process. That's not to say that children are left to suffer while it takes place, but usually the entirety of the thing takes a loooong time.
Generally this breaks my own immersion when I read, sometimes I can press past that if the story is otherwise engaging; but it does leave an after taste of being unrealistic. Not that being realistic is a bar to aim for, it has more to do with the feeling that it's unbelievable that events played out the way they did.
But after a while of just seeing a variety of this and other pacing issues, I kinda started to think that the conversation surrounding pacing just isn't very good. Like, if someone told me my store had bad pacing, I could probably infer what the issue is, but I might not know for sure. Too often I see when people talk about pacing in stories that it gets boiled down to if a story is verbose or not, but that's seldom the only problem with pacing seen in stories.
Anyway, I just had these random thoughts on the subject on my brain, and I kinda needed to get get them out, so, blog post it is!
For those wondering, yes, I'm still at work on the Sunset story, I just don't want to push out something unfinished or mediocre, and my life has gotten a bit more busy.
thanks for these thoughts, especially the things about in universe pacing. i’m trying to write my first story & the chapter i’m working on really has me worried about pacing, if i’m sitting too much inside her head, what her motivations are. i think i need to reread what i wrote so far to understand her better.
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A good recommendation, no matter ones skill level, is to have someone read through your story and offer feedback. That way you can ask them questions about the work to see if it falls in line with your intentions.
Me too! You inspired me to talk
Sounds like some 'pacing' problems are more of a verisimilitude problem. As a game master, and sometimes player, of Pathfinder (a dungeons and dragons clone) verisimilitude is vary helpful for immersion and maintaining the suspension bridge of disbelief.
Some stories can be helped by adding game elements. Like your Ponyville to Canterlot example.
I have a hex map in front of me and in Pathfinder each hex is 12 miles. We have Ponyville (plains), Canterlot (mountain) and one plains hex between them. It is 24 miles between the two (probably 20 if I get out a ruler and measure a straight line) if we assume the population centers are in the exact center. And we need our party, in a story, to go from Ponyville to Canterlot.
by hoof?
Ponyfinder (writen by David Silver for Pathfinder) has ponies going at 40ft a turn (rounded to 4 miles an hour) making the trip a six hour affair. Eight hours if we factor in penalties for mountain terrain. If any are burdened it is now a two day ordeal or a forced march that is sure to kill any low level wizards.
By wings?
In Ponyfinder pegasai have a pitiful 30ft speed and clumsy maneuverability. So pathetic it makes Derpy a wonderbolt in comparison... So! Rainbow Dash likely has the pegasus barbarian archetype (40ft) and one feat of 'dashing flyer' (now with poor maneuverability) which ends us at 50ft. Rainbow Dash can make the trip in 5 hours of casual flight.
She could push herself at a 'hustle' which is like a jog. Two and a half hours but with two saves. If she fails the first she might as well land and walk; the land party will overtake her and carry her the rest of the way.
Now anyone just reading that last paragraph would complain about pacing. That is because verisimilitude was broken, the bridge of disbelief has fallen and the story suck! They are, technically, right. My audience is those who watched the show not a bunch of gamers. If it was a bunch of gamers? I would still lose verisimilitude but they would chuckle at the idiocy of the player behind Rainbow Dash. Dash simply isn't that slow.
Since we are going for immersion over game balance let's double all adjusted flights speeds. The average pegasai takes four hours with Dash at two and a half. This actually would be believable.
By train?
20mph... I could look up how fast historical trains could go but I won't. I could stat out the average level of the engineers working for, a yet unnamed, train company and use that level plus World of Warcraft RPG Tinker class to derive how fast Equestria can make a train on average but I won't. Frankly I don't need trains that fast anyways; with Rainbow Dash's new adjusted speed can fly from the east coast to the west coast in a day and a half. The map is taller than it is wide but most of the south isn't actually Equestria and the north ends with the crystal empire (also technically outside Equestria). So about the same time and distance in the tiny mapped version of Equestria.
So about an hour and a half. Those who know something about train physics will shake their head as a train can't get to the top of a mountain that fast or easy but most won't care/know.
I can't help on 'pacing' but being consistent can help a lot on verisimilitude. A lot of problems in stories and games are problems of verisimilitude; the author doesn't understand the scale, time and distances. Ponyville (even depicted at its largest) shouldn't take more than an hour to cross (even thirty minutes often pushes the bridge), it shouldn't take a party of six hours to search if they split up but it does sometimes. Even if they do pick a scale they might forget it later on...