How to achieve good pacing?

[wendybirdx]

I've seen various people talking about how visual novels are usually not well paced. While I understand the general concept and I know it's not too easy to explain so objectively, what would be good pacing to you? (Up to you on how you describe it, I just really am at a loss on how it would be ideally so I have no idea how to even ask properly).

[yoshibb]

It is kind of hard to describe. It's like this sweet spot where you need enough information for something to be believable but not too much to the point you bore the audience. In romances for example, suddenly having the couple being in love after two scenes together is a bit weird, but you don't want to go through fifteen long dates to get the point across.

The best thing I can suggest is don't stray too far from your plot. You can build characters and interaction through situations in your overall plot which will keep the story from becoming too overly long and tedious.

[RotGtIE]

I think people raise the alarm about pacing when they become bored or are uninterested with a particular scene or arc. Given how subjective personal tastes are, it is probably impossible to please everyone and there will probably always be complaints about pacing whenever anyone is less than engaged with a part of your story, even if that part is necessary or even enjoyed by other members of your audience.

The best I can say is to try to be loosely cognizant of it. You can kind of feel whether a scene is growing dull or an arc needs to get bisected with an intermission based on how you personally feel while writing and reading over it. If you're getting bored in the middle of writing a scene, maybe the audience is getting bored of it, too. If you're thrilled about what you're writing, there's a good chance your audience will be feeling it as well. Go with your gut - if things are getting stale, find a way to mix things up and make them interesting again.

[SundownKid]

One thing you can do is write an outline and plan it out. Then you can make sure the story doesn't drag on before you write it, because you will have the outline's plot points to go off of. You can also plan how long a scene will be and stick to that when writing it. I generally just use intuition, though.

Anyway, in the stories I've read where the pacing was bad, it suffered from problems like the plot, or characters of the story being too boring, cliched or stereotypical, which is an issue that you can solve in your outline. That is to say, make your story surprising so that the action and dialogue can keep moving along, without making it seem unfair to the reader. You can check out this and this for some tips on adding mysteries and plot twists.

[Mad Harlequin]

Something that might help is reading or watching (or playing, in the case of video games) that have what you consider to be good pacing. Ask yourself what makes the timing of certain plot events or revelations appropriate. (For example, "How much longer would be too long to delay X?") What would be inappropriate? Are there any possible alternatives the author could have pursued?

I've found that the more I ask myself such questions, the better my understanding of pacing becomes.

[Kailoto]

Extra Credits has a fantastic piece on how to properly pace all sorts of stories - although they're specifically referencing typical video games here, the same can be said for novels, film, TV shows, and yes, VNs.

[Katy133]

A thing I keep in mind when I plot out a story is this rule:

Every time you write an action-filled/suspenseful scene, follow it immediately with a slower, more conversation-focused scene. Both your characters and your audience need a rest between action scenes.

As an example, you can observe this used in my visual novel, Three Guys That Paint. It used this trick several times in it.

[trooper6]

A thing I keep in mind when I plot out a story is this rule:

Every time you write an action-filled/suspenseful scene, follow it immediately with a slower, more conversation-focused scene. Both your characters and your audience need a rest between action scenes.

As an example, you can observe this used in my visual novel, Three Guys That Paint. It used this trick several times in it.

On the other hand, Mad Max: Fury Road has almost no slower, more conversation-focused scenes throughout the entire movie...and even when they do have some, you always know the bad guys are on their way. The entire movie was one long stress ball. I found it very effective!

[Kailoto]

A thing I keep in mind when I plot out a story is this rule:

Every time you write an action-filled/suspenseful scene, follow it immediately with a slower, more conversation-focused scene. Both your characters and your audience need a rest between action scenes.

As an example, you can observe this used in my visual novel, Three Guys That Paint. It used this trick several times in it.

On the other hand, Mad Max: Fury Road has almost no slower, more conversation-focused scenes throughout the entire movie...and even when they do have some, you always know the bad guys are on their way. The entire movie was one long stress ball. I found it very effective!

I think what I loved about Fury Road was that they treated it like a horror movie in terms of pacing. The quiet scenes were filled with a build up of tension, which eventually culminated in action scenes that burned through that tension and gave the audience a release, only to start building that tension up again.