* “pace” in Executive Power by Vince Flynn

Flynn has a number of plots boiling simultaneously, with uncertain outcomes in each. He switches among these actions, leaving every scene with a hook.

This is standard fare for a thriller; how will it work for my Heretic sequel?

What makes it a more complicated approach in a historical novel is the number of names and other information (beyond plot), which without great care can confuse and discourage the reader.

“pace” in Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

·     Follett’s purposeful ping-pong structure alternating between the characters forced him to slow down to show (in his words) “how the protagonists were reacting to each other’s moves,” and to include more enriched attention to “character, landscape and emotion.”

“pace” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     Pitt asks one very short question after another, each one 2-5 words. This not only shows his investigative style, it moves the background process swiftly along.   ·     Perry frequently alternates family scenes with investigative scenes, breaking the tension, showing more of what Pitt cares about

“pace” The Writer’s Chapbook edited by George Plimpton

 

·     Ernest Hemingway … I have tried to eliminate everything unnecessary to conveying experience to the reader. Anything you know, you can eliminate. But … if you omit something because you don’t know it, there’s a hole in your story.  ·     James Baldwin … the goal is to write a sentence as “clean as a bone”  ·     Georges Simenon … I cut adjectives, adverbs and every word which is there just to make an effect. Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You have a beautiful sentence – cut it.  ·     Elie Wiesel … I reduce 900 pages to 160 … writing is more like sculpture where you remove … you eliminate in order to make the work visible … there is a difference between a book which is 200 pages from the beginning and a book of 200 pages which began as 800 pages … the pages you remove are really there – only you don’t see them

“pace” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     even though it’s a short novel (117 pages), the story seems to drag, as long narrative scenes regarding Esteban and Uncle Pio are added. What does this all have to do with the collapse of the bridge, and with Brother Juniper, who has totally diappeared from the story?

“pace” in Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

·    Leisurely pace …This way Tolstoy begins Anna Karenina communicates immediately that this is not a novel about pace, but will proceed in a leisurely manner to wend its way through the lives and relationships of the many characters.  ·     Anna Karenina is widely regarded as the best novel ever written. So I’ve read over 400 pages, with another 400 to go, and I’ve had enough. The story is slow, boring even, with very little happening, and characters that are not gripping. Actually, it’s one long slow soap opera.   ·     Tolstoy’s descriptions of places are remarkable. His interior monologues are often revealing, although too frequent and too long for my taste.  ·     Bored, I have put Anna Karenina aside to be picked up later.