: Descriptive words to slow down the pace of the story? Is it true that to slow down a story, you add descriptive words in place of an action? I feel like the pace my story is going at, I'll

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First, finish your first draft, just because at the pace your going at feels like it’s too short, doesn’t mean that’ll be the reality of it. Then take a look at your characters, if you had someone read your first draft, do you know a lot about your main villain? Is he this serial killer who has been around for thirty years, murdering rivals in his profession, yet still protects innocent bystanders from senseless violence while on a venture of self-destruction. Or is he just kind of a dick? Developing your villain and other important characters in subplots from different POVs can both enhance your story, and lengthen it.

Having said that, don’t just make it longer because, “it’s under 200 pages.” If in that time you’ve told a cohesive, well developed narrative with interesting characters. Then don’t try and just pad or pages because it’s “too short”. There are many great novellas out there that’s aren’t that many pages, such as the infamous Jekyll & Hyde.

TL;DR (Kind of): If you feel like your novel is incomplete try developing your villain and supporting characters throughout subplots or POVS. Or Maybe the protagonist beats the antagonist too quickly and needs more of an uphill battle. Just don’t artificially extend the length to make it longer.

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Is it true that to slow down a story, you add descriptive words in place of an action?

No, it isn't. Although descriptive words can slow down a story, you do not add them with that specific purpose. If you add them, it is with the purpose of clarifying your setting or creating a certain mood. The slowing down is a consequence, not a purpose. There's little as annoying as going through a story that throws descriptions at you just to slow the narrative.

I feel like the pace my story is going at, I'll finish it in less than 200 pages. It just doesn't feel right to end it so short.

Why doesn't it feel right? I have read long short-stories and short novellas that are perfect in terms of rhythm, events and cohesion. Lengthening them would have destroyed them (IMHO).

If what doesn't feel right is the rhythm, then I'd suggest going over the structure and revising it carefully. Besides, I doubt descriptive words could bump the page number that much.

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I would be thinking in terms of descriptive passages, like "It was a dark and stormy night, when..."

Such passages give context to your characters' actions. They also provide a clue to their emotions, because most people will think and act differently on a "dark and stormy night," than on a "bright and sunny day." All other things being equal, of course.

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One way to break down a story is intention versus obstacle. The intention is what the protagonist must accomplish, and the more necessary the intention is, the better.

At the same time, the obstacle is what prevents the protagonist from realizing their intention, and just as necessary as the intention should be, so insurmountable should be the obstacle. It doesn't hurt for the reader to think the obstacle is completely impossible to overcome, at first.

If your protagonist is realizing their intention(s) too quickly, then probably you have not made the obstacle(s) as strong as they should be. As the parentheses in my previous sentence suggests, another approach or outlook is to have smaller intentions as part of the larger overall intention, and likewise smaller obstacles that block the success of the smaller intentions. That is how a serial TV drama stays interesting over (hopefully for the writers) over 100 episodes. You could use the same technique with chapters.

Either way, it's best to make things really impossible for the protagonist.

At the same time, one piece of advice I've heard lately that makes a lot of sense to me is to write out your whole first draft before you do any edits or rewrites. Get it all out there and then you have something you can look at as a whole and figure out where the real issues are. This also helps prevent a problem of constantly rewriting the first 100 or 200 pages and never getting to the ending. And you still may have a lot to learn about your story that will help inform your rewrites.

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I should think your villain is not well developed, or your hero is not sufficiently motivated. What has the hero been doing all this time, and why does s/he see the villain as a threat? What has the villain done that s/he knows about and is willing to take the risks of a battle to stop?

When the hero meets the villain for the first time, they are generally not successful in any attempt to thwart them. (In real life maybe, but in fiction it does not make for a good story). The hero must struggle or the victory is empty, like the victory of successfully laundering a load of shirts.

If your natural inclination is they meet quickly, say due to the technology of the alien or something, then you need to have that meeting result in a stalemate, or (non-lethal) defeat for your hero. In fact, in most stories we expect your hero to have a series of more defeats and losses than wins, and your villain to have more wins than losses, so the final victory of the hero means something.

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