: How do you find the right pacing in your story? In creative writing, how do you know if the pace of your writing is too slow or too fast? How do you find the right rate for your story

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There is definitely a sweet spot between too fast and too slow, and if you find it, you may have commercial success.

This is a separate issue from the length of the book, which incorporates a whole different set of variables.

Symptoms your book is progressing too quickly:

There is a lack of character development: Characters appear without background. They may have new powers without an explanation. They progress in relationships in an unbelievable fashion.
The story is choppy: How did we get from A to B? Where did Cassandra go? Now we're fighting dragons; how'd we get past the goblins?
The average reader might zone out a few seconds here and there. Do they get jarred and jostled around? Meaning, does action build, or does it explode without warning?
Time gaps are necessary from scene to scene in most books, but books moving too quickly with timeline will leave the reader with the sense of How did that happen?

Symptoms your book is moving too slowly:

You write a chapter without any dialogue.
You write a chapter getting you no closer to your climax. People who spend money on fiction want to be entertained more so than informed. Ideally you can do both, but one must be cautious about information dumps.
Your introductory chapters are longer than your average chapter. This will usually work itself out in the editing process, but our tendencies as writers is to show how clever we are at Worldbuilding.
You find rereading your book boring and tedious. You may eventually get sick of it as you get into query, and you've now done 3-5 rounds of complete edits, but boring? There is nothing wrong with saying, "This chapter sucks," and deleting it. Try it; it's fun.

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