When fine-tuning the storyline, in addition to plot, you need to be aware of pace and clock. In the first of this two-part series, guest blogger Lynn Perretta discussed content editing and the importance of plot. In the second part of the series, she discusses two other elements of editing: pace and clock.
Last time I discussed ways to look at plot in editing. Today, I wanted to look at pacing and clock. These two very similar elements are vital to making sure that a story flows from beginning to end. One determines how your story moves. The other cues your reader when the story has begun and ended. It is possible that you have these two elements well established in writing your first draft, however for most people pacing and clock are determined and set when editing begins.
Pacing can be set a few different ways. The pace of the story may be set by how chapters are divided. If you have a story that is paced out by specific measures of time, days, weeks, months, and your chapters are divided accordingly, then your story’s pace will have a consistent feel. Pacing can also be determined by what happens in the story, regardless of time-frame. A detective story or other mystery may have chapters divided according to what clues are revealed. A romance may have chapters divided by romantic encounters. A character story may have chapters divided by unique interactions between the protagonist and other characters or significant events.
Because chapter pacing varies so much, how action is paced within chapters is vital. What sets pacing here are events. If you move from one tense event to the next, pacing will be faster and there will be little or no chance for the reader to release tension between scenes. This kind of pacing is good as you reach the climax of a story, but can become exhausting to read. Adding breaks in the plot allows for character development as the protagonist and secondary characters have to adjust to things that have happened. It also slows the story’s movement down. Depending on the story and what happens within scenes, this can allow a reader to relax or it can build up suspense as readers wonder when the plot is going to be picked up again. Writers have to be careful with pacing like this. If you get too caught up in what happens outside your main plot, your reader may begin to feel that the story is just meandering and like the book is becoming bogged down. I’ve put down a few books from a well-known author for this very reason. The story just started to drag in the middle. I still haven’t finished the books.
Once you have that balance of action and pause in your story, it is time to look at clock. For many stories, the clock will be your main plot. A mystery’s clock will begin when something happens or a detective is hired, and end when the culprit is found. A memoir will begin where the significant event that sparked the memoir starts and end when the event ends. It could encompass a whole life of a very interesting person or an extraordinary event that happens to an every-man/woman.
Sometimes your clock may not be the main plot. You may have a sub plot that actually sets the clock of your story, some series of events that begins when the story opens and carries through in the background until the end of the story. Perhaps your detective story doesn’t follow one case, but two or three. Your clock, then, may be your protagonist’s struggle with his new dry cleaner or the wait for the coffee maker to be repaired or replaced. The wrap up of this side event is what actually triggers the reader to know when the story has ended. If you have been receiving feedback that it feels like something just hasn’t been wrapped up, though nothing specific can be pointed at, look at the little events in your story. You probably have a clock you set unconsciously that, not realizing it was there, you didn’t wrap up.
One final note about clock: you don’t have to have a single clock in your story. It can set the beginning and end of a scene or a chapter as well. So a story may have multiple clocks helping to set time, and bleeding into pace. If it feels like there are loose ends or if you’ve done everything else in setting pace and it still feels like your story is disjointed or drags, check your scenes and chapters for tiny elements that may set themselves up as a clock and make sure they are resolved as well.
Sometimes a reader is just waiting for the ketchup stain to be cleaned up.
AUTHOR’S RESOURCE BOX
Lynn Perretta has worked as a freelance writer for White Wolf Games Mage: the Ascension (revised). Her writing credits include (as Lynn Davis): Guide to the Traditions, Initiates of the Arts, Bitter Road, and Cult of Ecstasy (revised). Lynn has also written a series of articles for Polymancer Magazine titled “I Was Thinking of Making My Character…EVIL!”
Lynn graduated Georgia State University with a bachelor’s in English – Creative Writing. She is currently working on The Shulim Cycle, a modern dark fantasy series that ties the distant past to the present, exploring predestination, fate, and hope. She writes her own blog, The Writer’s Manifest, and has started a project with her husband Nick called StreetWraith.net, dedicated to highlighting and discussing self-published works. You can contact Lynn on G+, Facebook, and Twitter.
Lynn was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but currently resides in Florida with her husband, their daughter Rebecca, and her cat Boo.
