Mastering Pacing: When to Speed Up and When to Slow Down

📚 Overview

Good pacing in a story is about controlling the reader’s experience of time. Some scenes should race ahead; others need room to breathe. A moment of suspense may become more powerful when you draw it out, while a passage that contains little conflict may need to move on quickly.

In this masterclass, Noah Charney will show you how to vary the pace of your writing, choreograph scenes and chapters, and recognize when your story needs to accelerate or slow down. By the end of this session, you’ll understand how to play with pacing so your book maintains momentum without exhausting the reader.

Schedule

EVENT

3pm - 4pm EDT

In this one-hour masterclass, you will learn:

Ways to vary the rhythm of chapters to keep your plot moving and your reader engaged
How to control the speed of a scene through sentence length, dialogue, and description
When to slow down important, emotional, or suspenseful moments
Techniques for moving through transitions or less important stretches without confusing the reader

There will also be a live Q&A with Noah where you can ask your own questions about pacing and controlling the passage of time.

Speakers

Noah Charney

Reedsy Professor of Writing

Dr. Noah Charney is the best-selling author of more than 30 of his own books, including a Pulitzer finalist. His latest book is The 12-Hour Author: Everything You Need to Know to Get Published and Become a Successful Writer (Bloomsbury). A professor of art history, he teaches online for the Smithsonian, the National Gallery (UK), and Yale. Noah has ghostwritten and edited books for Reedsy clients, and is Professor of Writing at Reedsy Learning.