Pace and speed

[Princess Ivy]

This is one that I have trouble with. I enjoy a more laid back style. a languid style of story telling. But i have often found that writers who employ this sort of style, suddenly speed up towards the end, as if, they've gotten bored with the story and just suddenly want to get it over with in one quick climax of violence and action.
And excellent example of this is Adam Roberts Stone. This is writen slowly, gradually explaining the main characters state of mind and history. then suddenly, the climax. the EVENT that the story has been building up to. and its over in a few pages. As if Roberts didn't really want to think about it. And I can understand how it can happen. He'd written so much, up to that point, about the feelings and motivations, that the event became secondary.
In my own style I tend to wander around in ever decreasing circles. but i want to avoid having the climax of the book just suddenly there, to be gotten over as soon as possible.
Also, I'm told all of the time that modern writers need to keep a fast action packed pace to their stories.
So, my questions, how to build up a story without rushing the climax.
What pace do you prefer to employ? is it just a question of style, or does the genre set the pace?
Is there a place for new writers, breaking into the market, who don't write at breakneck speed?

[cleasterwood]

Ivy,
I know all about break neck speeds in my stories. I've been accused of it many times but I like fast-paced stories that lead us from one action event to another and speed toward the ending as long as they're plotted well. I try to start out with action and have it in at least every other chapter (some anyway) then I tend to create a few smaller slow paced scenes to give the reader a break from speeding toward the character's ultimate destiny. I get that from all the action adventure movies I watch and the stories I read. If the story is slowly paced, I tend to not finish it. Like Koontz's "One Door Away from Heaven". It was just too slow in getting to the point for me, even though it had good characters and was building up to it I just didn't feel like reading ump-teen pages just to get to some real action.

If you're interested in a good critique site with some helpful stuff in the forum, I'd like to suggest Rate Your Writing at http://www.rateyourwriting.com/ryw/layout.jsp . It's worked wonders on my writing.

[Leto]

Princess, it may also simply because he has limited space in his book. Here, some publishers as Fleuve noir, decide a book must be 250 pages no more no less. So sometimes, yes you have to rush toward the end. To avoid that, you may try to write your story at your own path and if it's too long to re-edit it enterely to bring some events earlier.
Fashion may be in fast-pace books, but some slower ones are still successful (especially in your style of fiction), don't force yourself to be fast-paced if you don't feel like it.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Leto makes a good point about space considerations. Some publishers do care about length, although here in the US it's more a matter of word count than page count (within limits, they can tinker with the format to get more in). So a book that seems to wind up a little too quickly may be written by an author with a contract, a deadline, and an editor breathing down his or her neck.

None of which should concern you at all if you are writing on spec.

Some of my favorite writers employ a leisurely pace. Some editors and publishing houses seem to tend toward long books where the story unfolds, layer after layer, in its own time. Others prefer a swifter pace, a more action-filled plot. There seems to be room in the field for everyone.

[I, Brian]

For my current work, "fast-paced" was intended to be a core element - I wanted to write in a way that an agent wouldn't be able to put the work down.

Now I read it as pulpy and rushed - I sacrificed detail and character to push a story forward more quickly, and now have to perform major surgery so that the characters are worth caring about - without adding extensively to the word count.

Good pace in the right places is good - but a big point to take into consideration is that a novel's tension rests on conflict and that can be slow and internalised rather than fast and externalised.

For example, in Dune, after the immediate Gom Jabbar melodrama in the first couple of scenes, Frank Herbert brings pace to the novel by showing the internal conflicts of a number of characters, as they face walking into what is so obviously a Harkonnen trap. Even when the trap is sprung, the conflict is almost entirely internalised.

"Fast-paced" I feel doesn't rest on external movement - fast ships, running characters, explosive scenes - but instead on setting up just the right amount of character tension, and cliff-hanger scene endings, to push the reader continually on.

2c.

[Princess Ivy]

I agree there brian, pace doesn't rest on the speed of external factors, but on the pace of chacacters etc. Thats the clincher isn't it? to get the speed right! I read some of my very old stuff (it emigrated with me). Its so slow its going backwards! I a lot more concice and to the point now, but i don't want to sacrifice the more languid pace of my work for bluntness. I think my work has improved as i've lost some of the floweryness of a fifteen year old girl and matured a little. but i won't over edit or compromise my style completely.

