Your friend recommends a thriller to you and tells you it’s “a fantastic page-turner”. Another friend tells you about a sweet romance novel that’s a “gentle, slow burn”. Both your friends are describing something to do with the pace of the stories they’ve
enjoyed.
What is Pace in Fiction?
Pace, or pacing, is the reader’s sense of how fast the story is moving. A fast-paced novel keeps us on the edge of our seats, feverishly turning the pages because we’re right there in the action and desperate to find out what happens next. A slow-paced novel can be just as absorbing: we relax into the story world and enjoy the
gentle company of the characters, perhaps appreciating the beauty of the writing, too.
Pace isn’t about the timeframe in which a novel takes place. A novel could take place in a single day and still be slow-paced (James Joyce’s Ulysses is a good
example). Alternatively, a novel could take place across months or even years, and the pace could still be fast and relentless.
Having a short timeframe can potentially help the author increase the pace of the story, especially if characters are racing to achieve something before a deadline, but it’s definitely
not a requirement.
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