define Story pacing

[New Way]

I hear people talk about story pacing alot

In your opinion what exactly is the ideal pace for a story?

Is it subjective?

[dano]

Five!

[BKMDog]

There is no "ideal" pace for a story. Pacing is dependant on sooooo many different things. If I had to generalize though, I'd say that any "type" of pacing would be dependant on the kind of story being told, yes? Pacing too ( and I'm generalizing again, BTW ), depends on the effect you want to have on the reader, based the way in which the story is being told. Hope this helps.

[DannoE]

Pacing questions:

1. Do you have time to show the things you want to show?
2. Did you get away without "telling" more than 15% of the story?
3. Does it feel rushed?
4. Did you bore your readers?

IMHO, #2 is the most important, followed by #4. Good luck.

[Fred Duran]

Like BKMDog said, pacing depends on the style of what you're writing. If it's an action-heavy, bullets flying all over the place, tires screeching as the cops chase you down the freeway-type story, you're going to want a quick pace. However, if it's something like a real-life (eating breakfast, taking out the garbage, normal stuff like that), you'd want to slow it down a bit, because the reader would get confused if you're pacing the story extremely fast while the guy's going to the bathroom or something.
The way you "change pace" is, for comics, mostly done with panels. The shape, size, and number of panels on a page determines a great aspect of the pacing. Usually, a lot of panels (not an exhorbitant amount, though), with not a lot of dialogue will make a faster pace. Similarly, the less panels and the bigger they are, with more dialogue, the more of a slow pace you achieve.
At least that's what I've gotten from reading different comics.
Hope this helps.

Fred

[KH]

good pacing to me is an effective use of space.

that could mean how you shift form scene to scene.

that could mean using the right amount of verbiage to get your story across.

you don't tell a long winded, dialogue heavy, get everything you want your readers to know story in like two panels. you stretch it out. make them want more.

unless of course, that's the ironic point you're trying to make... :slap:

in the end i'm going to wager a nut that you can't practice it. you either got pacing or you don't got it.

[DannoE]

in the end i'm going to wager a nut that you can't practice it. you either got pacing or you don't got it.
You can definitely study and practice pacing. As always, a good place to start is with work that you like, both prose and comics. Find a pacing that you think is appropriate to both the medium and the subject matter and then pull apart the style. Make sure to take your fan-boy hat off and look at is like a professional who wants to know why others are getting work in a tough market. Why do the creators make the choices they make? What's dictated by the script, and what is driven by the art? These are things you CAN learn if you study, especially works by the same writer but different artists or by the same artist but with a different writer.

We all fall into little style things once we find what's working. The question then is WHY are these things working.

Here's an exercise: Read Daredevil: Underboss, Batman: Year 1, and any of the DH Conan reprints. Those are all excellent stories with radically different pacing, but each works. When you can answer WHY those pacing styles are appropriate to those stories and plot structures, then you'll be ready to experiment with different types of pacing in your own writing.

Man, it kills me that guys think you have to be born with this stuff. No one is a born writer. Good writers get there because of study and practice.

[AthenaRose]

Man, it kills me that guys think you have to be born with this stuff. No one is a born writer. Good writers get there because of study and practice.

I think you have to be born with a certain amount of talent in your given field. I can't draw for toffee, and I have no desire to learn, despite many people having told me that I could. I do, however, have an inbuilt ability to put words together in interesting ways. I can, of course, improve on that, and (thanks in no small part to yourself, Dan) I am working on doing so. I agree with everything you say about taking apart other people's work to understand how to produce better work myself. But my starting point is the modicom of talent I was born with, coupled with the desire to improve. If I didn't have the first, I don't believe the second would do me any good at all.

And I'm sure we can all cite cases of terrible writers who should never be allowed to wield a pen!

[Buckyrig]

I think you have to be born with a certain amount of talent in your given field.


Gotta agree with DannoE. I think that people who tend towards writing - or rather story construction in general - basically learn to intuit many story basics, like pacing, by reading, watching, experiencing stories.

[KH]

Man, it kills me that guys think you have to be born with this stuff. No one is a born writer. Good writers get there because of study and practice.

I'll call BS ...

It's like the difference between me and Vladimir Horowitz the great pianist. I worked my ass off at the piano for ten years and I never came close to playing like he does. Yes he practices his ass off but during those 10 years I bet I came close to practicing and listening to as much piano as one can possibly get.

