Pacing in Nonfiction

It's all about story.

- WILLIAM KENOWER

While interviewing the wonderful historical novelist Margaret George, we wound up discussing the unique challenges she faced trying to weave a compelling narrative while remaining true to the myriad details of the period in which her book was set. “You want to get it right, of course,” she said. “My readers expect that accuracy. But you have to be careful not to get too bogged down in all that. Remember, the one sin a writer can never commit is to be boring.”

She was right. The first job of any writer is to be entertaining, and when we talk about pacing, this is really what we mean: How engaged is your reader from chapter to chapter, from scene to scene, and from sentence to sentence? If you write creative (memoir) or prescriptive (self-help) nonfiction, there’s one word you should always hold in mind to keep your work moving: story.

STORY IN PRESCRIPTIVE NONFICTION

If you write self-help, there's a tendency to be so excited about the information you're sharing that you can lose track of pacing. After all, whether it’s weight loss, better business practices, or overcoming writer's block, your goal is to teach something that you think is valuable. Isn't the sheer practicality of the information enough to hold someone’s attention? Usually not. Lists of facts or descriptions of techniques are invitations to memorization. Your book or essay can start to feel like homework, and once that happens, no matter how useful your message, you'll start losing your audience.