Pacing narration vs dialogue and action

Sentence length goes a long way toward pacing, so if your narrator uses a lot of short sentences, it can come across "fast." Dialog also tends to be fast-paced, usually because it's often short. You don't see too many long speeches in dialog.

I am curious in your "1 line of dialog per 6 lines of narration" comment though. This is a good way to give your prose a static feel, as everything will have the same structure. Why do you want it broken down this way? You can achieve slower or faster pace using either dialog or narration in any combination.

I've personally found the "dialog then a lot of thought, dialog then a lot of thought" structure often makes my prose read very choppy. In fact, I just rewrote the first chapter of my second book because it had this feel and it bothered me a lot. It doesn't feel natural to me, but like someone stopping to turn to the side to explain something, then start talking again.

I suspect the pressure to "think less" is because you're also getting this choppy feel and your instincts are saying there's a problem. I'd suggest letting your characters talk more so there's a better balance between internal and external dialog. You don't have to make your narrator chatty, but other characters can fill in the dialog for her.

Danthia said:

Sentence length goes a long way toward pacing, so if your narrator uses a lot of short sentences, it can come across "fast." Dialog also tends to be fast-paced, usually because it's often short. You don't see too many long speeches in dialog.

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Agree about dialog being fast paced. It takes me about half the time to read a page of dialog v. a block of narration, but it's interesting that you mention short sentences as being fast. I tend to read differently--in that long, winding sentences read faster, because commas pause for a shorter time than do periods. For me, the longer the sentence, the more it gives the feeling of rushed and leaves me mentally breathless (which can be a good thing). But people read things differently. I think when I read short or broken sentences, the rhythm is affected rather than the pacing, in that it feels slowed down but also staccato and abrupt (also a good thing, in the right situations). I think medium length sentences of varied syntax have the most natural feel for pace. They're easy to read and keep up with but also not abrupt IMO.

I am curious in your "1 line of dialog per 6 lines of narration" comment though. This is a good way to give your prose a static feel, as everything will have the same structure. Why do you want it broken down this way? You can achieve slower or faster pace using either dialog or narration in any combination.

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I agree it would be static. But unless you are going for that specific feel, I'd say don't give your prose this kind of deadwood staticky structuring. I agree also to use narration/description to affect pacing, but to allow whatever is natural for the character/story.

I've personally found the "dialog then a lot of thought, dialog then a lot of thought" structure often makes my prose read very choppy. In fact, I just rewrote the first chapter of my second book because it had this feel and it bothered me a lot. It doesn't feel natural to me, but like someone stopping to turn to the side to explain something, then start talking again.

I suspect the pressure to "think less" is because you're also getting this choppy feel and your instincts are saying there's a problem. I'd suggest letting your characters talk more so there's a better balance between internal and external dialog. You don't have to make your narrator chatty, but other characters can fill in the dialog for her.

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Makes sense. I pretty much agree. Let the story do what it does in the first draft. Pursue your instincts and revise on a more superficial, textual level in later drafts.

sunandshadow said:

I started writing a new story yesterday, it's going pretty well except for one thing. The main character thinks quickly and A LOT, but speaks and acts in a more minimal way. I'm having the problem that the stuff going on outside the character feels like it's putting pressure on the character (and me) to think less. So, I wondered if anyone had any tips on making a slower pace seem normal and comfortable - I want it to be about 1 line of dialogue to about 6 lines of narration.

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I've never even thought about this when telling a story. First, I believe that what goes on outside the character is the story, so the character has to adjust to the pace of the story, rather than having the the story adjust to the pace of the character.

I definitely don't try to control pace by narrative content to dialogue content. If a character has something important to say, I let them say it. Otherwise, the narrative keeps going until and unless the character does have something important to say. Doesn't matter whether the gap is six lines or six pages. Pace isn't affected.

I have the same rule for whatever the character is thinking. Thinking happens in narrative, and the character thinks as he needs to think. But he must be thining important thoughts, and almost all those thoughts must be about the story, which is happening outside him, not inside.

