Copyright © 2025 Jerry Dunne
If you are not familiar with The play’s 3-act plot arc structure and The scene’s plot arc structure, it might be a good idea to read those posts before reading this one.
Pace concerns how fast or slow the plot movement feels to the audience as the drama plays out before them. Good pace enables the drama to offer a feeling of smooth and constant movement, with no sense of sluggishness or anti-climax anywhere in the story. Good pace isn’t just about a perception of fast plot movement, though. A slower sense of pace at certain points is crucial to the drama; for example, in order for suspense to build or to give the audience a chance to catch their breath. A feeling of variation in pace contributes to the plot’s overall rising tension and so helps prevent the audience from losing interest in the play.
So now you might be thinking, ‘but surely if our plot arc and scene arc structure is crafted correctly, with all the right elements incorporated in the right order, with each scene bringing about the necessary plot-related changes, then what is there to worry about? Surely the script will automatically have the appropriate pacing throughout. Although all these things are necessary to the play overall, including its pace, no, this is not strictly the case. You will still have to worry about other factors here.
Pacing is one of the toughest skills to develop because it is entangled up with other playwriting skills, (and as emphasised above, it isn’t necessarily about how physically fast or slow the story moves, but how fast or slow it feels), and until we have mastered these other skills we will simply not be able to pace our story well. So, pace is best understood by describing how it works within other characteristics of the play. Amongst these are included scene setting, scene placement order, scene structure (not its plot arc structure), and dialogue.
In this article, we are going to be looking at scene setting from the perspective of pace. The other three features of the play just mentioned will be tackled from the perspective of pace in other posts.
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As a single scene’s setting can have a big impact on the drama of that scene, including even what you end up deciding to include in it, this may well create a ripple effect on the drama and content of the following scene; and, so, therefore, the choice of a single scene setting has great potential to alter the rhythm and pacing of at least two scenes in a row. For these reasons, it is a big advantage to think carefully about our setting or environment for each one of our scenes.
It is not even necessary to include a physical scene change in order to heighten the scene’s dramatic effect. If the assumption of the environment is embodied clearly in the directions and dialogue then the audience will respond positively and the power of that scene setting will work just as though it were visually apparent.
With this in mind, let’s have a few simple examples to help us observe clearly how the dramatic potential of the scene alters, and possibly quite considerably, by the choice of setting and also how this may easily create a ripple effect for the following scene, which, of course, may well heighten a sense of briskness of pace across both scenes.
For the first example, we’ll take a couple arguing about money. Firstly, let’s think of this argument taking place in a single setting, their living room, across two scenes. In the first scene, the argument starts as the husband complains about the price of an article the wife has just purchased at the store. He states vehemently and bitterly that it could have been bought elsewhere much cheaper. She throws back at him just as vehemently and bitterly that the quality would then have suffered. The argument rages on. Eventually, she declares him a skinflint, which she has never done before. So we have change in the scene, a tear in their relationship. Or she might even tell him she’s had enough of his parsimony and she wants a divorce. Now this is real change in the scene. But then she has to go off to work or something breaks up the scene and we have to move across to the next scene to find out how her husband deals with the change. This next scene, of course, is still going to be in the living room. Okay, so we have some sort of drama here, some excitement, and an audience desires to know what’s coming next. However, this feels like the two scenes could have been played out in the one single scene unless the interruption was really plot-relevant. Also, the first scene had no dramatic dialogue, no subtext – unless the argument really was about something else. Fair enough! Maybe the husband was going to lose his job and was worried about her spending money. All the same, we got a lot and all on the nose like in a soap and the second scene will probably be no more than a continuation of the argument in the same tone. It came out so quickly and we had no real feeling of underling drama, anyway. We had no build up of suspense and tension. And what was to stop them from raging at each other quickly anyway? But even if the argument had taken place using subtext, it would still feel underplayed dramatically whether we have only the single longer scene or we spread it out over two scenes because there is a much more obvious way of working this exchange that would increase the dramatic effect considerably over both scenes, and which would, in turn, heighten the sense of pace across both of them, too.
It is obvious that the first scene ought to be set elsewhere. And what better place to set it than in the very environment that kicked off the argument, the store where the purchase was bought. Now we are present with the couple as the action is unfolding. It is immediate, which on its own always increases the dramatic potential. We see and hear the reactions of the husband in real time as the wife picks up the object she wants to buy. We see the horror and anger on the man’s face as she refuses to listen to his advice and put the object back and get a cheaper one. We see and hear her immediate reaction to him. This is much more dramatic than simply hearing about the event after the fact. What can raise this drama even higher is to turn it into a pressure cooker. They are surrounded by other customers (implied in the setting) and so have to keep their voices low and their body language in check. Now they may even be forced to use subtext (or at least in part) in their dialogue, facial expressions and body language. Many words and gestures may now be packed with meaning. We can now feel the suspense and tension of the scene rising before our eyes. And we don’t even have to think very hard about how to write this scene. The setting more or less dictates how it will be written. And now we also have high expectancy. We want to race to the next scene to see what happens. Will it be an explosive keg of recriminations?
