Building up the Buildup

One thing that frustrates me sometimes is if/when someone says a book "starts slowly" -- in my view, a book *should* start slowly and then accelerate. That's the crescendo in the story, the buildup.

I try to cover that in my stories, in that I usually throw in some action in the beginning to tide the reader over as the necessary exposition begins. The journey starts quieter than it ends.

For things to matter, you need a buildup. You need time to learn about the character(s), the setting(s), and the stakes of the story. Then, having established that, you raise the stakes.

Maybe people's attention spans are withering in our 24/7 digital-social media landscape, people want the dopamine hit right out of the gates and aren't patient enough to wait for a story to build. Or maybe there's a presumption that the payoff won't be worth it. Perhaps fewer readers are reading novels, so they are less familiar with the requirements of novel-reading (parallels critiques about "too many characters" in a book).

I don't know; I always try to make sure that my stories accelerate and have a solid payoff for the reader's troubles.