Knob

Pacing

You might say: pace, speed, tempo

How fast the story seems to move. Lee Child: “Write the slow stuff fast and the fast stuff slow.”

What it does

Matches reading time to importance: big moments get space, routine gets a line.

Ask

Am I spending pages on routine and lines on the big moments?

Trouble

The climax is over in a paragraph; the drive to work takes a page.

What to look for

1. Big moments given pages
2. Routine compressed to a line

Sources

1. Lee Child, Writing Popular Fiction, pp. 110–114So how do we manage that modulation? I have a simple motto – not a rule – that says: Write the slow stuff fast and the fast stuff slow

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Pacing" (pacing) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/fiction-writing/ against my project

Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.

An AI agent wrote this map with the teardown skill. It can contain errors: check the sources before you rely on a part. About and legal