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Writing tempo is the pace that you want to create for your audience in your articles and manuscripts. Just like each piece of music has its own speed, each work of literature does too. Some manuscripts will require the reader to rely on slow and steady thoughts so they can absorb the message therein. Others will be light and fun, making them a rather quick read. Your job as the composer of an article, manuscript, poem, play, or any other form of literature is to feel the appropriate tempo and draft it appropriately in your work.

In order to write a piece with proper tempo, you need to visualize what you want that work to be. Will it be a research article with lots of detailed information? Will it be a satire that makes your audience laugh full heartedly at themselves or some uneasy situation? Perhaps it will be nothing more than a relaxing tale meant for the sole purpose of personal enjoyment. Or maybe it will be instructions that are clear and concise, leaving little room for doubt and error.

Your vision as a writer needs to be carefully thought out and orchestrated. Creating an outline, jotting down specifics, and developing a rough draft will help you produce the perfect writing tempo for your piece. As you read it or get feedback from someone else who reads it, you will know if the tempo needs to be adjusted in some places, or if the work flows exactly as you had planned.

As you write your piece, the tempo of it could change midstream. This type of thing happens all the time in real life. People talk about the ups and downs of living, explaining how they feel like they are on a proverbial roller coaster at times. You could use lots of drama to slow your story way down, and then lighten the mood, quickening up the pace as you go, filling in the background with swift moving streams, and all sorts of busyness from people rushing, to animals chattering.

Some of these symbolic changes can also trigger an air of suspense, making the reader's adrenalin begin to pump in anticipation, while slowing down his eyes so he catches every word you've typed. As a writer, you want to manage the tempo of your story or document so people will not only read your message, but think beyond what you say too. You want your words to linger, and your readers to hang onto them for hours, days, and even years after they've read them. Tempo helps with this, as does careful word choice, and excellent editing, the very things that separate good writers from great ones.

Learn more about this author, M. J. Joachim.
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