Writing with Pacing in Mind
So what is pacing? At first I had no idea and didn’t think it concerned me, so I forgot about it and went about my day. Now that I’m in the process of rewriting I’m reminded once again about the mysterious thing called: Pacing.
It took a little reflection about the reading experience to realize why it’s so important. You know when you’re reading and it’s an action packed scene and the main characters are fighting the bad guy, or when your characters are having a sweet moment and their world has come to a stop and you start to feel time slow down. It’s when you started on page 35 and somehow you ended up on page 65 with no recollection of how you got there…yeah that’s called pacing.
Pacing is defined as the speed and rhythm that a story is told.
Of course it has roots in Latin connecting to the word passus, meaning step or pace as a noun and in its verb form pandere, to spread out. I think it’s kinda fun. It’s connection to the words suffer passus sum, but I digress, this is not a Latin lesson but it always comes back to Latin. To step, pace or spread out, which makes sense in the context of the word in literature, how spread out are the steps of the story or events. Pacing is a big component in the mood of your story as well.
