The Role Of Pacing In Effective Story-Telling
Effective story-telling is both an art and a craft. The art is imagining a compelling story to tell. The craft involves determining the best way to relate that story to a reader in a compelling way. While art and craft are both essential for success, usually it's the craft that would-be authors struggle with the most. One of the most challenging aspects of writing a story is pacing, the rhythm of the story's progression. A badly paced story can make readers feel like they are plodding along towards the end. A well-paced story becomes a "page-turner," the kind of story that keeps readers engaged from start to finish.
Character Development
When it comes to pacing, it's not enough to simply relate a narrative. The reader must feel an emotional connection to the story and the story's characters. As film director James Cameron said in an interview about his movie, Titanic, "You have to find a key into the heart of the audience, which means you have to find universals of human experience and then express them in exotic new ways."
No matter how strange or outlandish a story's protagonist may be, there must be some human characteristic to which the reader can relate. This trait needn't be evident at the outset. Some of the best stories arise from a deeply flawed character whose redeeming traits are revealed as the story progresses. The term "character arch" is used to describe the pace at which a character develops over time.
Plot Development
A story of a character's journey from one spot to another is hardly worth reading unless the character encounters some obstacles along the way. Conflict not only drives character development but drives the story's plot as well. Change through conflict is the driving force behind effective stories.
Conflict without resolution, however, is ineffective. As important as action is to pacing, constant descriptions of action and conflict are not effectual in and of themselves. Both the characters and the readers need time to access the changes that conflict makes happen. For this reason, many writers pace their stories so that they build to a series of semi-climaxes, withholding the defining climax of the story until the end. This gives an overall arc to the story.
Economy
Economy is a basic tenet of modern writing. While Victorian writers often paused their narratives midstream to deliver observations, homilies and sermons about the human condition, modern readers see such interludes as interruptions to the story. A story-teller must reveal the story's premise within the confines of the story's plot, setting and characters.
This economy applies to dialogue as well. It is far more effective to reveal the character of a protagonist or antagonist through action than it is through expository dialogue. The reader will better respond to a character who proves his courage through his actions, for example, than to long speeches about how brave he is. Dialogue that does not advance the story or develop a character should be kept to a minimum.
Keeping the reader's interest while relating all the aspects of the story requires a careful manipulation of exposition and rising action, conflict and resolution, character development and climax. Effective pacing is an essential component of successful story-telling.
About the Author
Trained by such luminaries as Kay Adams, Christina Baldwin, Stephanie Dowrick, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Carol Pearson Joanne uses expressive writing & story-telling as a developmental vehicle, offering a variety of imaginative and engaging writing workshops. See http://www.therapeuticwritingnetwork.com and http://www.c-change.info for details.
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