For me, pace is simply a matter of how often action occurs, not how often a character thinks or speaks. If you want to slow down the pace, slow down the action.

Given that you just started the story yesterday, I'd suggest not worrying about how the pacing is and focus on just continuing to make progress with the story. The pacing itself may not even be the problem--it may be just you adding extra detail in to get yourself going on the story. If so, that can always be edited out on the revision.

I think I would need to see a sample of what you mean by "thinking" here to give a real opinion. My initial thought, however, is that you might be giving more of the thoughts than you really need to. Granted, I'm someone who gets annoyed by constant italicized thoughts. I tolerate them better when they're worked directly into the narration.

I'm with Danthia, though, in that I tend to use sentence length to vary pacing. I also slow down dialogue by throwing bumps in between, but to be honest I'm never quite sure if my dialogue is any good. It's always been a weak point. I've improved greatly, but who knows?

I could probably offer more suggestions, but I'd really have to see a few hundred words in the area you're talking about to know what you mean. If you posted it in SYW I'd give you a crit, though.

Of course I have not read your story and am just taking a shot in the dark...

But my gut tells me you may be way way off here.

In the Uncle Jim thread, he states that a sentence, paragraph, and story is as long as it needs to be.

In terms of pacing and story progression, the ultimate driver should be what the story needs at that particular time. Similarly, it should be driven by what is 'best' for the story.

Sometimes, a line of dialogue is worth a page of narration. Sometimes a narrative paragraph is as powerful as a page of dialogue. It just depends.

If you try to adhere to some arbitrary formula, then your story is just going to feel 'off'.

Also, you mention that you started the story yesterday? You may be making the classic mistake of trying to write your rough draft and final draft simultaneously.

I suggest you simply write the 1st draft of the story with absolutely no thought for dialogue and narration. Just write it. Worry about length and pacing on the second and third drafts.

Mel...

I think that's a load of twaddle that doesn't even merit thinking about. Why bother to even work it out.

You put in whatever dialogue or narrative is required by the unfolding story and any dialogue/narrative proportion calculated at any random point where one happens to stop and count is no indicator regarding the success or failure of any continued writing that adheres to that count.

Counting dialogue/narrative proportions doesn't create any magic lantern.

Still, if it floats your boat....

sunandshadow said:

I wasn't trying to adhere to a formula, I just picked the 1:6 proportion to describe what I was seeing in my writing so far, and I think this proportion is appropriate to the story, it just needs tweaked somehow to make it feel right.

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sunandshadow said:

I wasn't trying to adhere to a formula, I just picked the 1:6 proportion to describe what I was seeing in my writing so far, and I think this proportion is appropriate to the story, it just needs tweaked somehow to make it feel right.

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I wasn't eating chocolate. I was just eating chocolate...

You are contradicting yourself.

Anyways, do what you like.

Mel...

sunandshadow said:

I started writing a new story yesterday, it's going pretty well except for one thing. The main character thinks quickly and A LOT, but speaks and acts in a more minimal way. I'm having the problem that the stuff going on outside the character feels like it's putting pressure on the character (and me) to think less. So, I wondered if anyone had any tips on making a slower pace seem normal and comfortable - I want it to be about 1 line of dialogue to about 6 lines of narration.

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Because the scenes your writing are so new to you, I'd let it develop some more then go back and analyze things like pacing and internal v external dialogue.

Don't you all agree that it feels unbalanced to read a story with one scene that's got a ton of introspection and the next scene has hardly any? Assuming the scenes have the same viewpoint character, it would make the character seem inconsistent to be thoughtful and 'mentally chatty' one minute, then taciturn the next. It's the same principle that says if you're taking turns between two viewpoint characters, the proportion of scenes they get relative to each other should be even throughout the book, whether that proportion is 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, or whatever. In both cases, the idea is not to follow the proportion rigidly, but to keep it in mind as a rule of thumb for constructing that particular piece.