I just didn't have the innate talent.

no matter how much you or i practice writing we'll never be as good as Henry Miller, Nabokov, Chabon, or whoever your favorite writer is. it just won't happen. think of your innate talent as your boundaries of what u can do and learn how to get there. only one way to find out what those boundaries are...

[Buckyrig]

I'll call BS ...

It's like the difference between me and Vladimir Horowitz the great pianist. I worked my ass off at the piano for ten years and I never came close to playing like he does. Yes he practices his ass off but during those 10 years I bet I came close to practicing and listening to as much piano as one can possibly get.

I just didn't have the innate talent.

Technical precision with a musical instrument involves motor skill...it's a flawed analogy. You could learn music theory however. We're talking about a capacity for understanding here. That can be learned, studied, improved. The differences are in individual affinity, which only affects how difficult it is for one to improve. Not whether or to what extent one can improve.

no matter how much you or i practice writing we'll never be as good as Henry Miller, Nabokov, Chabon, or whoever your favorite writer is. it just won't happen.

What are your criteria? There are technical aspects of writing involving structure, pacing, etc. Then there is the writer's personal depth of experience and openess and willingness to express him/herself. Here it starts to get philosophical.

think of your innate talent as your boundaries of what u can do and learn how to get there. only one way to find out what those boundaries are...

You can learn and improve the proper way to execute a story. The question of what to write, how to explore it, and what conclusions and/or questions to cull from it is a connected, but separate, issue.

[ampersand]

Here it starts to get philosophical.

And I'm sure none of us want that. I just think it's important not to bore your audience. So it's dependant of the kind of story you're telling.

[KH]

no no no. the motor skills are the easy of playing piano.

it's TALENT and i think that has a modicum of bearing on motorskills. You CAN practice your motorskills.

[Lovecraft13]

I like to tell a nice, slow story.

[Kep!]

Pacing is about how you, as the writer, get from point a to point b. Is it fast and furious?

P1 - Shot of two apes humping doggy style.
"In the begining, Man was more apelike and crude."

P2 - Same shot with two wanna-be mogals (think interns for Donald Trump) on the bosses desk overlooking Manhatten.
"Millions of years later...things haven't changed much."

Quick. Descriptive. Reader fills in the blanks and moves on to the next part of the story that may or may not connect directly to these panels.

OR, do you take time describing each and every step, comparing and contrasting the mating rituals of the earliest men vs. the Yale graduates? Does it take 22 pages just to explain that men are still too lazy (rushed?) to take their pants off their ankles when the opportunity presents itself?

That's pacing.

[Alexithymia]

i hear that harvey pekar is very good at pacing.

[Buckyrig]

no no no. the motor skills are the easy of playing piano.

it's TALENT and i think that has a modicum of bearing on motorskills. You CAN practice your motorskills.

But you are limited by them...the actual size and physical makeup of your hands, fingers, bones, muscle, tendons can be maximized, but have their limit. Storytelling is a function of the brain. Unless you have physical damage or an improperly developed brain, you can develop new skills. Sometimes the standard approaches do not work on some people...but often an alternate path will. This probably goes more to affinity. Some people absorb the written word better, some the spoken. Neural pathways can be built and improved by stimulating brain activity.

You can train to run a 4 minute mile and never do it because of physical limitation. You should be able to ace a math test if you prepare properly and enough. I don't believe the limitations of body apply to the mind.

[Buckyrig]

Pacing is about how you, as the writer, get from point a to point b. Is it fast and furious?

P1 - Shot of two apes humping doggy style.
"In the begining, Man was more apelike and crude."

P2 - Same shot with two wanna-be mogals (think interns for Donald Trump) on the bosses desk overlooking Manhatten.
"Millions of years later...things haven't changed much."

Quick. Descriptive. Reader fills in the blanks and moves on to the next part of the story that may or may not connect directly to these panels.

OR, do you take time describing each and every step, comparing and contrasting the mating rituals of the earliest men vs. the Yale graduates? Does it take 22 pages just to explain that men are still too lazy (rushed?) to take their pants off their ankles when the opportunity presents itself?

That's pacing.

Dammit!!! And I just spent a month studying NASCAR so I can write a story about the guy who drives the pace car!! :slap: :slap:

[Kep!]

