5 Tips to Help You Pick Up the Pace

Readers are also less likely to pick up or continue reading a story that they feel "drags." Here is some advice on how you can prevent your story from falling behind.

Author:
admin
Publish date:
Mar 11, 2008

In today's world of commercial/popular fiction, most readers expect stories to move along briskly. Readers are also less likely to pick up or continue reading a story that they feel "drags." Author and fiction columnist Nancy Kress explains the five methods to move quickly through your story. As Kress explains, "As the speed of communication increases, so does a reader's desire for fiction that rewards by starting quickly and moving at a cinematic pace."

Here are 5 quick tips you can use to pick up the pace:

1. Start with something happening or the promise that something will happen.

2. Move from the end of one scene directly to something happening in the next one.

3. Cut and/or combine scenes.

4. Use exposition to describe events subordinate to the main action.

5. Eliminate pointless repetition and overly involved sentence construction.

Learn more about picking up the pace of your novel with:
20 Master Plots