Ann Voss Peterson on Pacing...

Guest blogging today is my good friend, award-winning author Ann Voss Peterson, who pens intense, emotional suspense and thrillers for Harlequin Intrigue. With her 23rd nail-biting Intrigue, A COP IN HER STOCKING, now on bookstore shelves, I think it’s safe to say Ann has mastered the art of suspense – and I’m delighted to have her here to chat about one of the most important writing techniques in a writer’s tool kit. Welcome Ann!

Thanks for inviting me, Linda!

Today I’m going to tackle a bit of a thorny topic but one that’s near and dear to my heart. Pacing. It’s one of the last things you master before you can write a book of publishable quality, and for good reason. Pacing can be tough. Is the story too slow? Too fast? What is just right?

There are a lot of articles out there featuring lists of tips and tricks for speeding up novel’s pace. If the story slows, kill someone. Add a ticking clock. Keep a secret. But I believe it’s more important to understand the WHY behind something than to just stick in a trick here and there. So in trying to understand pacing, I wanted to know why some prose feels fast and some feels slow. And this is what I came up with.

Pacing isn’t about speed.

That’s right. Pacing doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with how fast the action unfolds on the page. Think about it. We’ve all slogged through novels that felt either slow or sketchy and undeveloped. And it has little to do with genre. There are plenty of frantic thriller novels that feel as if they’re moving as fast as a glacier, just as there are literary novels or family dramas which don’t have a lot of exterior “stuff” happening, yet leave us breathless. So if a novel’s pace isn’t about speed, what IS it about?

The secret to pacing your novel is making the reader NEED to turn the page.

Well, I just happen to be a reader. I’ll bet you are, too. So in my quest to understand pacing, I asked myself what makes ME want to turn the page, and here are the four things I found.

1. Sequence: I turn the page to uncover what happens next. Stimulus and response.

2. Conflict: I turn the page to discover who wins.

3. Delayed Gratification: I turn the page to learn the answers to my questions.

4. Escalation: I turn the page to see how on earth the protagonist gets out of this mess!

That’s it. The secret to pacing. Those four concepts. Don’t believe it could be that simple? Think about the tips and tricks I mentioned above. If done right, killing someone is going to provide conflict. It’s also going to give those story stakes a boost (escalation). That’s why it can make a slow area feel faster paced. But it only works if the murder does those two things. If it doesn’t effect the stakes or if it doesn’t increase the conflict, it’s going to muddy your story instead of making the reader need to turn that page.

How about the other two tricks? The ticking clock is an example of escalation. The characters had to do something in your story (right?), and now they have to do it in a very short time span. Keeping a secret is an example of delayed gratification. The reader has to race through those pages to find out what the secret is or to see it revealed to another character. And of course, the character’s reaction to that secret is her response to a stimulus...sequence!

I give a workshop on how to use each of these things to improve the pace of your story in everything from the construction of sentences to the structure of the entire novel. Obviously that would make for an overly long blog post. :) So instead of me telling you ways to use these concepts to make your prose and your story FEEL fast, you tell me.

What makes you NEED to turn the page in books you read? Are any of these tips and tricks examples of sequence, conflict, delayed gratification or escalation?

To catch an example of the way Ann paces her novels, pick up her 23rd published novel, A COP IN HER STOCKING, a Harlequin Intrigue in stores this October. Also check out Ann's website at www.annvosspeterson.com

The Five "Ps" of a Successful Writer

As a young girl growing up in Minnesota, none of my childhood friends shared my dream to someday write a book. They thought I was silly and told me "real people" don't get to be writers. The adults in my life offered great advice, too. Writing wasn't practical, they said. Very few people can actually write a book. Instead, I should learn to be a secretary...or get married and have a family. That's what women did back then. Although I did see the merits of gainful employment and did do some of that over the years, as well as getting married--I never lost my dream. I persevered until I finally made the dream come true.

Now it seems almost everyone I talk to has a dream to someday write a book...and why not? Just living gives us all a lot to write about, and these days, there are more venues than ever to learn how to do it...and to get a book published. So, listen to your inner writer and go for it!

Start with an idea. Start with a goal. Decide what you want to write and then just do it. When I first started writing, I saw a list somewhere called “The Three Ps for Writers. I thought the list was great, but it missed a couple of important points, so I made a P list of my own. The Five Ps of a Successful Writer. I tacked it up by my computer screen and over the years have found it a helpful reminder, not only for writing, but for most things in life.

Since then, I’ve written 17 novels, had 13 published, and another is in the works... and I still keep the list nearby. If you’re thinking about writing, maybe the list can help you.

1. Purpose – successful writers need a purpose. It doesn’t make sense to spend hours and hours of your time writing something that has no purpose. Each of us will have a purpose that’s unique and personal. It might be that you simply want to see your name in print, or maybe you believe you have an important story to tell or, perhaps, you want to share some advice or make a social comment. Maybe your goal is to make the New York Times Bestseller list or, conversely, you simply like to string words together? For most writers, it’s a combination of the above. Whatever your purpose, I firmly believe that defining it can set you on a path to make it happen.

2. Passion – do you know of any successful creative writer out there who isn’t passionate about what they do? Passion is the driving force behind the words we put on paper. A writer’s passion shows in his voice and the authenticity of his prose. Passion is the reason one writer helps another, even though, in essence, we’re training our competition. Passion keeps us going when the words don’t come and the mountain seems insurmountable.

3. Persistence – not one author that I know was born published. And very few published writers I know have ever popped out a book in a weekend and then saw instant publication. Statistics show that in the traditional publishing world, it takes most writers an average of five years of writing and four-to-five completed books before getting “the call.” Persistence is related to more than time, however. To hone your craft, you need to keep writing. You need to persist in all areas whether it’s going to workshops on writing techniques or learning about the industry.

4. Patience - rejection from editors and agents is the norm, and taking it in stride is part of the road to publication. For some, the road is longer and more difficult than others, but few will deny the exhilaration when you reach your destination. And then, of course, it’s only the beginning and more patience than ever is necessary.

5. Pleasure – never forget why you write. You can’t have passion without pleasure and for most writers that pleasure comes from the beauty of the words and phrases we put together to create the story we want to tell. Writing is fun when you’re playing with words and looking for new ways to say the obvious. It’s fun to see our thoughts, ideas, characters and full blown stories come to life…and then give someone else a few moments of pleasure.

Whether you’re writing a story, memoir or non-fiction, it’s putting the words on paper that’s important. When someone else reads it and smiles, that’s the proverbial frosting on the cake.