By Janet Spencer King
Are you writing a novel? How to pace your novel is a crucial element in its success. No doubt you’ve spent days thinking about first lines, paragraphs and pages. Naturally you want your first words to capture readers’ attention, to get them to read your book.
Many first-time fiction writers assume that for instant attention, they should start with their story’s Big Event. An imagined example: “The country road wove peacefully through the hills, but the accident on it that night splintered the XX family for good.”