Common Pacing Issues and How to Avoid Them

Pacing is everything in a hard-to-put-down novel. 

In the current market, readers prefer plot-driven fiction, which means that they prefer to read a story about a character overcoming a major obstacle by the end of the book. Yet when your book has underdeveloped sources of conflict, no clear plot, or characters that just aren’t likeable, the story’s pacing tends to be slow.

Here are the top causes of slow pacing in new authors’ novels—and what to avoid to create good pacing in your book.

Slow Pacing Issue #1: Summarizing the Action

“Showing” versus “telling” issues often cause pacing problems throughout the book, and reduces reader interest and engagement. This can be especially problematic when your book’s action scenes in the book fall flat in that they fail to effectively convey the action. Even when the action starts, if it’s glossed over with too much summarization and not enough action that visibly unfolds on the page, it’s a problem.

Do this instead: “Telling” by saying things like “she felt this” or “she felt that” removes the reader from the story. See 3 Ways to Show, Not Tell.

Slow Pacing Issue #2: Boring Action Scenes

Action scenes should be lively and exciting, read fast, and propel the reader forward. When they aren’t, this slows the book’s pacing to a drag, decreasing reader engagement.

Do this instead: Use shorter sentences and paragraphs to increase the pacing in these scenes. In faster action scenes or the book’s climax, the pace should speed up with shorter sentences and especially with shorter scenes. 

The most successful authors use many section/scene breaks during the book’s climax, guiding readers from scene to scene as all the climactic action is happening. Holly Spofford did a great job with this in her novel Hot Ice, Cold Blood.

Slow Pacing Issue #3: Unnecessary Scenes 

In fiction books, the plot goal/overall premise of the book is laid out at the start, alongside the conflict. 

In other words, the story’s plot/story structure reflects how to solve the “problem” of the central source of conflict. Each scene should show some character development or move the plot forward. If your book has scenes that don’t contribute to the book’s forward momentum, they need to go.

I find that this problem tends to occur most often in the middle of the book (known as the “saggy middle” issue), so pay extra attention here. Slow pacing in the book’s middle is mainly due to an unclear plot goal, which you need to set up in the book’s beginning.

Do this instead: Make sure every scene serves the plot. Set up your book’s plot goal clearly in the book’s beginning. Make sure to pay special attention to the middle, which tends to be the slowest part in indie authors’ books.

Slow Pacing Issue #4: Unnecessary Detail

Having a level of description in your book is good, but when it takes the author 3 pages to say something that could be said in a paragraph, your writing is not concise enough.

Furthermore—and this is something I’ve seen over and over—when explaining something your character is doing in your book, there’s no need to include the body part that the character is nodding, kicking, squinting, shrugging, and so on. You may not immediately notice it, but all those extra words slow the pacing of each of those sentences.

Do this instead: Trim it down to distill your writing. Be specific and use exciting verbs. Be sure your ideas and scenes are clear. When it comes to body parts and corresponding verbs, the book’s context might provide a hint on what body part a character is using. I talk about this in depth in my blog post Don’t State the Obvious.

Slow Pacing Issue #5: No Variance in Writing

If your sentences are all the same length, you have no variance or rhythm in your writing. This will make your sentences feel repetitive, leading to jolty writing. You need better rhythm in your writing—and the number-one way to achieve rhythm in your writing is to vary the length of sentences. 

Do this instead: Use a mix of short and long sentences to create beautiful prose. Offset longer paragraphs with short, one-sentence paragraphs, especially to draw attention to something. Try using longer sentences at the beginning of your paragraphs, and a short sentence at the end. See How to Vary Your Sentences to Create Rhythmic Writing. This is a big part of your author writing style.

You’re well on your way to creating good pacing in your fiction novel. But there’s one final thing to check…

Take a look at your book’s length

Different books in the fiction genre should be different word lengths. For example, fantasy books commonly top 120,000 words, where general fiction or romance usually fall in the 70,000 to 80,000 word range. 

Word counts can be helpful guidelines to how long your manuscript should be, but above all, your story should be as long or as short as it needs to be.

One Last Issue: Too-Fast Pacing

Although most pacing issues in novels are slow pacing, I’ll occasionally see a book where the pacing passes too quickly. This is almost always indicative of an underdeveloped scene.

When you’re writing a high-stakes action scene, your characters might experience tunnel vision, their heartbeat might be thrumming in their ears, and they might have the feeling that time has slowed down. See How to Slow Down Time in an Action Scene.

These are some of the questions I ask myself when reading a client’s manuscript for a manuscript critique:

• How does the pacing of the story feel? Does the book drag in spots due to excessive narration or from uninteresting scenes?
• Is the writing over-wordy or vague, slowing down the pace of the scenes?
• Are the scenes moving at a good clip to keep interest or do they need trimming?
• In faster action scenes, does the pace speed up with shorter sentences and paragraphs?