Writing Focus: Pace / Speed

The pace or speed that your story develops can be a key factor in setting the overall mood and can also add to the authenticity of your piece. Most of us don’t even think about how fast things are progressing whilst writing, but using pace to your advantage in your writing can give you an authentic and interesting piece!

What is Pace / Speed?

Pace or speed refers to how fast the events of your story happen. For instance, romances are often slow and stately, with the couple going through a typical courting period before becoming infatuated with one another, whereas a thriller novel about a kidnapping tends to start fast and keep up the fast-paced action!

Tips

The easiest way to create speed or pace relevant to your subject choice is to allow your writing to come naturally at first. Write your chapter as you would usually and then go back and read it aloud. Does it seem too rushed? Too slow? If it’s too fast, go back through and see where you can add in extra scenes that benefit the story. If it’s too slow, cut out overly-flowery description and unnecessary scenes. Be ruthless with your writing. If it doesn’t fit or slows down your story, then that will come across to the reader. Cut out what isn’t needed; add in where you feel the story is at the bare bones.

Prompts

Pace or speed can be difficult to control in your writing. Check out these prompts to improve the pace or speed of your stories!

1. Write a story of five chapters or more detailing someone realising they have a crush on a school friend.
2. Write a car-chase scene in a few brief paragraphs.
3. Write a scene where someone goes from having a good night to being involved in some form of sudden tragedy, using speed / pace to show the change in moods.

Stories

Mibba plays host to a multitude of stories, each with their own individual timelines. Check out the stories below for some effective use of speed and pace!

Controlled Demolition is a Pete Wentz AU fanfiction. Mr Wentz is Lucy’s history teacher and maybe something more. Using a fast pace works well with the subject matter, as student-teacher romances are often rushed, sudden and very hidden!

Writing about something as massive as cancer can be difficult to do at the best of the times, especially when you’ve only got one chapter to write in. The Perks of Dying does exactly this, however. A slow pace coupled with long sentence structure gives this one-shot depth and meaning that some fully chaptered stories cannot deliver!

If you’re looking to create an overall mood in a clever way, thencoupling speed or pace with word choice and sentence structure is something you should definitely look at using! By keeping your hand on the reigns, the speed or pace that you write at can be a fantastic tool with brilliant end results!

Special thanks to Airi. and Formaldehyde. for editing!