Keeping The Pace
Every novel has a rhythm. Pacing is the speed at which a novel’s events occur and unfold. As you build your book, you must decide which events are given priority, and which can be condensed or cast away. Which moments must be thoroughly explained and explored, and which can be summarized? This is pacing, and it is the heartbeat of your novel. Together, we will explore pacing: how to slow scenes down and speed them up, how to cue your reader to run or walk through sections of your book, how to emphasize what’s important, how to transition quickly though the unimportant, and how to know the difference between the two. Lecture will include handouts, readings, and discussion.
Frances de Pontes Peebles is the author of the novel, The Seamstress, (HarperCollins) translated into nine languages and winner of the Elle Grand Prix for Fiction, the Friends of American Writers Award, and the James Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award. Born in Pernambuco, Brazil, she is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has received a Fulbright Grant, Brazil’s Sacatar Foundation Fellowship, and was a Teaching Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her short stories have appeared in O. Henry Prize Stories, Zoetrope: All-Story, Missouri Review, and Indiana Review. Her short story, The Serrambi Case, has been adapted into film, and her novel into an upcoming Brazilian series for television. Her second novel is forthcoming from Riverhead Books.
Registration and Socializing 9:00AM-9:30AM
Program 9:30AM-12:00PM
