As an author, you ought to know exactly what time it is, and also what the weather is like, at any given moment in your story. Having this information will help consistency and clarity – which translates to your world feeling more real.

Time

Ideally, you should know the year, month, day, time of day and even exact time of day – even if you never mention it specifically. Then, as the real time scene unfolds, make sure time passes accordingly; otherwise your characters may find themselves in a perpetual midday or early evening.

Thinking about what time of day it is can also add realism to your scene, if you weave in the world

around your characters. Is the scene happening around 8am or 5.30pm? Then aren’t the streets filled with harried commuters? Or is it the middle of the afternoon? So the only people in sight are mothers with children, and retirees.

When going over longer time periods, you can still refer to specific months and seasons, or even years, to give a sense of weight to the passing of time. Saying that June turned into August anchors readers in your world a lot more than saying eight weeks passed.

Weather

As an author, the possibilities of building atmosphere and mood with the weather has probably occurred to you long before now.

Try to go beyond the basic weather options: stormy for an angry scene, rainy for a depressed scene, sunny for a happy scene, ray of sunshine through the clouds for a good realisation.

There are many different types of each of the weather conditions above, a storm can be a howling wind with needles of rain, or it could be thunderous and rolling. Rain can be coming down in violent blankets, a miserable grey drizzle, or it could even be huge dollops of life giving nourishment.

In that way, rain could represent new life and happiness, a storm could be excitement and joyful exhilaration, the sun could be oppressive and draining.

The key is to be as specific as possible, and to try to not always stick to the clichés. Breaking them can be refreshing.

As with time, consistency and awareness are important. Make sure you know what the weather is like, so you don’t accidentally have it gloomy one minute and clear blue the next.

Read more about time and weather and how they relate to theme and variations in your novel here.

A good first line does not a good novel make, but a bad opening could kill a great novel before it's had a chance.

So what makes a good first line?

There are a few key points:

Change - if this is a day like any other, why are you writing about it? All stories are about change, so if you want to get your reader hooked right away, get straight into it!

Question - you need your reader wanting more. If you can make your first line raise questions that they cannot live without knowing the answer to, you can be pretty sure they'll keep reading. Of course, what constitutes a gripping question will vary depending on your readership. A computer geek is unlikely to care if the question is the heroine wondering how she'll ever find love - equally, a romance buff cares little why the Republic of Somewhere Alien is about to implode.

Surprise - for extra flavour and style, if you can surprise your reader in so few words, with something unexpected or out of the ordinary, they will want to read on to explain the mystery.

Some examples of awesome opening lines:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
George Orwell, 1984

Mira was hiding in the ladies' room.
Fay Weldon, The Women's Room


My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.
Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones


We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
 

Think about which of the key points above each of these meet. It's a great exercise to randomly pick books off your shelf and read their first lines.

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On a basic level, there are two kinds of pace. On a small scale, there's the pace of a particular paragraph. This is the pace controlled by things like the sentence length and individual word choices. On the larger scale there is story pace. This is controlled more by the balance of different types of prose sections in the larger story structure.

Let's start with the big picture

Story pacing

Direct Action vs. Summary

A key indicator is the balance of direct action prose and summary prose. Direct action tends to be at faster pace than summary even though, on a word for word basis, much less happens.

Direct action is where the reader is with a character and seeing the world through that characters eyes. Something happens, the character reacts. Something else happens, the character reacts. A continuous thread of cause and effect moving the story forward. Dialog is pretty much always direct action, and therefore will almost increase the pace of a section.

Summary sections involve the abstract description of events that the reader doesn't get to witness first hand. This is the place where characters reflect on past experiences, wonder about the future and go through events that are too long or unimportant to be shown in full. Months and years can pass in a single sentence. You can cross the sea, travel to a distant star or just sit on the bed and worry about your mortgage. Whatever is happening, the reader is not there in the moment and so it can feel slower.

Changes of direction

Changes of direction increase the pace. Each zig or zag, where new information takes the character in a new direction is like a pulse beat. If they come close together the heart beats faster, the feeling of pace is increased.

A slow, moody story may contain no abrupt changes of direction. Atmosphere built slowly over a number of seemingly straightforward events can be used to slowly bring the narrative round like a ocean liner changing heading. Inevitable change can be very powerful. Watching the ship turn, painfully slowly, never knowing if it will be enough to avoid the rocks.

A thriller may change direction like a wasp trapped in a box. Quick! To the university! Oh, no! It's a red herring! Quick! To the beach house! Oh, wait! A double cross! Quick! To the morgue! The mad-dash approach keeps the reader hooked by constantly wondering "What can possibly happen next?!" Of course, it's easy to overdo this and end up leaving the reader confused and lost.


Prose Pacing

The pace within a section of prose is controlled by the words and sentences you choose. It's possible to make scenes full of action and mayhem feel slow and tedious and moments of quiet reflection feel rushed and thin.

Description vs. Action

As a general rule, the more description and related information that a section of prose contains, the slower it will read. Long detailed descriptions of the window frames, curtains and sideboard or wordy asides about the choice of carpet all take up words that could be used to have something actually happening.

Sentence Length

It is often the case that short, sharp sentences read faster than longer sentences. This is not to say that fast sections of prose should contain exclusively short sentences nor that slower sections should only contain long sentences. It is just that a tendency towards the shorter, on average, has the effect of speeding up the section.

Word use

Fast paced writing requires simple words. Quick, easy to read words. Obvious words. Slower sections of prose can linger on big and clever words but unusual words, like opprobrium, tend to trip up a reader who is moving quickly. Tripping up can slow you down.


So which is better, fast pace or slow pace? Well - that depends on your story. It usually a good idea to carefully vary your pacing depending on the section of the story you're working on. Some stories are very faced paced throughout, others are slower with sharp rushes of action.
A story that is always slow paced throughout may become dull, but pace is relative. Even small variations in pacing can be enough to keep a leviathan of a story flowing along.