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Discuss the importance of pacing and structure in scriptwriting. How can these elements affect the audience’s experience of a story?
It is extremely important to have proper pacing in a screenplay. If the pacing is too fast, the audience will feel overwhelmed with information a what’s happening. It will not be an overall pleasant experience for the viewer in most cases. If the pacing is too slow, the audience will get bored of the story and won’t be as invested compared to a steady pace.
Controlling pace is important to creating and dispelling tension in a story. For example, having a slow pace that ramps up over time could build a crawling sense of dread. The pacing could also help to establish a character’s mindset. For example, having the pace be very quick could show a character’s franticness/urgency. In terms of pacing involving time and not a series of events, this could also affect the believability of a story to the audience. For example, if a romance story took place over the course of two weeks, it might be hard for the audience to believe that the romance is real or warranted. It could feel like “instalove”.
Pacing and structure is extremely important in screenwriting because I believe that these elements can make or break a story. Without a proper structure, a story is going to get very confusing or feel really weird watching and without good pacing, a story will either move too fast, too slow and will ultimately make the audience feel frustrated (also, since pacing is often crucial to character arcs and other important story elements, bad pacing can make things drag out too long or even have crucial details be missed/failed opportunities to expand upon engaging bits of lore).
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