History Main / PacingProblems

* EndingFatigue: Something of an effect more than a cause of Pacing Problems, this is when the reader loses interest before the end out of boredom, plot incoherence, or just plain disinterest, and outright stops reading.

* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: When the story spends too much time with something that isn't important.

However, Pacing Problems are generally one of the more forgiveable issues a story can have. Very few of them will render a work automatically unwatchable or unreadable, unless the writer has ''really'' screwed up their timing.

--> --'''The Pathetic Fallacy''', ''Jack of {{ComicBook/Fables}}''.

It can be tricky to get those choices right, however. Often, the audience will be faced with a glut of action (where they can't easily keep track of what's happening) or long stretches of time where it seems as though ''nothing's'' happening. The results are PacingProblems, where the general feeling is that more sentences here and fewer there could have improved the whole book.

Most people recommend at least getting through the beginning of a story before you give up on it, since perhaps the writer themselves was just getting into the swing of things...but a clumsy ending is much harder to stomach. Thus, PacingProblems are split up into the points they occur in the timeline:

* {{Filler}}: The most notorious of the PacingProblems, when whole chapters/episodes contribute absolutely nothing to the main plot and are only there to make up the word count/screen time. Happens most often in television series rather than films or books, particularly adaptations of ongoing print media series that must be produced at a slower rate than their television counterpart.

* EndingFatigue: Something of an effect more than a cause of PacingProblems, this is when the reader loses interest before the end out of boredom, plot incoherence, or just plain disinterest, and outright stops reading.

It can be tricky to get those choices right, however. Often, the audience will be faced with a glut of action (where they can't easily keep track of what's happening) or long stretches of time where it seems as though ''nothing's'' happening. The results are PacingProblems, where the general feeling is that more sentences here and a fewer there could have improved the whole book.

* ItGetsBetter: The start of the book, or just the prologue, is so slow and dense that the audience wonders if the story's started yet.

* ArcFatigue: When there's just that one subplot, arc, or story that just. ''won't''. '''''end''''', while all you want to do is get it over with and get back to the real plot. Often a case involving a RomanticPlotTumor (characters would rather develop a romantic subplot than help save the world or stop the villain).
* ExponentialPlotDelay: When the real plot moves briskly at the beginning before slowing to a crawl.

--> --'''The Pathetic Fallacy''', ''Jack of {{Fables}}''.

* ArcFatigue: When there's just that one subplot, arc, or story that just. ''won't''. '''''end''''', while all you want to do is get it over with and get back to the real plot. Often a case involving a RomanticPlotTumor (characters would rather develop a romantic subplot than help save the world or stop the villain.

However, Pacing Problems are generally one of the most forgiveable issues a story can have. Very few of them will render a work automatically unwatchable or unreadable, unless the writer has ''really'' screwed up their timing.

However, Pacing Problems are generally one of the most forgiveable issues a story can have. Very few of them will render a work automatically unwatchable or unreadable, unless the writer has ''really'' screwed up their timing.

{{Exposition}} is closely tied to pacing. The audience needs to know what's going on and why, but explaining all this can them bored or confused. ShowDontTell might help get more exposition across while avoiding pacing problems, but if ''everything'' is shown through [[FlashBack Flash Backs]], that can be just as tiresome as hearing it all from MrExposition.

It can be tricky to get those choices right, however. Often, the audience will be faced with a glut of action (where they can't easily keep track of what's happening) or long stretches of time where it seems as though ''nothing's'' happening. The results are PacingProblems, where the general feeling is that a few more sentences here and a few less over there could have improved the whole book.

* ArcFatigue: When there's just that one subplot, arc, or story that just. ''won't''. '''''end''''', while all you want to do is get it over with and get back to the real plot.

* LabouringThePoint: To all intents and purposes, the story finished ten minutes ago... so why is the camera still rolling?

* LongestPrologueEver: When it takes too long just to get up to the first act.

* TwentyMinutesWithJerks: When the story spends too much time with something that isn't important.

** IntroDump: Altogether too much information thrown at the reader at once in a big, ugly blob.

* GeckoEnding -- Instead of an organic ending, we get one that's just cut off.

* GeckoEnding -- instead of an organic ending, we get one that's just cut off.

* LabouringThePoint: To all intents and purposes, the story finished ten minutes ago...so why is the camera still rolling?

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* {{Padding}}: This is filler on a smaller level, and usually happens to books, films, and individual episodes.

--> -'''The Pathetic Fallacy''', ''Jack of {{Fables}}''.

* [[{{ptitle96cc44ei}} Zeno's Race]]: When the real plot moves briskly at the beginning before slowing to a crawl.

* LongestPrologueEver: When it takes too long just to get up to the first act.

* HoldYourHorses: The writer just can't wait to get started, so he throws the reader in at the deep end and expects them to figure things out on the way.

--> -'''The Pathetic Fallacy''' gets mad enough to [[NoFourthWall break the fourth wall]] in ''Jack of {{Fables}}''.

* {{Filler}}: The most notorious of the PacingProblems, when whole chapters/episodes contribute absolutely nothing to the main plot and are only there to make up the word count/screen time. Happens most often in television series rather than films or books.