10.Pace

keep your reader interested

Pace is all about keeping your reader turning pages. It’s like taking them for a ride on the motorway with speeds ranging from 100 to 170 miles an hour. You move along nicely, feeling good, and look forward to getting to your destination.

Now imagine you take them for a jaunt down a country lane on a Sunday afternoon, where you drop down to zero when stuck behind a couple of cyclists for three miles, then shoot up to 70 as you accelerate past them at the first opportunity, only to drop back down to zero a few minutes later when you get stuck behind a horse...

Putting your readers to sleep, then waking them up for a spell, before you send them back to sleep again makes for an uncomfortable, jerky journey and they are likely to shut the book and pick up another one. So keep them interested. Keep them on that motorway with your foot on the accelerator, sometimes pressing down, sometimes letting go a little, and they’ll find the journey fascinating.