Tips & Tricks to Writing on Wattpad

5 Tips on Pacing

5 TIPS ON PACING

Hey guys look who finally updated this after like 10 months!


1) 'Slow scenes' vs 'Fast scenes'

I'll assume most of you read (if you don't- go visit the bookstore). I'll also assume (I'm doing a lot of assuming yes) that you've all encountered a part in a book (most books, actually) where you've felt nervous, or scared, or anxious.

It could be the moment in a Horror novel where the main character is thirty seconds away from get sliced into ribbons and used to wrap Christmas presents (yeah, I know, pretty disturbing).
Or in an Action movie where the detective is chasing the culprit down some dark, stinky alley and someone whips out a gun (we've all seen the 'you-kill-her-I-kill-you' circle of guns).
Or in a romance story where the main characters are about to give up on each other and you've basically lost all belief in love.

The moments I just named are mostly climaxes of novels, but these kind of 'fast scenes' or 'high-tension scenes' aren't always just at the climax. They should be sprinkled throughout the book and mixed with the 'slow scenes'.

You want a balance of both. If there are too many slow scenes, the book drags on, and on, and on, and on (strangers, waiting- I'll stop). If there are too many fast scenes- well it's like going on every roller coaster in a theme park one right after the other, no waiting in lines or five minute hill climbing, even some who loves roller coasters will end up getting sick of them. Or worse- not affected at all. What are you gonna do with that all surprising climax when everyone's already used to it?

Since I've already talked a bit about fast scenes, I'll explain briefly on slow scenes. They're exactly what they sound like- slow. Not boring, necessarily, but they're moments where the reader catches their breath after a thrilling chase scene, or tragic fight.


2) Is the scene where the main character washes her absolutely adorable, unbelievably fluffy and completely useless puppy really important?

Having slow scenes, and having useless scenes, however, are not the same. I don't care how much you adore the scene where the embarrassing Great Aunt Patricia comes to visit and wrecks more havoc than a hurricane, if it's not useful to the plot, get rid of it.
Useless scenes can hide in slow scenes so you have to be critical about whether or not your really need that scene in your book. All the parts in your book should contribute to the plot, or a subplot. It's hard not to write these scenes, especially if you're making stuff up as you go, so this can mostly be something you clean up while editing.

You might argue that your useless scene is character development, but is it really? Do we find out something about your character's personality or backstory that affects the plot? Or do we just learn about the fact that he really liked the muffins his grandmother used to make him before she passed away?

Don't get me wrong- you need slow scenes in your story. But you still need to be advancing the plot even in these 'catching-my-breath' moments even if it's in a subtle way that might not be evident until the climax.


3) Genres

Okay, obviously, your pacing will probably depend on your plot and genre. Usually romance and realistic fiction have a bit of a slower pace, because they're more about the characters and their relationships/personalities. Mystery, Action, Paranormal, Horror, etc are usually based more on the plot so they have a bit of a faster pacing. Of course, these aren't ground rules.

Your plot is what matters most in your pacing. If you have a plot that is simple, and more based on the characters, then your story will probably have a slower pace where everything seems deep and meaningful (think: The Fault In Our Stars).
If your plot is more complex, a web of conspiracies, or prophecies, or rebellions, then your pace might be faster, because you have to fit all of the plot without the book getting too long. (ex. Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner)


4) Summarizing a scene

A summary of an event is probably the slowest thing you can do in your book- which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If something isn't really important, but important enough that you need to mention it, or if it's something like a time skip, then it's best to summarize instead of drag it out in scenes. A summary of an event obviously won't be as dramatic as if it were a scene. For example, if two characters had a fight saying 'Sally and Jackson had a fight and refuse to talk to each other now' would be a lot less dramatic then if we saw the fight and everything they said to each other.

You can also use a summary for the characters to 'regroup' I guess you could say. Just kind of re-cap what's happened if the plot's a little complicated. I don't mean go through everything in detail, but the main character can think back to an event if it's related/important to what's going on at the moment.

Summaries, because they're less dramatic, are more or less a slow 'scene'. Be careful not to put anything that's too important to the plot in it, though, because it's a summary and given that it's probably a fair amount of detail at once, you can't expect the reader to remember everything.

Don't use summaries to replace all the slow scenes in your story, though, or else it'll be a lot of reading and not very much action for your readers.

It's hard to decide when to use a summary or a slow scene. For me, I usually use summaries mainly when I want to do a time skip, but have to answer some questions that I left in the previous question.

For example: In one of my books, the main character got in a fight with her parents so she went to stay with a friend. I ended a chapter with her showing up at her friend's house. Since her getting settled in the house wasn't at all important to the plot, I decided to time skip to about mid-day the day after. So I summarized what happened, because I had to answer questions such as what about school, and how did their parents/siblings react?

Summaries don't have to be long. If your character's watching a bullet wound get treated, you don't have to describe every ounce of blood that drips out of the wound and every tool the doctor uses- you can just say something like 'I winced at the howl of pain {character name} let out as the doctor pulled out the bullet.'

Summarize a part that would genuinely have no use to the plot, showcase of characters or development of mood. I also summarize when I have don't know how to write a scene, whether it be because everything I try is awkward, or because I don't know much about the thing I'm writing (ex. the extraction of a bullet).


5) Writing Style

How you write a scene can also affect how dramatic it is. For slow paced scenes, you can use paragraphs, longer lines, relaxed dialogue, etc. For fast paced scenes, use shorter lines, try to avoid big paragraphs, maybe use some exclamation points (in dialogue) or italics.

When I'm writing a fast paced scenes, I usually like to keep each 'paragraph' a line or two long. If I'm throwing in 'shockers' I like to put them on separate lines. Like this:

He slumped to the ground.

Blood pooled from his head.

He didn't open his eyes again.

...I don't know why I chose to do a death scene, but yeah, something like that for super dramatic moments to amp up suspense... I think I've killed off more people in this guide than I have in all of my books put together. And it's not like I never kill off characters either, since in one of my books, there were like five consecutive chapters that ended with a gun going off.

That kind of makes me sound sadistic. Or morbid.

...Oops.


Hope that helped. Sorry it took me almost a year to finally upload the tip about pacing. I've been a bit busy with school, writing and everything.
Next Tip: No idea, I'll check the requests.

~JJ :)