Ask the Editor: Slow-Burn Fiction

Slow-Burn Fiction: Why a Book Can Be Slow and Still Engaging

Beta readers said they couldn’t put the book down, but the pacing is slow. How can both of those be true?

Interestingly, I just finished a bestselling thriller like this: The Tenant by Freida McFadden, narrated by Will Damron and Christine Lakin. I had to make myself stop listening to it because it was so good (and because I needed to save it for a long drive). It was also slow-burn fiction.

Pacing ≠ Page-Turning Speed

Slow burn doesn’t mean the story isn’t engaging. Perhaps the pace is slow to give readers and characters room to breathe, explore a character’s interiority, build tension, or a host of other possibilities.

Pacing isn’t just how quickly things happen. A slow scene can have strong narrative momentum if the reader is invested in what’s coming.

Before making any changes, consider asking a few more questions:

• What does slow mean? Were they bored? Disengaged? Impatient? Excited for what’s coming?

• Did everyone identify the same scene(s) or chapter(s) that were slow?

• What’s similar in those scenes (e.g., characters, setting, point of view)?

• Did the beta readers want those scenes to end, or did they want different information from those scenes?

• What caused you to structure the ”slow” scenes that way? Does that reasoning still hold?

• Is the story actually losing momentum, or is the reader experiencing/reacting to a different type of momentum?

• Are you intentionally managing the pacing to support the story?

• Did the slow pacing bother them, or are they just observing it?

Feedback is just information, not instruction. Before you start revising, make sure you understand what the feedback is actually telling you.

You’re the author, and you get to make the final decision about what works for your story. You also don’t have to please every reader.

Make sure your beta readers are part of your target audience, then look for patterns in their feedback and ask for more information about their reactions before deciding whether or not to revise.

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