Plot and pacing are two of the most important parts of developing your story. These are the backbone to the art of writing. Master both, and your story has potential to be an excellent one.
A plot is a sequence of events that give us a full narrative by the end of a story. Generally, it’s an outline that you’ve decided on ahead of time. Our minds naturally work in a narrative fashion, so the skills it takes to make a good plot are already built inside you.
Pacing is the speed with which the story moves. A lot of writers struggle with this, but don’t worry. Focus on developing a good plot and your pacing will come much easier. Harnessing this built-in sense for a story is the trick. Here are some tips to guide you in refining your plotting and pacing skills and refining your writer’s sense.
Tip #1: Brainstorming for your plot
If your story is character-driven, the pacing will likely be slower. If your story is plot-driven, it will probably have a faster speed, like a thriller or epic fantasy story. In any case, choosing a good plot that has potential movement anywhere you turn is advised. Narrow down your ideas to what has the best potential, until your concepts are sharp and specific. Combine these and shuffle them around until you have a concept you’re proud of. Make spotify playlists for your characters, create worldbuilding journals and drawings, collect photos from the internet that inspire you and keep them in a folder just for your project.
Inspiration is everywhere, and this is where good plots can start forming. The best plots happen when we sincerely want to tell the story. This is a noble art, and a really fun one when you aren’t rushing. Take your time, enjoy the process!
Tip #2: Outline your story
After developing all those great ideas, you want to be sure you won’t get stuck midway through your writing process. Start developing a scene by scene oversimplification of your book.
This is called an outline. An outline gets the hard stuff out of the way so you can focus on the fun part of writing. Your first task is choosing a starting point. Somebody gets stabbed, a relative dies, even some snappy dialogue can create action. From that beginning, continue summarizing each scene until you’ve come to the end. If you lose track of where you want to go, return back to the last place you did know. A lot of your plot will come to you as you’re writing, but this provides closure for when you think: “Oh no! I don’t actually know what I’m doing!” Yes you do. You have a plan for this. You had one from the get-go. A very flexible plan, but a plan nonetheless.
Tip #3: Consider the purpose
Review your outline and check for places where it gets too boring or where events are happening too fast to understand. If you keep in mind the purpose of both scene styles—fast and slow—it’ll be easier to decide where you need them. Slow scenes can serve to build the story, characters, and the setting. These are times when you’re slipping some calm conversation or character exploration of a space, another person, or concept. The fast scenes push your plot forward into new places, whether by revealing one information or getting us to a new place.
Tip #4: Art lies in suggestion
I love a good info-dump, but only in the right places. The amount of information given to the reader defines the speed of your pacing as much as the balance of slow and fast scenes. Decide ahead of time what the reader has to know and what can wait. As Robert Bresson puts it, “You can’t show us everything. If you do, it’s no longer art. Art lies in suggestion.”
The more you write and read, the easier it will be to know where to put what, when action is appropriate, and when your audience needs a break. Read the books that you can’t put down, pay attention to how they execute this. How much do they give you in the beginning? Is there a sense of mystery that they achieve? When in doubt, open your favorite novel. Keep it in your writing space. That trick has helped me get through some tough writing blocks in the past.
Tip #5: Sentence pacing
Once you’ve worked out all the kinks of the plot, and you get down to writing the book you’ve been so excited about, keep an eye for detail. Sentence variation is a great way to control how fast your scene is moving. As long as it takes you to read words aloud is how fast it’s happening in real time, and this is a great way to check how this affects the writing. For instance, when a character is in the middle of a fight, the writing would look something like this:
I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. My knee thrust up into his stomach.
He grunted, keeling over the pain, “What was that fo-”
I kneed him again.
Notice how the sentences that describe the hits to this guy are short, and there are only commas on the movement that would take longer to accomplish. For a scene that is character driven, you can imply hesitation in a reply by a long thought process in between the pieces of dialogue. If something feels choppy and stiff, writing longer sentences to add some variation in the shorter ones can help it feel fuller.
This is something you can refine in your editing process. Read your own work out loud. This is something I’ve made a part of my editing process after I’ve gotten the story down. You don’t have to get it right the first time! Anything can be changed or reworked, so the pressure is off. Plot and pace and enjoy writing that book.