A slowing of the action for contemplation and observation gets the same response as Data Centers: not in my backyard. In genres where this is true, it can be a bit overwhelming if you’re used to writing stories that indulge in the slow and luxurious. Place the moment early, and readers suggest it get moved back.
Back more. You’re not quite there. Just a few paragraphs more. I tell you what, save it for another chapter. No not that chapter, either.
One perfectly fine answer is to never slow down the action. Never contemplate. Never observe. Many beloved stories take this route, but your contract with the reader is one between you and the fan. The contract should please you both. If as a writer, you believe in those slow moments, you need a way to make them work.
I was contemplating this as I beta-read another author’s chapter. As it so happened, over the previous week, I’d been rewriting my first chapter under the notes of beta readers, and I’d found myself overwhelmed for just this reason.
Now, I was reading someone else’s work, and I had the same thought my readers had: you can’t slow down here! I thought it, but I didn’t say it because I had my recent experience as context. Instead, I offered a different plan.
In most of the instances this came up, I agreed with the beta readers, but there was one moment in the story where I had to draw the line.
the sense of urgency the writer creates, it feels wrong for the character to slow down and take note of the world around her, but it’s not just about the character. If, as a reader, I’ve slammed my foot down on the gas, I don’t want to slow down either.
The trick is to connect the reader to the character’s motivation strongly enough that the reader begs her to slow down.
That motivation might be fear. In my story, it was exhaustion. Whatever the character’s to be presented in such a way that, should the narrative fail to tap the breaks, it would feel wrong to the reader.
In my case, the character had fled uphill and needed a moment to rest, but how I conveyed that was easily skimmed over, the importance easily missed. I needed the reader to feel his need to stop. I needed my character doubled-over, retching, and in pain. I needed the reader to beg him to take a moment and breathe.
Unless the reader feels that need to slow down, she’s going to want the story to keep sprinting forward. The slower moments are going to feel out of place.
Imagine yourself running a race where you’re desperate to reach the finish line and ask yourself under what conditions would you slow down or stop. What if you were lost? We’ve already mentioned fear, exhaustion, and pain. These are all reasons for slowing down without lessening the dramatic need to cross that line.
Other reasons mess with that dramatic tension. Maybe another need arises that’s more important than winning the race. Maybe you receive news that your motivation for winning has been stripped away. Even if that news turns out false, it messes with the momentum in a different way. I suspect that these causes need to be an intentional part of the story and more than a simple reason to slow the pace.
Once I’d clarified my character’s motivation for slowing down, I reviewed the passage. I stripped away any line I could and added a sentence or two to indicate his progress toward recovery. Hopefully, by inviting my reader to match her pace with my character, I’ve bought myself the time I need for that slower moment, but I need to avoid self-indulgence and get back into the race as swiftly as I can.
Your reader has bought into your character’s need to cross the finish line, and that’s why she protests against and change of pace. We need to help her buy into the motivation for slowing down and to feel that need without forgetting the ultimate goal.
— Thaddeus Thomas
I do the slow-down a bit different. At the end of the action scene, the group will take a short break to eat, get a drink, or carry on a short conversation.