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Nope, to both points.

I don't see any necessity at all to ensure any connection between the lengths of time a character 'reflects' on different scenes. There may be a lot upon which to reflect - there may be nothing, and all points inbetween.

Context, context - it all depends on context.

And re the viewpoint question, it all depends on the contribution of the particular character's viewpoint perspective to the unfolding story.

Despite your claim to the contrary you do give the impression in raising these points that you are tying yourself down to rigid parameters that are not necessary.

Why do you keep arguing the points if they're just things you 'keep in mind'?

Most folk don't even think about them.

sunandshadow said:

Don't you all agree that it feels unbalanced to read a story with one scene that's got a ton of introspection and the next scene has hardly any?

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Not at all.

I'm a thinker, constantly questioning and analyzing, but I also have periods where I don't think about much.

Characters are no different. Sure, they have certain traits, but even these will be in flux. No one is "on" all the time.

As far as pacing goes, just finish the story first then take a good hard look at what you've got. It's fine to keep certain things in mind as you write, but trying to apply mathematics to fiction is only going to wind up blocking you at some point. You'll put the formula ahead of the story's needs.

And that's not productive.

I agree with Bufty on this--how the prose looks proportion-wise isn't as important-wise as it is story-wise. It seems like you're focusing on the bark of the tree instead of looking at the whole forest. Pretty much, if you do a book entirely comprised of action scenes, you'll have a pacing problem even if you use your sentence formula. Pacing is a overall structural issue, not a proportion issue.

In Book #2, I had a huge pacing problem. I just threw action scene and danger scene one right after another into the story. I didn't understand how problematic this was until I read a thriller like that, and, despite all the action scenes, it was completely flat. The "valleys" of pacing, where things slow down give the reader a breather and allows tension and suspense to be built.

Which goes to Book #4, which was my last one. I was having a lot of length problems, so I broke the chapters in half. Instead of 8-10 page chapters, I had 4-5 page chapters. That small change showed up in the synopsis as the story being very choppy. I had to go through and merge two and sometimes three chapters together to eliminate the choppiness.

Using your example of a scene of introspection, if I had one of those in there, I would consider that a "valley" of sorts and think about what needs to happen in the next scene to bring up the excitement level a little so the reader stays interested. Artificial pacing control like the number of sentences or breaking the chapter to control pages may affect pacing in the wrong way because it doesn't take into consideration the flow of the story. It may even actual add additional blocks to to keep the reader from getting involved in the story.

sunandshadow said:

Don't you all agree that it feels unbalanced to read a story with one scene that's got a ton of introspection and the next scene has hardly any? Assuming the scenes have the same viewpoint character, it would make the character seem inconsistent to be thoughtful and 'mentally chatty' one minute, then taciturn the next. It's the same principle that says if you're taking turns between two viewpoint characters, the proportion of scenes they get relative to each other should be even throughout the book, whether that proportion is 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, or whatever. In both cases, the idea is not to follow the proportion rigidly, but to keep it in mind as a rule of thumb for constructing that particular piece.

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You seem intent of pounding this square peg into a round hole.

Many of us with years of writing experience and dozens of publications between us have told you that this is the wrong way to think about it.

The correct way to think about it is to look at what the story requires.

This is the 'art' part of writing.

The best analogy I can give you is to think of a story just as a chef thinks of a dish he/she is preparing.

As the chef is cooking they are constantly tasting and adding a pinch of salt here a pinch of pepper there as the dish comes to completion.

Writing is much the same, you start out with a set plan/goal, but often times as you write you 'taste' the dish and notice it is a little bland and could use a pinch of action here or perhaps it is too spicy and needs a 'slow' scene to give the reader a break before you hit them in two chapters with the jalapenos again...

I don't know how else to try to explain how trying to conform to a set formula/ratio is just plain wrong in most creative writing ventures.

Good luck to you.

Mel....