What are some pacing techniques?

2.) Summary:

In a Summary, Narrative Time is greater than Discourse Time. We write about an event that may take a long time and, well… summarise it rather quickly.

Use summary anytime there is narrative info the audience needs to know, but it isn’t all that dramatically compelling.

You can think of writing In Summary as ‘Fast-forward’ on your remote.

Example:
Susan wandered the woods all day.

3.) Flashback:

We all know what a flashback is, so I won’t spend too much time describing it. But I will take a little time to describe when it is best-used and how. And if you’re just itching for more, check out this article where I take a deeper dive into flashbacks.

So, when is the best time to use a flashback? It’s wise to avoid flashbacks at all costs. The only reason to include a flashback—its only function— is to clarify an otherwise confusing moment in the story’s narrative present. It is there to give the audience only info that is 100% for them to grasp a moment’s significance that’s happening in the narrative present. That’s it. None of this traipsing down memory lane ‘just cause.’

We can write a flashback in Scene or in Summary, or even a mix of both. But it’s wise to keep it as brief as so the audience doesn’t forget what’s happening in the narrative present, so writing In Summary is your go to. Only the parts of a flashback that contain a key turning point ought to be rendered In Scene, and dialogue alone will suffice.

Basically, think of a flashback as ‘Rewind’.

Example: When she’d first left early that morning, her sister had warned her of the weather and the potential to get lost in it.

‘Supposed to be bad. I’m telling you—it’s not safe.’ 

4.) Stretch:

When we Stretch a Scene, we use a technique called Infolding, where the character retreats into their thoughts and feelings as the scene plays out.

So, Narrative Time is slightly less than Discourse Time.

When we stretch a scene, we focus on the character’s their thoughts, feelings, and visceral reactions to whatever is happening around them. Our thoughts and feelings often move faster than we can process them, so it’s okay to spend a little more time teasing out the character’s interiority. But a page or more of interiority—while acceptable in days past—is excessive for modern audiences.

You can think of Stretch as ‘Slow-mo’.

Example:
Her sister had seemed so old in that moment, and an image came to mind that made Susan uncomfortable: she envisioned, unbidden, what her sister would look like in death—and realized this image wasn’t far from what she herself would look like.

5.) Pause

When we Pause a Scene, we stop the story altogether to get exposition or describe a character or setting. Narrative Time = 0 (because no time in the story itself is passing) and Discourse Time = X (however much time and space we dedicate to the description).

Pretty simple.

As with Stretch, Pausing is best used sparingly. In fact, if you are going to use it, make sure it’s to emphasise a story feature that is both:

a.) captivating

and…

b.) essential

Pause is, well— like the ‘Pause’ button. Or–better yet—it’s almost like a ‘Pause’ and ‘Zoom-In.’ Its function is to emphasise, to draw attention to elements that are most important.

Example:
Susan saw in that prospective coffin her sister largely as she looked now, only the streaks of silver in her hair had spread and deepened, as had the lines running from the edges of her nose to the corner of her mouth.

6.) Ellipsis:

An Ellipsis is when the story skips ahead in time and often to a new location. Writers use either a dinkus (***) or white space and an un-indented first paragraph to indicate an Ellipsis. And, while it’s fine to use a dinkus, I find white space transitions much less obtrusive. Just saying.

In Ellipsis, Narrative Time = X (whatever amount of time has passed) and Discourse Time = 0 (We spend no time writing about what happened between the end of the last scene and the beginning of the new one). My favourite parallel is the Later… bubble often at the top of a comic panel used to indicate a time skip.

Ellipsis is like Summary because it is a time saver, the difference being that we only use Ellipsis when whatever happens between the end of one scene and the beginning of another is neither interesting nor important for the reader to know to understand the story.

Think of this as the ‘Skip’ button.

Example: As her reverie faded, Susan was startled to discover a sign for the forest path she’d been looking for. She sighed and set off in the direction the sign indicated. (White Space Transition here; next paragraph is not indented)

When she noticed the curling smoke from her chimney, she followed it with her gaze down to the front porch where her sister stood bundled, waiting for her, cocoa in hand.

7.) Montage:

A few quick images or scenes in a sequence with time gaps between them. It’s actually like a montage in all the old cheesy 80’s films—just, ya know sans music.

Using our TV remote metaphor, you can think of this technique as hitting the ‘Skip’ button then ‘Play’ a few times until you get to the desired scene.