[Leto]

Originally Posted by Princess Ivy

I agree there brian, pace doesn't rest on the speed of external factors, but on the pace of chacacters etc. Thats the clincher isn't it? to get the speed right! I read some of my very old stuff (it emigrated with me). Its so slow its going backwards! I a lot more concice and to the point now, but i don't want to sacrifice the more languid pace of my work for bluntness. I think my work has improved as i've lost some of the floweryness of a fifteen year old girl and matured a little. but i won't over edit or compromise my style completely.

Princess, editing a text should be like make-up. Done meticulously but with a lightly hand (i.e. the painful way), it enlighten the beauty of your story, too much of it applied too fast (i.e. the easiest way), and it looks like a sad and old prostitute waiting for her last client years after retirement.
Certainly, your style have evolved, you've matured as good wine.

[Circus Cranium]

This is such a balancing act; you want the story to reveal its layers gradually, especially if it has some mystery elements to it, but you don't want your reader yawning. I hate to beat a dead horse, but my opinion is still that character development is the most important part. If I really fall in love with a character, I'll sit and read about him clipping his fingernails.

[aurelio]

I agree with Circus Cranium. What I point out to people is, wrapping chocolates and putting them into a box is boring, Lucy and Ethel packing boxes of chocolate is a classic (American) television moment. It also demonstrates that character, rather than plot, IS story.

Brian posted an excellent piece on Writer's Resources by Steven King entitled, Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully: in Ten Minutes. He talks about clarity in writing, among other things. It's excellent. I don't think a book need be fast paced, but if it gets too wordy I start to check out. I read Atwood's Oryx & Crake recently and kept finding myself wanting to skip ahead because she over-described every moment.

It seems that all media industries, literature included, think that they must now be hyper. There's this thought that, because of computers, the internet, TV, etc., people's attention spans are now impatient, but I can check out or get lost just as easily if too much is happening too fast.

All a writer can really do is trust their instincts, do what they feel is appropriate, then try it out on some honest critics.

[Teresa Edgerton]

There's an article somewhere by Orson Scott Card, in which he describes some of his early writing experiences. I don't remember the story he tells exactly, but this is the gist of it: the first draft of the book he was writing spanned generations but it was way too short to submit to a publisher. Yet the friend he showed it to for a critique not only hated it but complained that it dragged on far too long. Too long -- when it wasn't even novel length as yet? He went back, revised, fleshed some things out, and came up with a manuscript with about double the page count. He showed it to his friend. The friend said that the writing was still pretty awful, but at least it was SHORTER.

Card's conclusion was that longer can be shorter.

I think this applies to pacing as well. If you leave out the important things, the things that catch a reader's interest, the story will drag, no matter how swiftly the action actually proceeds, no matter how short the actual page or word count.

But what holds a reader's interest can change from reader to reader, so that their perception of the pacing of a story may be totally subjective. What one person considers tedious and meaningless diversion, for another that might be the meat of the story. While the first reader keeps yawning and putting aside the book out of sheer boredom, the second reads on steadily and eagerly and breezes through the story in no time at all.

[Leto]

Originally Posted by Circus Cranium

I'll sit and read about him clipping his fingernails.

Been there, done that.
Look at "Franny & Zooey" by J.D.Salinger as an english example, (ok it was a shaving). For the French-speakers, any description of Bérurier in a bathroom by San-Antonio will do the trick.

But, as a counter point of view of Aurelio theory, even the most vivid character won't be able to support a whole book without a plot (even the thinnier that is). Err, if you mean Lucy as in "I Love Lucy", the interest of the scene was not only in the script but also in actresses' and director's talents.

[aurelio]

I didn't mean to imply that one shouldn't have a plot, only that the characters should be, define, or drive the plot. I see so many people worry on and on about finding the "perfect" plot, and they neglect their characters.

Believe me Leto, I'm not advocating plotless storytelling. ---- EEEK!

[Leto]

You're not but believe me there's a classical tendancy to do bookks or movies without plot in France. They're boredom hell but - as they're made by media-attractive people- they get all the buzz even if selling poorly, and sci-fi (which usually has a plot) and thriller are considered as sub-litterature. Grr !

Sorry for the rant, that's one of my pet peeves.

[cleasterwood]

You really do have to balance everything and do it well. Just because you write a face-paced story though doesn't mean you have to sacrifice description, character depth, or the other key elements that make up a good story. And stories without plots--that's a little hard to swallow for me.