Comedy has long claimed the phrase ‘timing is everything’, but the same applies to almost every facet of a novel. Broad strokes of this rule come into play with things like timing a book launch to cash in on Father’s Day or Christmas gift buying seasons, but that’s PR department stuff. Timing is everything when it comes to plot events and dialogue, too, and they’re more important to get right – I’d rather launch a great book at the wrong time than a poor book at the right one.
Of the two categories above, dialogue is probably the more commonly overlooked of the two when applying correct timing. Unless you’re Quentin Tarantino or you’re writing a 1960′s comedy/mystery starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, snappy one-two-one-two conversations simply don’t happen in reality, and character who only ever say just enough to progress the plot run the risk of being boring or one-dimensional. For example, when’s the last time you had a brand new concept explained to you by someone who knew it back to front and you understood it first go without asking any questions? It can happen, but more often than not, unless we’re talking to someone with experience in teaching, new concepts trigger us to ask questions in order to understand it based on our current knowledge. Back and forth and misunderstandings are a big part of human interaction. Using timing and flaws in dialog gives realism and natural flow to conversations between characters and reveals more about them. You do not, under most circumstances, want the dialogue to be tight and concise 100% of the time. What you gain in a shorter wordcount you lose in shallower characters. Breaking a conversation and not picking it up again can be a great way to force characters to interact on several occasions or hold important information back so the reader can guess or wonder about it for a while.
Timing is also regularly mishandled when dealing with plot events. Red herrings are a prime example, and when I use the term it can mean one of two things. Either: A) A deliberate misdirect targeted at a character or the reader to make them think something is important, or B) a deliberate misdirect to play down something that’s actually of vital importance. Setting these red herrings up and knocking them down (or out of the park if you’re writing a thriller/mystery) is mandatory, but playing with the timing of that sequence can make it much more powerful. Delayed gratification is one of the best ways an author can toy with the emotions of a reader. Some things you want resolved quickly because the red herring was just a delay tactic to allow the villain time to escape. Other things you want to drag out so the reveal is more shocking. The longer you can delay, the better. But don’t overdo it. If you’re shortening the time to payoff on a few random red herrings just to ‘mix it up’ you probably have too many. Try removing them altogether – not every event has to be a misdirect or a payoff!
Delaying also works with character arcs. Hard learned lessons are what changes people most of all, and few hard lessons are learned in a single sitting. We all know the hero has a fatal flaw he must overcome to defeat his nemesis, and predictably this happens just before or halfway through the final battle. But what if you delayed it even further? What if the red herring was that the hero hadn’t overcome the flaw, but the reveal was that he had overcome it and now knew that all he could hope for in the fight was to reveal the nemesis to be a fraud and turn his minions against him? We thought it was defeat but really it was sacrifice. This double-whammy approach can really help make your story memorable.
Finally, delaying is imperative when it comes to poetic justice and comeuppance. Delayed gratification is in full swing here, as the longer you can keep an antagonist antagonizing the hero unjustly, the sweeter the revenge will be. Putting people in their place, standing up to bullies and even good ol’ revenge have formed the base of many a novel and film, but abbreviated versions are peppered through the best novels to lend flavour to the story. Weaving long-running trust issues, brow-beatings or humiliating one-upmanship into the tale and carrying them as long as possible helps keep readers hooked. You can’t expect a modern reader to be carried by the single question of how the main plot will be resolved (not over a 200+ page novel), so you should squeeze a few shorter plot and character arcs in there as well – just don’t be in a hurry to resolve them.