Example: (An alternative to the Ellipsis from the previous example)
The already chilly air grew colder still. Snow in her eyelashes, sluicing into her collar. An eruption of goose bumps across her skin. Trees all around her—once familiar– transformed by snow, then made familiar once again. And the ever-present, endless crunch-crunch-crunch of her boots in the snowdrifts. 

The Final Word

All right. Now that you’re familiar with the techniques themselves, here’s a simple rule of thumb for when and how to use them:

1. Is your story dragging in a particular area? Try writing more in Scene, in Summary, and using Ellipsis to keep the pace quick, light, and engaging.
2. Is your story moving at a breakneck speed? Does a particular scene need time to breathe? Write in Scene as often as possible, of course, but lengthen those scenes using Stretch and Pause. Instead of Ellipsis, consider a more leisurely, impressionistic transition—a Montage! And be sure to break up In Scene writing with a bit of Summary to prevent reader fatigue.

Well, that’s all. Try using each of these techniques to construct a full scene in the comments, just like I have in my examples!

Happy writing!

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Most writers will be aware that pacing is important, whether in a short story, a novel or across an entire series.

But what exactly is pacing? Why is it so important? And how can you make sure you master it in whichever kind of story you’re writing?

Pacing in fiction refers to the speed at which a story unfolds – its rhythm and flow, the rise and fall of its plot points and events. Basically, it’s how quickly or slowly you’re telling the story to readers.

Well-considered, controlled pacing is important, because without it, a story will feel uneven and disjointed. Parts that are too fast risk rushing readers through and losing impact, while parts that are too slow risk boring them.

It’s important to balance faster- and slower-paced sections in your work to create a story that flows seamlessly, develops plot and characters effectively, and engages readers consistently.

Let’s dive into some quick tips on how to achieve just that!

1. Break down the structure of your story

Whether you have an outline or plan for your story, or you’ve already completed your first draft, one way to work out how pacing should flow is to break the story down and examine the pieces closely.

Scrivener’s scene and chapter cards are a useful way to do this, but you can also hand-write or type out a basic breakdown yourself. All you need is the main events of the narrative mapped out in the order they occur.

Doing this will help you see where you need to increase the pace and ramp up tension, where you can afford to slow things down a little, and how the narrative rises and falls over the course of the entire story.

It will also allow you to see whether the pace is uneven or inconsistent in places, and identify where/how you can smooth it out.

If your story follows a common structure such as the three-act structure, breaking it down to its components will make it even easier to identify where high/low/fast/slow points usually happen in these types of stories.

2. Use sentence, paragraph and chapter length to influence pace

One of the easiest ways to control pacing in your story is through the length of your sentences, paragraphs and chapters.

In a fight scene, for example, you want to keep things fast-paced and exciting.

To achieve this, use short, choppy sentences and shorter paragraphs to keep readers’ eyes flying over the words. Perhaps end the chapter on a cliffhanger to keep them flipping pages, desperate to find out what happens next.

In a slower-paced section, on the other hand – perhaps one where you want to delve deeper into a character (more on this below) – longer sentences and paragraphs will be more effective.

You can also afford to be a little more lyrical rather than strictly economical with words in these sections, allowing the prose to slow the pacing a little by encouraging readers to linger over every word.

3. Use heightened detail when you want to slow things down

Another way to slow down the pacing – especially for a single moment that you want to highlight – is to heighten the attention to detail.

Think of a slow-motion movie shot. This kind of shot amps up the focus on each visual aspect, allowing the viewer to experience a single moment in exquisite detail.

You can utilise a similar technique and achieve a similar effect in your writing.

This sort of ultra-slowed-down moment is perhaps most effective when juxtaposed with an otherwise fast-paced scene, adding interest and drawing attention to a climactic moment.

4. Use introspection to develop character and control pace

Never forget that character development is just as important as plot development in fiction. An exciting plot is all well and good, but it will mean nothing to readers if they don’t understand or care about the characters involved in it.

Character development through introspection can reveal motivations, provide understanding and a sense of empathy, and overall help you craft believable characters.

Introspection slows down the pacing of a story, but if this is done deliberately and carefully as a counterpoint to faster-paced scenes, it can be extremely effective.

Techniques like internal monologue and stream of consciousness can work well here, provided they’re utilised in the right place – the middle of an action scene, for example, isn’t the best place to launch into a long paragraph of character thoughts.

When done right, though, diving into a point-of-view character’s mind is a great way to control the pace of the story while contributing to their development into a fully fleshed-out character.

5. Ask yourself what’s necessary to include (and what isn’t)

When editing your novel or story, one of your aims should be to strip the story down to its essence. To do this, you need to ask yourself: is everything I’ve included absolutely necessary? Does it contribute to plot, character development and/or reader experience?

