This chapter will focus on the Pacing and Organization of the story, and how it will fit into your plot.

"I'm sorry if my question is confusing or if I seem stupid (because I can be), but what is a good pace for a story? It seems to me that when other authors have a long story, each chapter has its own point, and I'm still as interested. But when I try to keep my story slow and cover details, it seems pointless like I'm just throwing random stuff around. Do you understand what I'm getting at? I don't. I'm not even sure what kind of answer I'm looking for, so I guess I'm hoping someone out there in the world will have some advice. Please shed some light or whatever it is that you do with situations like these..."

Oriole Says:

I completely understand what you are talking about. For me especially, I am terrible at details.

When it comes to the question of pacing, I feel like so many people struggle with how the story reads, and that has to do with flow. To be honest, there is no black and white for what to do, but here are some things I find helpful:

1.      Imagine the scene in your head. I do this mostly when I’m in the car or in a class. Imagine the scene and how it acts out. How it acts out is the natural flow of the story. Adding details comes in later when you feel certain things need to be explained.

2.      Determine the most important details of the story. For a scene when two love interests meet each other, the scene should be about them. There is no need to write about a blender when you could be focusing on how they come in contact with each other.

3.      Rule of Thumb: if it feels like too much, it probably is. You already know what the story is going to be like, not your readers. However, when I first started out, I thought ever detail I put out was boring. So really, I learned by trusting my instinct, and that’s gotten me pretty far.

4.      Plan. I always come up with objectives to cover over the chapter. Each chapter should be a little story: with an exposition, rising action, , and denouement. If it doesn’t, you should elaborate a little bit on it.

The natural pacing of your story will come from the genre, the plot, your grammar and the emotion you put behind it. For example, an action story or comedic story will have a faster pace than those of drama or angst. So depending on the genre, that also correlates to the detail you put inside the story. A comedic story tends to rely on dialogue and situations to entertain a reader, while an angst story tends to lean toward a more thoughtful, detail- oriented situation.

My thinking is, if you’re not comfortable with details right now, I would lean more towards with ominous third-person, comedy or light humor stories. Also, a great exercise is to write an entire story with no dialogue, from a first person perspective. This will not only give you a chance to fine-tune descriptions, but also, you will develop a certain enjoyment for it.

Rima Says:

First of all there is no such thing in this advice column as a stupid question so long as you truly have a desire for the answer behind it. I do understand what you are getting and and actually this is a very good question as well as an issue that I myself have had problems with. To set a standard for the pace of a story is something you really can't do because it is subjective. The pace of a story depends on the story itself. My advice is that you should write what feels good. Stop when it is feels right and describe as much as you want without trying so hard on enforcing it. I know this advice is vague and I'm sorry for that.

I can say with certainty this, worrying about your story's pace and comparing it to the pace in other stories is what I like to call the evil editor voice. You know that voice that pops up when you write and makes you question everything. Did I have enough dialogue? Will people like that phrase? Is my pace too fast? And so on. Do your best to ignore that because it doesn't serve you any good but to doubt your ability.
In summary your pace is what feels right to you. It is something that is hard to find and is different for each story. All you can do is trust that as the writer you know what is best.

"How do you organize your thoughts/emotions and place them into a story?"

Oriole Says:

Oh my, that is a good question. For me personally, the emotions in the story are the most important. I guess I could say that for me to organize my thoughts, it would take a while to write down, so I’ll just give a list of what I do.

1.      The story in question has to have a good strong foundation moral as well as an emotional foundation. This not only helps with the plot structure, but also with conflict, conversation topics the characters might have, and also the flow and pacing that we talked about before. The idea of a story is to teach us something, and for that to happen, we must know what the material is.

2.      When I find a specific emotion or moral that fits the story, I become that emotion. Re-live it if you must. One time I wrote a story on going insane, and I ventured back into a time in my life that reflected my feelings towards sanity. The best way to organize feelings is to be them.

3.      Make a list. Lists, even if not written down, will save you. Many times I wake up with an idea at three in the morning.

4.      Imagination. What is the story like in your head? What do the characters think? How do they feel? How would you feel? How can you express this emotion? Remember, honest emotions are the deepest, don’t lie to yourself.

The best places to put emotions and thoughts in the story, I find, is when detail isn’t needed. For example, developing characters is a great reason to put emotion in; don’t make the character 2D. Other places to put the thoughts are: conflicts, dialogue, the of the story, when you sense holes in a character, and between major parts of the story. Also, I find it’s nice to end certain parts of a story with streaming thoughts.

Also, be honest. Each character you make should be a reflection of you in some way. Humans are the best research material, look deep inside of you and find certain dynamics. 

Rima Says:

This is a interesting question. I have a couple of different methods, depending on the story and how tired I am when I'm doing it. A favorite method is to doodle out my thoughts. I will take a blank piece of paper and doodle whatever character is in the story or a scene while on the side writing down details of the story. I then take that and make a mental out line in my head of how the story should progress. I also have a habit of making a playlist of songs that match moments in my story, be it epic or mellow, and listening to the songs, or song, over and over as I write or draw.

Actually a lot of it is daydreaming though. In my mind I arrange my story and figure out what I want before stashing it in my mental file Cabinet of stories. Looking at what I've wrote I realize that my methods are a bit strange, but I hope that gives you some insight on how my writing process works.

Thank you so much for asking, and we hope we helped. If you have further questions, we would be more than happy to follow up.

With Love,

Oriole and Rima