[Gallagher]

I'm sorry this is so frustrating. Trust me, I know the feeling. I'm not as good as spewing out words like Suze over there. I often need half an hour to make just three sentences. We just want to help, though, because we DO see really good potential in your work. If we didn't, we would mostly just ignore you. We're kind of jerks like that.

Originally Posted by Suzerain of Sheol

Studying film can help too in learning how to properly (and how NOT to) pace stories, since you can absorb an entire plot in a relatively short amount of time. Learning how to apply the basics to the written format, and then what can be added to enrich it in the available space of a novel, is essential.

This. Learning how to do proper pacing will help A LOT. This is one of THE biggest differences between a good story and a shit story, and people rarely have it click to point out "hey your pacing is weird". The most you'll hear is "Well it sort of dragged..." or "it was hard to follow" or some other nonsense that, really, we all know doesn't help at all.

Some moments are naturally slow, when nothing much is happening. When there isn't quick action going on, and characters have time to breathe. This is when your writing should breathe, too. Take this time to fill in details and fill in the surroundings for your reader.

Other moments are not. Other moments need blood, and action, impulse, reaction. Make it happen. No time for flowery nonsense when you're about to be gutted, or decapitated, or the one thing you need is going to be gone in just about ten seconds that you keep trying to waste on explaining how this is just like that one time when you were a kid! This would be the time to say fuck the rules, get a little run-on-y, get a few fragments. You ain't got time for that shit! Things are HAPPENING!

(okay so maybe don't actually just make a mass of run-on sentences, a bit not good.)

...

So I guess, all in all, get the details right, and know when to show it off.