When you identify areas where the answer to this question is ‘no’, you’ll often find that those are the sections that suffer from lagging pacing.

The old ‘kill your darlings’ mantra comes into play here. Sometimes, you might have a piece of prose or a character interaction that you personally love, but that doesn’t really serve much of a purpose – and slows down pacing as a result.

In those cases, you need to be honest with yourself and brave in your editing, and cut out what isn’t necessary for the sake of your story’s pacing.

(In the case where something can’t be removed entirely, making use of summary-style writing could be a good way to include it in a cut-back form so as not to slow pacing too much.)

Despite all the above advice, we know that self-editing is a subjective art, and that you sometimes can’t see the forest for the trees when pruning your own work. That’s where our next point comes in!

6. Ask critique partners/beta readers for feedback in this area

If you aren’t already working with beta readers or critique partners on your fiction, we strongly recommend that you do so. Pacing is an area that can be vitally improved by the feedback you’ll gain from these relationships.

When briefing your beta readers and critique partners before sending them your drafts, be sure to ask what they think of your story’s pacing – specifically, if there are any areas where they felt the pacing lagged, was rushed, etc.

They will often pick up on this themselves, just through a general feeling that something was ‘off’ about the pacing of the story.

This is valuable feedback, as it comes primarily from a reader’s perspective, rather than an editor’s. This means it gives you a good idea about what your general readership might feel about the story, and affords you a chance to fix any issues before your manuscript goes to the next stage.

7. Don’t assume ‘good pacing’ means ‘fast-paced’

Our final tip is more of a warning: never assume that in order to master pacing in your story, you must make everything fast-paced.

This is a common misconception. While many stories whose pacing is ‘off’ can be put down to slower, ‘boring’ sections, just as many find trouble when pacing is too fast, or when there are no slowed-down sections at all.

Yes, part of mastering pacing is ensuring the story doesn’t lag and readers don’t get bored. But the answer to this isn’t making every single scene fast-paced.

The goal is for pacing to be even and consistent, and to serve the story in the most effective way possible – and sometimes this means slowing down is necessary.

Slower-paced scenes are as essential as fast-paced ones. As well as allowing for character development and insight, they give readers a chance to ‘catch their breath’ after fast-paced, gripping scenes, and provide much-needed contrast.

***

Which books do you think are examples of masterful pacing? How do you go about achieving consistent and effective pacing in your own work?

Share with us in the comments below!

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Hands are intimate things. Like eyes, they can be windows into our souls. They can reveal our inner thoughts and feelings, even when we’re trying to hide them.

Our histories can be revealed by our hands – from the callouses on the fingertips of a guitarist, to the finely manicured nails of a runway model.

Since they’re such an important part of how we interact with the world and communicate with each other, hands can be an important part of storytelling.

Writers can use descriptions of hands to show who their characters are, rather than simply telling the reader through bland exposition.

It’s important to use variety in descriptions by focusing on different parts of the hand, or even accessories such as gloves or rings.

There’s also a danger in making descriptions too static, focusing only on what hands look like. Using gestures can help with this, while also bringing life to the characters in a scene.

In this article, we’ll look in detail at all these elements of what hand descriptions can do for your writing, including how to make your descriptions pop using metaphorical language (which isn’t always as hard as it seems)!

Tip #1: Think about what you want to show

When a writer takes time to describe something in detail, they’re telling the reader: pay attention to this, it’s important. So when you describe a character’s hands, think about why this detail is so important.

Hands are an important way you can show the reader details about your character, rather than just telling them through exposition.

The details of hands can reveal as many things about a character as your imagination can create. For starters, descriptions of hands can reveal a character’s:

• History
• Background (work or otherwise)
• Age
• Emotional state.

If a writer introduces a character with ‘strong, calloused hands clenched into fists’, we can see their emotional state (probably anger or tension), and infer their work history (probably a form of manual labour from the callouses and their strength).

You might infer a character’s age by mentioning hands that are frail, wrinkled or lined deep with creases. You might infer important parts of their history by mentioning a scar, a tattoo or even a missing finger.

The bottom line is to be intentional about the details you show your reader. Think about the why: what is this detail accomplishing for my story? How does this detail reflect my character?

Tip #2: Use props to add flair and personality

There’s no need to get too caught up in figuring out how to show details about your character through just the innate qualities of their hands. Using props gives you another huge toolbox of ways to reveal information.

