How Fast is the Story Pace?

Do you prefer fiction that starts slowly and gradually speeds up the story pace? Or would you rather read a story paced to rush you through an exciting journey from the first sentence on?

I like to start my stories in the middle of the action. I’ll catch you up on the details later. I bring you into the drama like a person entering a room where a teenage girl is about to pull the trigger on a boy she has a crush on. Why would she do that? Well, you’ll have to wait for me to finish my current Work in Progress (WIP) to find out. You won’t know the answer for sure until you read the third book in this new madcap series.

Some stories need extra time to set up. Alfred Hitchcock was a master of the slow introduction as seen in the movies Psycho and The Birds. But once the story is setup, it takes off at lightning speed. That’s because fantastic journeys are rarely languid. There’s simply too much to maintain a slow pace.

My other novels begin in medias res, which is the fancy way of saying in the middle of the action. Fulfillment opens the Christmas story in an unexpected place. Instead of starting with the Annunciation, it opens with Mary receiving a visit from the demons bent on preventing the birth of Christ. From the first sentence, you know this will be no goody-goody child’s story. It’s the frightening truth of the age old battle between God and his arch nemesis Satan.

Hags, my focus novel this month, opens with a young man who wakes up one night to discover a dead body in the dumpster behind his house. Steel Pennies opens with a teenager who discovers a human skull on the ground. By starting in the middle of the action, the author sets up a fast paced journey that carries you along from start to finish.

Check out Hags for only $.99 this month for your Kindle. It’s a great Halloween read. Please click here.

Novel Quote
“The man hovered about fifty feet above the parking lot behind Micah’s tiny backyard near the row of green dumpsters.”
Hags by Paul R. Lloyd