How to pace your book

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During the last months, I wrote the first draft of my new book and re-read the last one. I learned more about rhythm, and noticed some issues and how to solve them.

So, here are some tips for how to pace your book!

1. Sections

The first thing you should do to pace your book if you’re an outliner is get an overview of how it is going to feel to the reader.

Where are the big moments, those parts where the plot really unfolds and important things happen?

Those are the stones you should start building from!

I suggest not putting two of those plot points too close together, or the pace is going to feel a lot faster than it should be.

I used a three-act structure for HASTAR and each act starts or ends with a big plot point. In the middle, I have smaller events and then fillers (like little chats between the characters where relationships are built, reflexive parts, and any kind of moment where their personality can be exposed without crashing against the plot).

1. Chapter length

A chapter should be 3000-5000 words long, or so the writing community says, even though it’s okay to think that your chapters can be as long as you need them to be.

At the same time, though, consider that a chapter that is 500 words long is a VERY fast chapter and is probably going to make your reader go “So? What happened here?”, which is something that my beta readers told me about my old book.

For TALE OF SPACE AND TAROT, before changing my POVs and shrinking them from 9 (nine!) to 6, I had many chapters that were really too short, and cut the breathing pace of the book way too much.

Being an underwriter I never struggled with caper being too long, but as a reader I can’t stand when a book has chapters that never end. They exhaust me, and even if the story is interesting, I have a really hard time understanding when it’s okay to put down the book and be sure to pick it back up again.

So, in conclusion:

In my opinion, the best books have an average chapter length of 4000 words max. Some chapters can be as short as 500 (these will give your reader a breather) and some can be a little longer (these are the chapters where big, long events happen, like a final battle or the ending, where you solve all conflicts).

2. Chapter openings

You can start your chapter in medias res (in the middle of the action), by describing something (the weather, a character, a landscape, a feeling), with dialogue, with shock, with a dream…

The ways to start a chapter are many! The only thing you should consider is this:

If the chapter has a plot twist in it, the kind of plot twist that will leave your readers in tears, start it slow. Your character wakes up to have breakfast, the weather is nice, everything is nice and slow and familiar. Build up the rhythm and give the reader a big shock.

If the chapter is the cont’d of a very anxiety-inducing chapter that you ended with a cliffhanger, then, immediately dive into the action.

3. Chapter middle

I’ve seen a lot of bestseller authors doing this (including visual media), but I just can’t stand it.

Don’t put backstory or lengthy explanations in the middle of fast-paced action!

I really don’t care about a character’s history if they’re going to die. I just want to know if they make it. You had a good a hundred pages to tell me what happened to them when they were a kid, so, why did you choose a crossfire to tell me their mom left them?

This will kill the pace and I’ll find myself wanting to skip this part just to get to when they fight back or die.

Instead, choose the body of your chapter to develop the action, solve it or make everything go to pieces; either way, follow your rhythm and never break it!

4. Chapter ending

The ending mustn’t be abrupt… right?

Well, it can be! Cliffhangers will make your book be a page turner, but don’t put too many, or the reader will easily spot where you’re going and the effect will be lost.

A sweet, longer ending is preferred for moments where your characters have having a serious, deep conversation, when secrets get revealed, when calm things are happening, or your characters are developing.

5. Ways to speed up your pace

Here’s a short list of things you could to to make your book a little faster:

• Find moments where you repeated concepts you have already mentioned and hit that delete bar

• Cut speculating/reflective moments

• Add plot twists

• Cut lengthy backstories

• Add stress-inducing descriptions of events

• End your chapters with a cliffhanger

• Cut filter words

• Emphasize your plot twists (through your character's reactions to them)

• Add more important events

• Cut descriptions of landscape, weather, clothes

• Write dialogue using as little tags as possible (It will read like a back and forth q&a, and it will give your reader the impression of watching a movie)

• Rewrite your fight scenes only describing their moves and using the five senses to describe quick details

That’s all! Hope to have helped!