At last she won the patronage of Walker Percy, who got it accepted by the Louisiana State University Press, and in 1980 it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Forget all the hours you spent chopping carrots and peeling potatoes-all the diner will remember is the salt. A manuscript must give us a satisfying sense of progression-but not too easily. It must make us work-but not too hard. It must keep us turning pages-but not leave us feeling it is too much of a breeze.
Few writers comprehend the power of pacing and progression.
They are the spine of the book, the Central Processing Unit. One tear in one corner can bring the whole thing down and yet slight patchwork can strengthen the whole. It is not unlike fixing a car. But to make things worse, you only get one or two shots at it because once you start playing with it, re-reading it again and again, you will quickly lose objectivity and soon be in no position to do anything. Clearly, pacing and progression are some of the hardest things to achieve in a manuscript.