Pacing is a big thing in YA.  The deal is, you have to hit the ground running, to be horribly cliche.  You don’t have the luxury of exposition for the first hundred pages like you do in mainstream reading.  Teens don’t want that.  They don’t have the patience.  But at the same time shit blowing up in the first sentence of the first chapter is a little disorienting.  At least I think it is.  So you have to strike the right balance of brief build-up and bang-go!

One of my betas, who gave me some wonderful advise and thank god because I’m seeing that crap all over my work.  Let me just say my pages are very colorful right now and I’d highly recommend buying stock in glitter pens.  But she also said, at page 16, that nothing was happening and I needed to advance the plot sooner otherwise I wouldn’t make it through a partial.  Of that I’m afraid.

For those of you that have read my book, you have a better idea of what I’m talking about.  The catalyst that causes the fairy shit to hit the fan happens in the first chapter and my MC comes face to face with it in the second.  The build-up to cross worlds is a little gradual but once they’re there, it doesn’t stop.  The book (at last count, anyway) is only around 55,000 words and it gets from point A to point B completely.  I’m actually afraid of moving the plot any faster than what it already is.

And, of course, I look at other books and I notice their plot.  I’m reading Lament by Maggie Stiefvater and I remember when I got to the halfway point thinking that not too much has happened yet.  It did but it’s subtle stuff.  A lot of alluding to things.  I’m 30 pages from the end and the antagonist has yet to make an appearance except for an off-handed remark.  I look that this book that’s filled with subtleties  and a plot that’s more emotional than physical and I look at mine and I can’t help but go, “I have to move my plot faster?”

I see the voice issues (and there were voice issues, albeit minor ones).  I kept poking through Michael’s voice so I’ve done a lot of rewording, expanding on a few things, I need to make Michael a little more unique.  Mainly I want to make his room more than a bed and walls.  I see the errors.  I see everything that everyone’s pointed out to me.  Except the pacing.  I just can’t justify it to myself to push it any faster than what it’s already moving.  I can’t justify it to my story.  I just can’t.

It’s rare when a beta makes a very valid point that I don’t agree with it when it comes to my writing.  Let me re-word that.  It’s rare for me not to see the critique from a beta’s eyes when they comment on something like this.  I usually can.  I’m proud to say I’m very good at seeing my own flaws.  It’s one of the most beneficial things for me as a writer.  But I just can’t see this.  Especially compared to other YAs that I’ve been reading.  The puzzle pieces aren’t matching up.

I know it’s my own work and I take whatever criticism I feel is rendered for my work but I almost feel guilty.  I don’t know why.  The thing is, my book is like a roller coaster.  To give you another horrible cliche.  It’s a slow, gradual climb to the top but once you crest that hill, your cheeks will be flapping in the breeze until you come to the end.  My beginnings have always been a little on the slow side.  Always.  It must be my style.