Dammit!!! And I just spent a month studying NASCAR so I can write a story about the guy who drives the pace car!! :slap: :slap:
Funny story:
When I was ten years old I was wondering aimlessly around Brainerd International Speedway paying no attention to noth'n when I slammed into Paul Newman and the guy who was going to be driving the pace car in the day's race chatting up and not paying attention to me either. We all appologized and went our seperate way. Paul Newman won the race.

ok, not so funny, but amusing in context...I hope.

[The Anti-crest]

I think you have to be born with a certain amount of talent in your given field. I can't draw for toffee, and I have no desire to learn, despite many people having told me that I could. I do, however, have an inbuilt ability to put words together in interesting ways. I can, of course, improve on that, and (thanks in no small part to yourself, Dan) I am working on doing so. I agree with everything you say about taking apart other people's work to understand how to produce better work myself. But my starting point is the modicom of talent I was born with, coupled with the desire to improve. If I didn't have the first, I don't believe the second would do me any good at all.

And I'm sure we can all cite cases of terrible writers who should never be allowed to wield a pen!


I disagree. I am good with words, always have been as far as I can remember but I'm by no means fantastic and the only way I get better is by writing more.

The reason you cant draw is simple, not because you we'rent born with good eye-hand motor skills but because you haven't tried to learn to draw. You said so yourself, you arent that interested in learning it. That is why you can't draw. I'm willing to bet you LOVE writing, something about it is what makes you tick. If that thing had been discovered in drawing first, you'd be an artist.

I myself can not draw at all, I'm lazy and drawing is way to much work, learning to draw would take me years with where I'm at now and how much time i could focus on it, and thats just to be OK at it. I am how ever, very visual. I make crazy pictures in photoshop - not moronic mundane crap you see over the internet but stuff that is genuinely OK. I learned it because it was available and I had the effort to learn it.

Anybody can write. It isn't hard to do the things we do. You just need an imagination.

[The Anti-crest]

no no no. the motor skills are the easy of playing piano.

it's TALENT and i think that has a modicum of bearing on motorskills. You CAN practice your motorskills.

Motorskills are the hard part for me, I'm terrible at making my fingers hit the right keys. I haven't read sheet music in years, but i used to be rather decent at it. I love music and tried to learn to play my keyboard but gave up because my fingers couldn't do it, my brain could. thats what writing is like.

there are aspects of things like how open and honest a person is, his life experience, her understanding of people around them. The point is though, that the craft of writing is very much a learnable task. It doesn't ask you for anything outside of knowing which words to put where.

[Trey of Diamonds]

I have never consciously thought about pacing when I was writing. I just wrote and if it felt write I kept it.

Ok, those of you saying that explains things can bite me. :nyah:

Seriously though, I let the pace come naturally. The first thing to do as a writer is WRITE. Who cares about pace or structure or even plot for that matter. You can worry about the details once you have what's in your head down on paper. But if you don't get it on paper because you are worried about the pace then you're done.

[The Anti-crest]

I have never consciously thought about pacing when I was writing. I just wrote and if it felt write I kept it.

Ok, those of you saying that explains things can bite me. :nyah:

Seriously though, I let the pace come naturally. The first thing to do as a writer is WRITE. Who cares about pace or structure or even plot for that matter. You can worry about the details once you have what's in your head down on paper. But if you don't get it on paper because you are worried about the pace then you're done.


I try not to think about those things until after the first draft. But then I try to focus on them if I make it to a second draft.

[Trey of Diamonds]

Well said. The most important thing is to get the first draft out of your head and down on paper. (or in the computer :yawn: )

[KH]

Motorskills are the hard part for me, I'm terrible at making my fingers hit the right keys. I haven't read sheet music in years, but i used to be rather decent at it. I love music and tried to learn to play my keyboard but gave up because my fingers couldn't do it, my brain could. thats what writing is like.

there are aspects of things like how open and honest a person is, his life experience, her understanding of people around them. The point is though, that the craft of writing is very much a learnable task. It doesn't ask you for anything outside of knowing which words to put where.

An enormous expanse of the meadow had been mowed, and its already fragrant swaths shone with a special new shine in the slanting rays of the evening sun. The mowed-around bushes by the river, the river itself, invisible before but now shining like steel in its curves, the peasants stirring and getting up, the steep wall of grass at the unmowed side of the meadow, and the hawks wheeling above the bared meadow--all this was completely new.

from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina

The entire 20 page passage that this paragraph was lifted could be boiled down to, "Levin mowed the lawn."

