Fast-Paced Is The Fashion, Unfortunately

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In Phyllis Wheeler's review of The Oerken Leaves she begins the section on what she thinks of the story by saying

This book has a classic, slow-paced feel, especially at the beginning. So it’s not particularly fashionable. But I like classics, don’t you?

Let me say up front that I am not criticizing Phyllis's review, or think that she has missed the mark on what is and what is not fashionable. I am taking her word for it, and it is the state of fashion that I am confronting, not Wheeler.

Now by fashionable, I take it to mean that what is in fashion is a story that moves from one scene to another quickly, or a story wherein changes in the action follow closely on the heels of each other.

Fashionable implies that in the estimation of the world of readers of fantasy, this is the only thing worth reading right now. Now I think fast-paced has its place, especially if the reader is looking for a change of pace. But surely, as fashionable as it may be, can fast-paced really be that good? It seems to me that a steady reading of nothing but fast-paced novels would be like choosing the roller-coaster for every ride at the fair. Let me see if I can convey to you how drastic the picture is. It would be like arriving at the park at dusk and going straight to the roller-coaster and ride it all night until the park closes at which time you make a bee-line exit. No elephant ears or pizza; no cognizance of little kids tugging their parents this way and that to get as much in as they can before Mom and Dad call it a night. It misses out on the heady feeling when stuck at the top of the ferris wheel while the whole dazzling world of light and color below comes at you like the opening scene of an oscar winning movie. You have no chance to stroll past the barkers wondering what it would be like to do what they do. You missed out on the balloon busting dart throw, or the side step around a hotdog which someone had the misfortune of dropping. I could say more, but you get the idea.


A steady consumption of fast-paced novels, like the continuous ride of the roller-coaster, will sooner or later become monotonous and boring. Not merely because its the same beat over and over (anything done repetitively will become monotonous and boring in time) but because fast-paced does not allow for the reader to imaginatively become a part of the story. Before the reader can achieve any sense of participation at any given point, he's forced to move on. He doesn't get to know the characters because he has little time to notice them. A good story draws the reader into the middle of it, where he can see and hear and feel the fictional world as though he were part of it. The reader lives in the story through the proxy of one of the characters, or as an enthused silent partner, or perhaps both; but he is there, in the thick of it, in on every little detail and caught up in the experiences - delight and despair, feast and famine, greed and generosity, rags and riches. You cannot do that with any depth and quality unless you get to settle down and rub elbows with the characters. And you can't rub elbows if you and the characters don't have the opportunity to stick around with each other.


But I think it is worse than that. Fast-paced makes for poor writing, or perhaps because one is a poor writer, fast-paced is what works best. No real character development is possible. No iridescent blossoming of plot. No animated interaction between character and character or character and his circumstances. It tends toward bland narrative (reporting of events, thoughts, and speech) rather than vivid story-telling (which draws the reader in so that he imaginatively experiences it). Story-telling requires good, quality writing, but the fast-paced tale does not. That is why the classics (Lewis, Tolkien, Clemens) and those surely destined to become classics (Rowling) are slow paced - the writing made it that way and is a quality that few authors are able to match.