The Tao of Novel Pacing
Your novel should be like the nature of water. It should rise, fall, speed up, slow down, and rush toward an inevitable end. But above all, it must be a ride the reader doesn't want to get off of. To create the perfect ride you must perfect your pacing. If your scenes are filled with page after page of description then your pacing may be too slow. Maybe your novel is the opposite, so fast paced that the reader is going to end up with whiplash. The sweet spot is somewhere between description and dialogue, a perfect balance of the two. When I'm finished writing my outline at the novel's beginning stages I go through and what each chapter is. In the margins I write action, tension, or development . Action means the chapter is fast paced with a fight scene or something exciting happening. Tension means a tense point in the story that isn't necessarily action but isn't down time either. Development might mean character or plot. It's a point in the story where so...