Look at the huge difference that choosing the right setting has made to the drama of this scene, and so also the possibility of enhancing the following one by a ripple effect. We also have a natural break between the two scenes, and they will also now have two different tones and tempos of dialogue between them. This will certainly contribute to the briskness of the pace across them both.
One other big lesson to be learnt here is to always go for a scene that offers immediacy, if at all possible, over one that is informing us about the event, even in argument form. Immediacy will always offer up far greater opportunities for dramatic effect.
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For the second example, let’s take a story where a woman wants to confess to her husband that she has killed someone. Again, where might be the best setting for such a dramatic confession to take place? Where would the dramatic effect be at its maximum? In their kitchen? Living room? But isn’t that a safe environment to make such a confession? Here the husband can more easily absorb this sort of news, than, for example, say, if his wife were to inform him about it at a funeral service. Whether comedy or straight drama, this seems like a good dramatic environment for such a confession. Keep in mind, of course, that a setting cannot be forced for its own sake, but must fit in naturally with the storyline. Here, let’s assume it does.
So, it might well be a very inopportune place for him to hear his wife’s confession, thereby really putting him on the spot. And to really press this point home, let’s say it occurs during the church service, possibly during the singing of a hymn, while the coffin is up front near the altar. Here she turns to him and whispers the confession in his ear, ‘I killed someone, you know’. Possibly, earlier in the day or week, he had teased her for having lived a quiet, boring, uneventful life, and now he feels she is trying to impress him in some way. ‘Of course you did,’ he whispers back to her, smiling. They continue singing the hymn for a while then she leans in and whispers, ‘No, really I did.’ He studies her for a moment then begins to grow suspicious, maybe now wondering if she is not lying. Next he stares around to see if anyone is eavesdropping. Then she may stare at the coffin and he follows her gaze. But look how easily we can ratchet up the dramatic effect here! Suspense and tension flow easily, too, in this claustrophobic setting surrounded as they are by the other mourners. Add in the hymn, maybe a bit of organ music and the presence of the coffin and you have a real atmosphere, but also an inexpensive scene cost wise to put together.
Whose funeral is it, anyway? A friend’s? A relative’s? Do we the audience know at this point? Is she implying she killed this person? Did this person die under mysterious circumstances? He may sing out his questions at her during the hymn, or whisper them or use subtext to get them across. She may give him some cryptic clues here, but not reveal too much. We have the scene change, the purpose of the scene, and she has won the exchange between them. What is he now going to do about it? He wants to get her back home now, get her alone, at least, to find out what’s going on. And we are eager to know more because the scene has built up like a pressure cooker and kept us in growing suspense. What a difference the setting made! The following scene can be played out very differently, of course. It might take place at home. Or we might like to keep this type of suspense and tension rising. It has given us ideas!
Suppose this next scene is not set back at their house but at the funeral gathering after the service. Then he is still in the pressure cooker if he fails to get her alone. And this way she can breadcrumb him with information and like a bird he hops after her, pecking at the few crumbs she feels like throwing him each time, and we the audience follow suit. Maybe he really begins to suspect she has in fact killed the person whose funeral service they are at, and at that point the person’s wife or husband comes over to them; and now they must offer their condolences. What if the deceased’s husband or wife wants to have a private chat with them about the mysterious circumstances of their beloved’s death? Now we can have all kinds of subtext going on in the exchange, all sorts of undercurrents coming out of his wife that he, the husband, is trying to get a grasp of, as well as we, the audience. The suspense and tension is ratcheting up all the time and the stakes here may be very high. By the time our couple get back to their own home, and he’s able to question her more freely on events, it will be a rather interesting scene to watch.
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Yes, we could have arrived here from any number of craftsmanship perspectives, but look how much we accomplished by thinking solely from the one of pace. By choosing our scene setting carefully from this angle, we not only really heightened the dramatic effect of the scene, a scene that more or less wrote itself, but which also encouraged us with ideas for ways of heightening the dramatic effect in the next scene, too.
But remember, any setting must fit in practically and meaningfully with the storyline and plot, otherwise, it may well come across as unnatural and forced, and possibly cheesy, showy, noisy and distracting. Then this will do the opposite of what we want to achieve. Just two or three of these wrong settings in the play and its coordination and pace may well be badly affected. It may even be that your play will hold strong dramatic form and a brisk pace with very few but very effective scene changes.
Suggested reading:
The play’s 3-act plot arc structure
The scene’s plot arc structure
Inspiration from inside an empty matchbox
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