Perfect Pacing with Allison Brennan

 Welcome, Allison Brennan. I hear you have been working hard.  Please tell us what we can expect soon. 

I’m developing a workshop about writing thrillers and romantic suspense, and presented it once on line and once in person. I’ll be presenting it again at the RWA conference in Anaheim, and need to work through some bugs – namely, I needed more time!

So as I was going through my notes to figure out how to condense the workshop into a simple ten-point outline, I found this tidbit:

Years ago, I interviewed Linda McFall, former senior editor with MIRA, for something (I honestly can’t remember what!) and she told me once that what makes her want to acquire a book is 1) a great character she can root for and 2) perfect pacing. Likewise, she said, she can fix anything except character and pacing.

“Perfect pacing” doesn’t really say anything, does it? Fast, slow, it doesn’t matter—what matters is that the pacing is perfect for that story.

There are other editors who probably have other deal breakers and can fix pacing with their magic wand, but to me Linda nailed it about what makes me love a book – or a television show.

According to the Tennessee Screenwriting Association [LINK: http://www.tennscreen.com/thriller.htm], one of the pillars of a great thriller is tension:

“Tension must be maintained throughout the story through the conflicts (keeping it difficult for the hero to get what he/she wants) and through the writer's style and story pacing.”

Tension is, essentially, perfect pacing. It’s giving the reader enough conflict and information to keep them turning pages but not so much that they go into overload and hyperventilate!

If the hero gets what they want at the beginning of the book, there is no book – unless getting what they want sets up a chain of events where getting what they want makes their ULTIMATE goal unattainable (i.e. Monkey’s Paw syndrome, as well as subtext in dystopian literature, Star Trek storylines—perfect society with dark undertones, etc.) So then there really are two levels of goals and attaining one creates deeper, richer conflict.

What the hero wants can change over the course of the story. In THE PREY, my debut novel, the hero was a hired bodyguard. His goal was to keep the heroine safe while the police hunted down her stalker. When the killer goes after someone close to the hero, his goal changes to revenge—he now has a personal stake in finding the killer.

Tension means the reader does not know what will happen, or they think they know and it’s all bad for the characters they care about! Tension is largely psychological--something may or may not happen, depending on both things we know and things we don’t. Sort of like in 1980s horror movies, where you KNOW the teenagers are all going to be killed (or most of them) but you don’t know WHEN. So every time they walk on scene, you feel tense. Then when they survive three times, you feel relieved, then WHAM! They get beheaded and you scream. J … Tension is not necessarily action. When Donald Maass says “tension on every page” this doesn’t mean a constant state of action and reaction, just that the reader needs to be tense for the survival (real or emotional) of the characters they root for.

Have you seen THE AVENGERS yet? If not, what are you waiting for? One of the best movies of the decade, pitch perfect in every way from character to pacing to dialogue. Obviously, I’m not surprised – it’s Joss Whedon plus superheroes.

What I loved about this movie from a creative view was not just the special effects or the clear but complex plot, but how each scene built on the previous scenes, so that there was a constant state of tension without being overloaded in every scene. It was fluid and flawless and I can’t wait to go back so I can dissect it rather than simply enjoy it. You can learn a lot about pacing and tension from the movies!

But pacing isn’t just important in thrillers. It’s equally important in romantic comedies, for example. One of my favorite romantic comedies is WORKING GIRL with Harrison Ford and Melanie Griffith. Like THE AVENGERS, each scene builds on the previous scenes, so that you have a layered, textured, and flawless storyline. It doesn’t have superheroes or chases or explosions, but it has constant tension – is Melanie Griffith going to achieve her dreams, retain her integrity, and keep her man in the cutthroat business world?

In the world of television, crime shows usually focus on pacing because it’s critical to the genre. But comedies like NEW GIRL need pitch perfect pacing—it’s harder often because comedy is subjective, and you need to set up and tell the joke and immediately move on. No explanation to the audience. Great learning tools!

What movie or show have you seen recently where you were wowed by the way the story was told? I guarantee, it’s all in the pacing.

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