"Structure and Pacing in Narrative Fiction" with John Pipkin

Pacing can be one of the most elusive aspects of plotting, and often writers assume that the way to achieve effective pacing is to make as much “stuff” happen as quickly as possible. But a well-paced story is one in which the narrative unfolds at the rhythm that the characters, scenes, and themes require. And often, pacing is determined by the mechanics of how the story is told, sentence-by-sentence. Decisions as simple as word choice can have a profound effect on the flow of a story.

In this full-day class, we will focus on the characteristics of successful structure and pacing. We'll also identify some of the sign-posts that can indicate pacing problems in a story, and we'll discuss strategies for addressing these issues in the revision stage. 
 

About the instructor:

John Pipkin’s first novel, Woodsburner, was published to national acclaim by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday in April 2009. Woodsburner won the New York Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Massachusetts Center for the Book Novel Prize, and the Texas Institute of Letters Stephen Turner Prize for First Novel. John was the Dobie Paisano Fellow at UT-Austin for the spring of 2011, and he recently finished his second novel, The Blind Astronomer’s Atlas. He received his Ph.D. in British Literature from Rice University in 1997. Currently, he is the Writer-in-Residence at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and he teaches in the Brief-residency MFA Program at Spalding University, in Louisville, Kentucky.