Keeping a story flowing is more difficult than people realize. In fact, I think there are multiple threats to this essential of storytelling. These are from my own experience, so I’m sure there are more.
Concurrent Adventures
This is when an author has multiple storylines happening at the same time. You can’t have them occurring at the same time on the same page, so you have to jump around. This can create a lot of jerky story flow. It’s inevitable to have a bit, so the goal with this issue is to reduce the breaking to a point where it’s tolerable. This means, you can’t spend too much time on one story unless the other is much less important. Even then, you can’t be away for too long or the tension creating for the ignored one will disappear. Try to create a pattern for jumping and use cliffhangers and temporary closure to make sure you aren’t creating loose threads.
Overuse of Cliffhangers
I know I just said to use cliffhangers, but there are limits. If you keep stopping with suspense and moving on, the audience will become numb. This creates a flow that repeatedly hits a wall and has to restart. So, you have to use them sparingly and as surprises. Keep in mind that I’m talking about big cliffhangers and not the mild ones you may find at the end of a chapter. There’s a difference between transitions and cliffhangers, which I should probably make a post about in the future.
Adding or Subtracting for Page or Word Count
Longer than I’ve been writing, people have noted which page and word counts constitute a novel, short story, or novella. So, an author aiming for one of those categories might pad or condense their story. If you add too much then you create a sluggish flow due to there being extraneous words and scenes. If you squeeze things together, the flow may seem rushed with minimal or no character development. The answer to this is to write the story as you see fit without focusing on size. Alterations can be made with editing, but you still risk this issue. Best to just write and see how it comes out.
Too Many Characters in the Spotlight
Similar to the multiple storyline issue, you can really mess up the flow if you have too many characters fighting for attention. I’ve run into this situation with my big casts and wanting to have everyone be noticed in every scene. The flow becomes a ping-pong ball getting launched from one paragraph to the other. My answer to this was accepting that not everyone character had to be present or active during a scene. So, someone characters might only say one line that was important or be noted as hanging around while others do the legwork. Having mild temperament characters that can be left in the background until needed helps here too.
Author Perception
This is a challenge to recognize. Basically, the author feels that the story is flowing really well, but it ends up being fractured for the reader. How could this happen? Well, the author knows the whole story on some level. They know where it’s going and what they want to do with it in some way. Their mind will fill in the gaps to make one think that the flow is perfect or at least steady. Best way to counter this is with beta readers or at least focusing on if things are connecting well while editing.
Legends of Windemere 
Good tips! I often stop reading a story written by an author who is new to me because of the introduction of several characters within the first page. It’s hard to keep track of so many new characters all at once. Back when Robert Jordan was still alive and writing Wheel of Time, I stopped reading his series after six books because keeping track of all of the characters was a chore for me. Years would go by between the publishing of new books in the series. I had to play catchup by looking at the glossary with each new book.
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I’ve done that myself because they were a group. So, I’ve found the multiple intros at the start do help in establishing a tight connection.
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I started a book where at least five characters were introduced in the first two paragraphs. I didn’t know which ones would be important or not. I kept reading, but even more characters were introduced within two pages. Maybe to the author they were important to the story. But to a new reader who was trying to get a handle on the world, it felt overwhelming. So I stopped. Tolkien introduces several characters in first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring. i appreciated his leisurely approach at introducing them.
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That sounds cramped. I’ve seen it done where the introduced characters are killed off to reveal the real hero or villain. It’s still a big gamble.
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Great tips, Charles. I think I would rather have a book too rushed than one too expanded. Either is not good but too much padding kills a book.
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Tough call really. I hate rushed, but bloated causes me to skip.
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Agreed.
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So much of this rings true to me.
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Thanks.
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Exactly my problem. I have a group of characters performing the rescue of an important person, another off to spy on the enemy and the rest engaged in a major battle. I hope I’ve successfully pulled it off.
I have several chapters devoted to each bit, so I don’t think it’s too fragmented, but I’ve my fingers crossed about the tension thing.
However, Robert Jordan did this in The Wheel of Time, and it worked. (Not that I’m anywhere near Robert Jordan’s skill!)
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I think it can be easier if done partially through a long series. People have connected to the characters and are invested. Kind of like how the Fellowship splintered after book one. You just have to develop a pattern and use open stopping points.
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Yes. This book is book 4 in a series, and just, I hope, nearing the end of the rewrites. I think it works. No doubt I’ll find out in the next stage!
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For me what worked was to have one POV character for each major plot thread, and do the sections involving that plot through their POV. Then as the group scattered, I would alternate regularly between them and the reader could expect those other threads to return before long.
What really irks me is when a new character is introduced and then immediately killed, in order to tease the reader with the antagonist’s identity.
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I try to do the same thing. Not sure I’ve run into the quick death thing. Maybe as an opening teaser to make you guess the hero. Sounds like a rushed red herring scenario when it’s the villain.
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