What is a prop? A prop can be anything not innate to the character’s body, such as:

• Gloves (gardening gloves, sailing gloves, leather biker gloves, satin dress gloves)
• Rings (wedding rings, magic rings, decorative rings, a king’s or knight’s signet ring)
• Bracelets or wristbands (a festival wristband, a medic alert bracelet, a friendship bracelet)
• A bandage, wound or prosthesis
• A fitness band
• What is coating their hands (chocolate, flour, blood, dirt, magical residue).

As you can see, there’s a huge number of possibilities for using props to reveal all kinds of different character traits.

Combining the right details with the right props can help you to nail a character introduction, or even cleverly drop hints to the reader about a character’s past.

Varying the ways you show details about characters in this way can make your writing more engaging and vivid. The right use of props can make characters feel truly alive.

Tip #3: Use variety

Variety is important. Using a wide vocabulary breathes life into the things you describe, and using variety in what you focus on in descriptions keeps them fresh.

If you introduce every character in your story by the hardness or softness of their hands, it can begin to feel all too similar. Instead, you can find different things to focus on.

One character might have dirty nails, another delicate wrists, and so on. The different parts of the hand present many opportunities for variety.

Some parts of the hand you might focus on in a description include:

• Fingers (slender, clever, thick, clumsy)
• Fingernails (dirty, manicured, chewed)
• Knuckles (bruised, prominent)
• Wrists (slender, strong, bony)
• Shape of the hand (thin, heavy)
• Size of the hand (large, delicate)
• Texture of the hand (rough, soft)
• Colour of the hand (pale, tanned, a faint line where a ring once sat)

Remember to vary your descriptions to keep them fresh.

Tip #4: Don’t just describe static hands – use hand gestures

Hands do things, and what they do can show the reader just as much as what they look like. Gestures can give life to both a character and the world they inhabit.

Using action in your descriptions can make them more engaging to read. It will also provide extra information about how your character relates with the culture they live in, since hand gestures are culturally informed actions.

In Anglophone countries, for example, putting your thumb between your index and middle fingers is considered a ‘got your nose’ gesture – a game played with children where the adult pretends to have stolen the child’s nose. This gesture therefore comes off as playful.

However, in Turkey, this same gesture is considered insulting and disrespectful. A tourist trying to play ‘got-your-nose’ with a child in Turkey says a lot about that character with just their hand gesture (they’re out of place, unfamiliar with the local culture).

Similarly, the way in which a character makes a gesture can convey how they relate to the culture they live in.

A squeezing, over-long handshake might convey a character who is domineering. If they’re wearing a business suit, this might then convey a character who values success through beating the competition.

Alternately, a character in a business suit who offers a limp, brief handshake might suggest a character who struggles to fit in with these cultural norms.

Tip #5: Make descriptive language pop with metaphor

If we’re talking about the business of describing hands, we shouldn’t overlook the importance of symbolic writing techniques like metaphor and simile to make descriptions pop.

At first glance, metaphor and simile can be hard to get a handle on. What makes the difference between a good metaphor and a bad one can be a bit obscure.

Luckily, there are some tried and true methods for making these writing techniques work. And when they work, they can bring an entirely new dimension of life to your writing.

First, let’s look at what makes a metaphor or simile good or bad. Consider a character at a plant nursery introduced in the following way:

His hands were calloused like old roots, and dirt was wedged beneath his fingernails. “Hi,” he said, looking up from the plant. “What are you looking for?”

Compare this with the same scene described differently:

His hands were calloused, his skin grown hard like the armour of a tank, and dirt was wedged beneath his fingernails like bits of corn chips. “Hi,” he said, looking up from the plant. “What are you looking for?”

Good metaphors and similes:

• Flow well with the scene
• Add to contextual information (such as a character’s personality, or the broader scene)
• Avoid overuse
• Are intuitive
• Help readers understand the image.

Bad metaphors and similes, on the other hand:

• Feel out of place
• Clash with contextual information (such as contradicting a character’s personality, or the atmosphere of a scene)
• Might be overused in a scene
• Are clunky and unintuitive
• Get in the way of readers understanding the image.

A technique for coming up with metaphors that suit a scene is to think associationally: think about the image you’re trying to describe, and then think about things that look, feel or act similarly, or are otherwise associated with the scene.

For example, the character’s skin in the example above might be likened to the hardened bark of a tree trunk or an old root. The more effective an association your metaphor has with the scene and character, the better the metaphor.

In the above example, the metaphor of ‘old roots’ is physically associated with the hardness of the character’s skin, as well as with their personality as a gardener, and the scene of the nursery.

