We live by rules and we write by them, too. Yesterday, I listed some that others have passed down from their experiences. One thing I found out for myself is that keeping a story fast-paced is a vital ingredient to a successful novel.
There are many ways to say it. Tension on every page, or torture your protagonist, but one thing you have to watch out is the back story. Yes, it has it's place, but I am finding that in my WIP, I keep putting in back story, which slows down the pace.
It's necessary to do it sometimes, but you gotta watch it. Don't let it slow down the pace. I just revised a part where I used back story. I changed it to dialogue, and in doing so, I think I prevented a slowing down of pace. I'll have to reread it tomorrow and confirm it holds up. If it does, I will go back everywhere I have put back story and see how the pace holds up. It it doesn't then I will consider options that include changing it to dialogue or even deletion. Someone said once the delete button is your best friend when it's time to revise. Heck, I'm not even revising yet, and here I am revising. I should get this first draft done, but if you see something you're doing wrong when you do it, you may as well fix it right then, if you know how, that is.
Another term for back story is information dump. Be careful with that. I forget who termed that, but it is a good way to say it. You can't bog down your story with a dump!
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