I'd love to know which words are "right" and what their right "place" is in Tolstoy's version. Really. I have no idea.

:slap:

[Buckyrig]

You can. Ape it until you actually begin to do it yourself.

But to be honest, I think you are confusing craft and voice.

[The Anti-crest]

The entire 20 page passage that this paragraph was lifted could be boiled down to, "Levin mowed the lawn."

I'd love to know which words are "right" and what their right "place" is in Tolstoy's version. Really. I have no idea.

:slap:


The right words are the ones that arent "Levin mowed the lawn." That is telling someone what happened, what was quoted was showing us. That is craft, and it is something learned. Nobody comes out of the womb writing stuff like that.

Or do you believe that is the first thing Tolstoy wrote, ever?

[KH]

The right words are the ones that arent "Levin mowed the lawn." That is telling someone what happened, what was quoted was showing us. That is craft, and it is something learned. Nobody comes out of the womb writing stuff like that.

Or do you believe that is the first thing Tolstoy wrote, ever?

I'm not trying to refute that you can learn to get those motorskills better by writing a lot, reading a lot, editing your work, etc.

But I've read a lot of stuff in my classes from the other kids there. It's funny. By the end of the semester you know what you're getting from each one. One's a talentless hack, another's a budding Hemingway. There's never a surprise. They don't go from being a talentless hack to Ernest Hemingway over the course of the semester ... or their life.

But we do edit the hell out of each to try and make each other better. And the piece we're working on generally gets better. But that doesn't suddenly make the talentless hack the Hemingway and vice versa.

[The Anti-crest]

I'm not trying to refute that you can learn to get those motorskills better by writing a lot, reading a lot, editing your work, etc.

But I've read a lot of stuff in my classes from the other kids there. It's funny. By the end of the semester you know what you're getting from each one. One's a talentless hack, another's a budding Hemingway. There's never a surprise. They don't go from being a talentless hack to Ernest Hemingway over the course of the semester ... or their life.

But we do edit the hell out of each to try and make each other better. And the piece we're working on generally gets better. But that doesn't suddenly make the talentless hack the Hemingway and vice versa.

But how do you know ten years from now the hemingway will still be nothing more than what he is now, not having grown or learned and the hack wont find his voice?

All I know, and this I know for fact: Most of the people who have ever read anything I've written said I was a "Great" writer. I know there is more to learn. I know that I suck at writing. I look at what I type and the voice is there, the love of writing is there and the idea and so forth but the story is very poorly written. Even now as I struggle to get things write. I see words misspelled, awful grammar, misused punctuation. I see myself switching tenses mid sentence and I say, "I'm OK I guess." and get to work on the next story, I practice and get better each time out. I dont know if I'll ever be a great writer. If my words will ever inspire anybody or if my stories will ever move anybody. I hope so, thats why I keep trying. I have imagination out the ass though, I could be anything if it meant more to me. I could draw if I wanted to develop the skill. I could play guitar, I could becaome a pastor, I could do anything with my mind. Writing was just the one that won out.

[Troy Wall]

Anybody can write. It isn't hard to do the things we do.

Dude, you have to be kidding me. If that's true, then why isn't every book on the rack equal in skill? Why do I continuously reread books like Daredevil: Underboss and avoid some writers *coughJephLoebcough* like the plague?

Writing well is not easy, and certainly not everyone can do it.

[br0k3n2]

Okay I'm not a writer first off, I just wandered over from the artitst forums.

Story pacing at least visually is usually done in 3's. Writing is a bit different but the same ideas are present. Old School comics used to use a standard Begining, Middle, End pacing with nifty little hostess ads between sections. As the readers grew older and the invent of the specialty comic shop stories changed into arcs, which still follow the begining middle and end format. I just wasted alot of words to get to a very simple statement, this is why i'm not a writer. Now the pacing of stories in todays comics there are almost three stories going on in most comics. theres the cover story, the personal story and the payoff story.
the cover story is what you see on the cover, it's the self contained story (which are now done in smaller arcs),
there is the personal story where the characters personal life or supporting characters grow the personal almost always fuels the payoff by the way.,
and then there is the payoff story, the payoff is the main plot goin through the book. The big bad and such.

