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Pace (narrative)


In literature, pace, or pacing is the speed at which a story is told. The pace is determined by the length of the scenes, how fast the action moves, and how quickly the reader is provided with information. It is also sometimes determined by the genre of the story. Comedies move faster than dramas; action adventures move faster than suspense. The number of words needed to write about a certain event does not depend upon how much time the event takes to happen; it depends upon how important that moment is to the story.

Storytellers have a number of writing tools at their disposal—for example, narration, action, description, and dialogue. When considering how to pace a story, description and narration will move it along slowly, steadily, and easily, while action and dialogue will speed it up. Of all the tools at a writer's disposal, dialogue is the one that most quickly puts the characters and the reader into the present moment, even more so than action. There are times when a scene should move slowly, so it is not always best to use dialogue. Reading slow-moving dialogue is preferable to reading lengthy passages of philosophical narrative.

While dialogue is the element that brings a story and the characters to life on the page, action creates the movement, and narrative gives the story its depth and substance. Writing a story means weaving all the elements of fiction together. When this is done right, weaving dialogue, action, and narrative can create a beautiful tapestry. Pacing is probably the most common fiction element to pay attention to when considering when to and when not to weave dialogue, narrative, and action. When creating a fast-paced conflict scene between two or more people, a writer might do well to consider only dialogue, at least for parts of it. Perhaps the characters have just entered into an argument and the writer wants to speed up the scene. There are scenes in all stories that work best using only narrative or only dialogue or only action. There are no definite rules about when to and when not to weave. To weave well is to find the story's rhythm.


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