Pacing

Most games introduce a character in Act 1 and finish their arc by Act 3. Three hours, maybe twelve, and you know everything. Stardew Valley takes a different approach: You meet Sebastian in Year 1. He’s polite but distant. Year 2, you’re friends. He mentions his motorcycle. His family frustrations. Year 3, he confides in you about feeling stuck. Wanting to leave but being afraid. Year 5, maybe you’ve married him. He’s still smoking. Still a bit aloof. But he’s opened up in ways that took literal years of game time. ...

Perfect turn-taking is a myth. Real conversations don’t work like written dialogue usually looks: A: "I went to the store." B: "What did you buy?" A: "Milk and bread." Real conversations are messier: A: "I went to the store and-" B: "Did you get the milk?" A: "I was about to-yeah, I got-" B: "Because last time you forgot and-" A: "I got it! I got the milk." Real speech includes: ...

A slow burn doesn’t explode. It smolders. It’s the story that starts with unease and, over hundreds of pages, transforms that unease into suffocating dread-without a single jump scare, twist, or explosion. This is the hardest narrative mode to execute. Because you’re asking readers to stay engaged while denying them the payoff of immediate action. But when done right, a slow burn is devastating. What Is a Slow Burn? A slow-burn narrative builds tension through accumulation rather than escalation. ...

There are two ways to enter a pool: dive into the deep end or wade in from the shallow. Stories work the same way. A cold open throws readers into the deep end-action, conflict, mystery-with no preamble. A warm open lets readers acclimate-introducing character, setting, voice-before complications arise. Neither is inherently better. The choice depends on what your story needs and what your reader expects. The Cold Open: Immediate Immersion Definition A cold open begins mid-crisis: ...

The building is already on fire when your story starts. No explanation of who lit it. No backstory about the building’s construction. No context about why it matters. Just flames, smoke, and someone running toward the exit. This is in medias res-literally “in the middle of things”-and it’s one of the most powerful tools in storytelling. Why Starting in the Middle Works Traditional story structure suggests you introduce characters, establish setting, explain stakes, then deliver conflict. ...

The defining characteristic of a thriller isn’t violence or danger-it’s urgency. Every thriller, from spy novels to legal thrillers to psychological suspense, has a clock ticking somewhere. Sometimes it’s literal (defuse the bomb in 24 hours), sometimes metaphorical (solve this before more people die), but it’s always present. Time pressure is the engine of thriller pacing. Remove it, and you have a mystery, an adventure, or a drama. Add it, and suddenly every scene vibrates with tension. ...

You’ve felt it before: reading a book where nothing major happens on the page, yet you can’t stop turning pages. No explosions. No shocking revelations. Just a character walking across a room, thinking. And somehow it’s riveting. That’s micro-tension-the sentence-level creation of unease, anticipation, or curiosity that makes prose compulsive even when the macro-level stakes are quiet. It’s the difference between: “She walked to the door and opened it.” And: ...

Bad dialogue is characters talking at each other, exchanging information the writer needs us to know. Good dialogue is characters doing things to each other with words. Dialogue isn’t just communication-it’s action. Every line should move something forward: plot, character dynamics, tension, understanding, or emotion. If you can cut a line of dialogue without losing anything, it shouldn’t be there. The “Dialogue as Action” Principle Traditional writing advice separates: Action = physical events (fights, chases, building things) Dialogue = characters talking (conveying information, feelings) This is wrong. ...

Stories don’t move at constant speed. Sometimes you slow down to show a conversation in real-time, word-by-word. Sometimes you compress a month into a sentence. This is the art of scene versus summary-choosing when to zoom in with vivid detail and when to zoom out for narrative compression. Master this, and you control pacing like a dial you can turn at will. Defining the Terms Scene: The Close-Up A scene unfolds in real-time (or close to it). You show: ...

Most storytelling advice tells you to start slow: establish the ordinary world, introduce your characters, build context before introducing conflict. The Fichtean Curve says: screw that. Start with a crisis. Then another crisis. And another. And another. Keep escalating until you reach a climax, deliver a brief resolution, and you’re done. No leisurely setup. No patient worldbuilding. No gentle easing the audience into the story. Just: Crisis. Crisis. Crisis. Boom. ...