Narrative pace is all about movement—every sentence or paragraph has the potential to transport the reader through time and space. Moving between past and present and shifting from interior action to external action can propel a plot forward, stretch time to create suspense, or turn a small decision into a world-shifting event. But how do you navigate these dynamics to set the right pace for your story? How do you know to move in and out of time in one paragraph and stay in the moment in another? Is a scene more effectively told through action or through a character’s perception of that action?
This class will examine

–the mechanics of paragraphs that build upon one another to create narrative pace;
–ways to write history, present action, and internal conflict all in one telling and plot-propelling go;
–ways that moving in and out of time informs the present;
–and how the interior versus the external can work in tandem to move a story forward.

About the instructor:

Born in Lima, Peru, Natalia Sylvester came to the U.S. at age four. As child she spent time in south Florida, central Florida, and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas before her family set roots once again in Miami. Natalia received a B.A. in creative writing from the University of Miami. A former magazine editor, Natalia now works as a freelance writer in Austin, Texas and is a faculty member of the low-res MFA program at Regis University. Her articles have appeared in Latina Magazine, Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and NBCLatino.com. Chasing the Sun is her first novel. It was named the Best Debut Book of 2014 by Latinidad and was chosen as a Book of the Month by the National Latino Book Club. Her second novel, Everyone Carries Their Own Water, is forthcoming from Little A in 2018.