Layering associations like this can help to build stronger, more vivid scenes.

Tip #6: Don’t overdo it

As with any writing technique, if you spend too much time describing the hands and hand gestures of various characters, it will be offputting to your reader.

Don’t feel like you need to cram in every bit of information you can. Vivid writing doesn’t come from the amount of detail you give the reader, but from the careful placement of detail.

As a result, when you find your writing lingering on a character’s hands, think about what this detail is truly doing for your story. Is it giving personality to this character in an important way? Does it further the plot (perhaps it is an important clue in a mystery)?

Keep in mind that the same technique can work very differently in different kinds of stories. For example, if a writer introduced their character like this:

Jack was an office worker. He had clean hands, of average size. They were strong enough to open a stubborn pickle jar in a pinch, but he rarely found himself able to win an arm wrestle amongst his friends.

This description might suit certain kinds of stories in the right situations. It works when the writer is trying to emphasise how normal this character is.

Perhaps Jane, Jack’s wife, is a famous adventurer and the writer wants to emphasise Jack’s contrast to her.

Or perhaps it is not an adventure story at all, and the writer simply wants to signpost to the reader to expect that this will be a story about everyday things, and everyday people.

It might even be the opening of a horror story, where emphasising how much of a normal person Jack is only heightens the terror when unexplainable things start happening to him in his otherwise perfectly ordinary life.

However, in other stories, this introduction to Jack might actually not work at all – namely if it doesn’t give readers any effective or useful insight into the character or story.

It’s also important not to overdo the description of hands as physical objects. Notice how in the example of Jack above, the description works in various ways of describing his hands.

For example, you can describe strength through how many arm wrestles a person is able to win, or whether they’re able to open stubborn pickle jars or need to turn to a housemate for help.

You don’t need to describe everything with painstaking detail – this scene might not work as well if the writer decided to instead describe the moderate but noticeable bulge of musculature and the veins clearly visible along his hands.

However, for a different kind of story, this kind of description might work better. In an action story, focusing on the physical traits of a character can paint them in an intimidating light, whereas talking about how many pickle jars they can open would simply be comical.

Tip #7: Practise putting it all together

With any good description, there’s a lot of thought going on behind the scenes. It can be difficult to pull off successfully.

The best way to learn how to handle so many elements at once is to practise putting them all together with short exercises.

You could try some of the following exercise prompts, or come up with your own:

• Describe your current protagonist’s hands. How are their history, their personality and their physical characteristics present in what their hands look like and the way they use them?
• If you were a character in a story, how would the writer describe your hands? In what ways do your hands reflect your life and personality? (And in what ways do they not?) What would be important to describe in a story, and what could you leave out?
• Think of a character from a book, TV show, movie, video game etc. that you like. Write about what it would feel like to receive a handshake from them. How does this reflect who they are?

If you feel like you have a particular weakness in your writing, home in on that specifically.

Perhaps you feel fine describing a character’s hands but you never think to use props. You may like to take some of your old descriptions and think about what a clever use of props might add to these scenes.

Or perhaps you struggle to come up with different ways of describing things. Try brainstorming a list of different hand descriptions, just letting your imagination flow. You might be surprised at what you can come up with.

Using these top tips, hand descriptions become more than just a moment of exposition, but a tool that in the hands (pardon the pun) of a skillful writer can bring vibrancy and personality to any story.

Being able to carefully integrate details like these is essential to writer’s ability to show things to the reader rather than telling through exposition.

The use of props is an often-overlooked part of this kind of description, and can be used to further add variety and relevant information to a scene – whether it’s a wedding ring (or lack thereof) on a man’s finger, or dirt-covered gardening gloves.

It’s important to also remember all the different parts of a hand that can be described. This helps prevent descriptions from becoming monotonous and focusing on the same things.

Hand gestures are a great way to add detail to a character’s personality. Since hand gestures are culturally specific, they can reflect what culture a character is from and how they relate to that culture (or others).

Hand gestures also give life to scenes by showing how characters move rather than solely focusing on what they physically look like.

Good metaphor and simile is a vital element of any kind of description. It adds clarity to the image the writer is trying to evoke, while creating interest and variety for the reader.

Speaking of variety, it’s important not to overuse this tool – an obsessive focus on hands might drive a reader mad!

Finally, it’s important to remember that practice makes perfect. Writing is challenging work at the best of times, and crafting quality descriptions for your scenes is no exception.

There are so many elements to consider and it can feel overwhelming. The best way to feel confident in your ability to juggle all these is to practise, practise, practise!