A good if not excellent story pacing device would be any season of Buffy the Vampire slayer. The seasons almost always start off with heavy cover stories, mixed with a light sprinkle of personal and payoff (begining)
Then the cover stories begin to be dominated with the personal stories, with a slightly heavier emphasis on the payoff (middle). Then there is the payoff stories that you've been building towards, which mostly excludes the cover stories and finishes on a more personal note or a lead up into the next arc.

I've noticed comics are using roughly the same format now, but instead of twenty one episodes, they use 12 issues. I would stay away from going too far over 12 issues by the way, then you get into gi joe/cobra commander type territory.

I hope my insight may of been of some help.

-Br0k3n2

[Hyenadoc]

I hear people talk about story pacing alot

In your opinion what exactly is the ideal pace for a story?

Is it subjective?

If you want to learn pacing, a good place to start is by studying structure. I know a few posts in this thread say not to worry about it, but I for one think structure's very important. Comics writing in particular needs to have a solid framework since it -- like screenplay writing -- is uniquely constrained to fit an exact number of pages (often 8, 12, or 22). Under these limitations, having a good structural foundation is essential -- at least if you're interested in mainstream comics. Indy comics can be as wild and "out there" as you want. :)

The type of structure most often used is what Hollywood would call "Three Act." You can readily find information about it online, but here's a very brief summary.

The 1st Act (beginning) establishes the characters and situation:

Captain America is celebrating his day off with a glass of whole milk instead of skim.

At the end of the first act is an "inciting incident," the problem that the protagonists must face:

Flag-Smasher crashes a plane through his front window! (Comics don't tend to be subtle).

The second act (middle) deals with the protagonist opposing the problem:

The two fight, trashing Cap's red white and blue pad.

And then there's another point at the end of the second act where something else happens to spin the story off in a new direction:

It's not really Flag-Smasher, but an android made to resemble him!

And finally the third act (end) wraps it all up:

Changing his tactics, the Cap manages to defeat the android, but new questions are raised: like who created it, and why? (cue ominous music)

This structure holds true for both individual issues and -- as br0k3n2 points out -- story arcs. In the example above, this whole issue could be the Story Arc's 1st Act, with the discovery of the mysterious android the inciting incident. Now this is an overly simple example that ignores other common conventions (B and C plots, for example), but learning to craft an effective tale using this basic structure will teach you a lot about pacing.

Now... if you're still at the point where you're concentrating on fundamentals (character, dialogue, etc.), then this isn't as important. In this case go ahead with the advice to write without worrying about pacing or structure. Focus on creating dynamic characters, situations and dialogue.

Good luck!

[Kep!]

Now... if you're still at the point where you're concentrating on fundamentals (character, dialogue, etc.), then this isn't as important. In this case go ahead with the advice to write without worrying about pacing or structure. Focus on creating dynamic characters, situations and dialogue.

Good luck!

I completely disagree with this. If you have your pacing down, the readers will forgive a blunder or three of dialog. BUT! If you have crap pacing, the reader will put the book down before he's done and never see that witty line at the end of the book.

As I noted earlier, however, pacing is not just about the entire issue, it's also about the scenes within. Comics, more than any other medium, can shift gears on a dime and shorten a moment to nothing or lengthen it to infinitium (infiTEDIUM?). Understanding that fact is critical. Next it's an issue of applying the right tools to the situation (again, I wrote this in my previous post) so that you take control of those scenes, not the scenes taking control of you.

Much of my earliest work was written to a short page count (4-8) and that makes for a tough mistress. All three acts have to appear in those pages or the reader WILL quit...often sacrificing character development or great monologues. Once you get the beats down, add those in, but start small and you'll have a foundation worth mentioning.

[Buckyrig]

Much of my earliest work was written to a short page count (4-8) and that makes for a tough mistress. All three acts have to appear in those pages or the reader WILL quit...often sacrificing character development or great monologues. Once you get the beats down, add those in, but start small and you'll have a foundation worth mentioning.

I've been writing a bunch of these (just for practice) as an exercise to tighten up my writing. It is quite a bitch.


Speaking of Three Act structure...anyone ever think of messing with that? Writing something in One Act?

[chrisjohnwagner]

I don't know a lot about this stuff, but I think the post talking about three act etc. is that not a formula or structure. I was led to believe that pacing was along the line of a game of follow the leader. The places your led is the structure of the story and how fast your led through walking, running, etc. was the pacing. I think I mentioned I had a very limited knowledge bout this stuff, so if I happen to be wrong I would appreiciate some correction