Asking for tips on making slow-pacing interesting

[DaisukeHanashi]

I currently write a rather slow-paced story that mostly involves in exploring things around the word (or rather, the future time of the same world), and I'm worried if it becomes like a drag to some (or even most readers).

There are some rather intriguing events happened around, but it wasn't really much of a nitty-gritty to her specific aim.

 

[ElijahRyne]

I currently write a rather slow-paced story that mostly involves in exploring things around the word (or rather, the future time of the same world), and I'm worried if it becomes like a drag to some (or even most readers).

There are some rather intriguing events happened around, but it wasn't really much of a nitty-gritty to her specific aim.

There are two things you need to make sure you are doing. 1. Avoid exposition dumps. This doesn’t mean have no exposition, what it means is have the exposition come from the environment and dialogue (whenever doing so makes sense) exposition dumps are a last resort. 2. Make sure that every chapter gets you closer to a plot/character goal, or, if possible, have every chapter have its own plot/character goal. A slow story is fine, a unmoving one is not.

 

[Terrate]

Try adding "Progress" in such a slow pace. Like your main character having a goal. let's say your main character's goal is to earn 100 points, maybe by exploring he earns 1-3 points, add variations on how they get that points. Because if the story is too slow without any progress, the readers might start questioning what's the point of all these words when it never amounted to anything.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Use condom . . . or have your nuns go into the red light district trying to convince people to use condoms. I've been watching "Call the Midwife" on Netflix lately. It has a slow pace, but it's very interesting, so it's a good study in what you are after.

 

[J_Chemist]

My story is like this. Extremely slow progression but enough flow to push things along when necessary. It's all about managing the tempo of your story. It takes some precision and actually planning, but I've made it with neither of that initially. Just highlight the key points of your plot, expand on them, and then make steps for your MC/Cast to go through to reach those goals.

Pacing is difficult but all you need to do is slow down the really big events and add more little victories along the way. We usually think fluff is bad but in this case, it's what we want. We want those side quests, those secondary conversations, those night talks between characters at a fire pit. We want to describe the trip in detail from A to B, rather than just say they left and made it.

By opening up the pages and going into those typical scenes we might gloss over, you can greatly slow down the story to what you might be looking for. I've done it in mine and my readers love it. But, I've also developed that reader base from the beginning so they're sticking around because of it.

Don't drag on too much, though, because yes your plot will stall and people will groan over it. You'll learn after practice.

 

[prognastat]

You can make things slower paced, but you still need to be doing something with that time. Even if not much progress on the main plot is happening I still need to be feeling my time isn't being wasted so stuff of interest needs to be happening.

 

[expentio]

Personally, I think having a first-person perspective and letting your character simply experience situations helps a lot. If it's slow-paced you can go about describing their whole day from start to end without sudden gaps.

 

[ReadLight]

A slow story is fine, a unmoving one is not.

I have learned. Thank you.

 

[melchi]

Lady Emilia von Beortcild wants to go home right? That's the hook to keep people reading?

So, most readers will see things that are not adjacent to that goal poorly. I haven't read the story but I'm guessing the reason to continue the story is to find out about Emilia's journey home after walking through a portal.

 

[DaisukeHanashi]

Lady Emilia von Beortcild wants to go home right? That's the hook to keep people reading?

So, most readers will see things that are not adjacent to that goal poorly. I haven't read the story but I'm guessing the reason to continue the story is to find out about Emilia's journey home after walking through a portal.

Yeah.. and no.

Before Emilia must journey back to her home time, she has to journey on finding some possibilities whether she can go back or not. Gathering some pieces first before she would reach her goal is an ideal here, but of course, in order to gather those pieces, she must tackle each obstacles that block her way home.

Spoiler

However, this is only a possibility alone, so granted, the ending would likely be much far different to her former goal.

 

[EliseValkyria]

I think at this point this would be a Necropost, but I'm going to give my advice anyway.

The most important part of any story is CHARACTERS, even before the story or plot itself, the most important thing is characters. With them, you can make the fastest action story in the world still feel passionate and emotional, they themselves can make the most mundane and trivial tasks fun.

What you should do is focus on the characters and their ways of interacting with others. With them, you can make a whole chapter with the characters reading an old and boring book and still make it interesting, watching them fight to see who reads it first, the one who reads it having no idea what they're reading and the others explaining, maybe someone explaining their theories and the others teasing them for being completely lost.

It's similar to what they say out there, with friends even gathering garbage is fun, if you're with the right people.

What you have to do is create interesting and fun characters who by themselves attract the attention of readers, and then what happens during the chapter is just a backdrop to see them interact on a particular topic, seeing them talk to each other being the main attraction, not the adventure.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Nah Necro is +3 months iirc

 

[FebyA]

Space out the exposition. Not everything has to be explained now

 

[Deleted member 84247]

One of my stories is slow-paced. I rely heavily on dialogue and characters.

 

[BetterNickPending]

To avoid exposition dumps that would bloat chapters I plan to place them in to the Glossary.

That way I hope I will be able to slowly introduce my world and its mechanics to readers, but all those information will be combined and sorted for reference.
It also helps me with coherent world building.