A song on the radio made me reflect on story pacing: John Legend’s All of Me. The version I heard the other day was the sped-up remix. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, but it’s the first time I’ve listened to it trying to decide if it appealed to me more than the original version. Well, it didn’t; I like both. Yes, the words are the same and the music is the same, but the beat makes it a different song, one you’d listen to at the gym instead of at the edge of a fire.
Pacing reflects life: no one is always on the run, nor is anyone always laying still. Picking the present tense over the past tense, using two-lined imagery over drawn-out descriptions will change your story’s momentum. It can turn a slow romance into a relentless adventure, or a race to survive into a gentle, existential journey. Both make for incredible, indelible stories, both will leave a reader breathless.
Your plot is the lyrics, your setting is the music, and your pacing is the beat. Change the beat and you have a new way of looking at your story. Change the plot or the setting and you have a new story.