Quick, intense and varied pacing is an intrinsic element in every Harlequin Intrigue.
Any tips or tricks you use in your writing to create that strong sense of pacing to
build the tension and keep the reader turning the pages?

Ann Voss Peterson:  Don't give away all your secrets.  When I read a book, I don't want to read about things that happened before the book started.  I want the story that's happening now.  I don't want to read about a character's history until I REALLY care to know.  So let the reader wonder, and entice her to read on to find out the dark secrets in your characters' pasts.

Rita Herron: Intrigues are definitely fast paced romantic suspense novels. Tips I use:

First, make sure you have enough conflict and twists and turns in the story. For suspense novels, you have to keep the action and mystery moving!

Second, I try to keep my scenes two to four pages.This forces me to concentrate on making each scene count. It also keeps the scene tight, and forces me to focus on the point of the scene instead of meandering.

Third, I try to end each scene with a hook. This hook can be related to the romantic conflict or the suspense angle but leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. It might be a question, a new threat, or an action/danger point.

Joanna Wayne: I feel pacing is a key ingredient to Intrigues. My main focus is in keeping the story moving forward at all times and avoiding redundancy. It is also important to keep throwing the readers curves so that they are constantly in a state of suspense. If there were one rule of thumb for pacing, I'd say that would be Escalate! Escalate! Escalate! Both the sensual tension and danger must escalate throughout the story until you reach the climax. Any let down in that escalation bogs down the pacing. The Romantic Times review for Loaded, my June Intrigue, says that it is "first-class romantic suspense with both chills and sizzle." I think the pacing contributes a lot to both the chills and the sizzle in that dramatic conclusion to the Four Brothers of Colts Run Cross series.

Patricia Rosemoor: My upcoming Del Rey, The Last Vampire, is a good example of fast pacing because it is an action thriller. Once the vampire is reconstituted and escapes, it's a race to find a way to stop him before he spreads his poison throughout New Orleans. So the ticking clock is a natural way of hurtling readers to the end of the book. Very few of my Intrigues are this action oriented, because they are also romances. In The Last Vampire, the romance is strong, but it is a subplot. I still try to make Intrigues page turners by making sure my internal and romantic conflicts are very strong and work with the external or suspense story plot. That means I try to create tension on every page, conflict in every scene. That tension can be from danger, but it can also come from inside -- the reason the hero or heroine thinks they can't be together or a direct conflict between them (again, one that has to do with the suspense element). I try never to let the tension dissipate.

Mallory Kane: I try to match the pacing to the mood of the scene. An intensely action-packed scene works well with short, fast sentences that convey the urgent nature of the situation. No pauses in an action scene to dwell on how beautiful the heroine is or how brave the hero is. For slower paced scenes, such as an intimate conversation between hero and heroine, longer, slower-paced sentences work well. And for scenes that are full of anticipated suspense and danger, an unpredictable sentence length can keep the reader off guard, just like the hero and heroine are. My June Intrigue, The Heart of Brody McQuade, the first book in the Silver Star of Texas II: Cantara Hills Investigation, is a very action-packed story. I hope readers will find the pacing equal to the story.

Sylvie Kurtz:  Writing an Intrigue is something unique.  One of the things that distinguishes an Intrigue from any other series is the tight braiding of the emotional and the plot lines.  Whatever happens in the story has to affect the hero and heroine both on a physical and on an emotional level.  This tight braiding of inner and outer conflict is what keeps the story moving forward, builds the tension and keeps the reader reading.

B.J. Daniels: When I sold my first book, the editor sent me a revision letter that said she loved the pacing and the characters but if I wanted to, I could change the plot. :) Isn't it nice to see right from the beginning where your problems lie? :)  But when it comes to pacing, I always heard: Leave out the boring parts. Parts of books that can get boring are 1) moving characters from one place to another 2) adding backstory 3) setting 4) dialogue. I try to take out all words that I don't need, such as unnecessary dialogue tags. I sprinkle in setting and local history sparingly. I prefer to have the characters pasts show up at their doors rather than me tell the reader about them. I'm still working on moving characters but notice that mainstream books tend to just beam characters from place to place. No catching a taxi, driving and thinking, and finally getting there. Also I find changing viewpoints moves the story along. I especially had fun with this in my May release as part of the Whitehorse, Montana series, Second Chance Cowboy. The book is my favorite so I can't wait to see what readers have to say.

Rebecca York: Whether I'm working on an Intrigue or a single title release, I can't write without imagining my long-time Intrigue editor standing behind me telling me to cut some of the description.  So I'm always mindful to make the story move by not wallowing in descriptive details.

Another technique I like to use is to give the characters an urgent personal agenda.  In my May Berkley book, Ghost Moon, the hero, Caleb Marshall, is a ghost who was killed 75 years ago by his cousin.  He's remained on earth for one purpose--to avenge his own death.  As the book opens, he meets Quinn, a woman from a parallel universe, who's friends with the Marshall werewolves my readers have come to know and love.  When she learns his story, she's terrified that he's going to go after her friends.  But she also has an urgent mission--to save the life of a friend.  Her agenda and Caleb's come into sharp conflict, and she finds herself lying to the Marshalls about Caleb.  To add to the problem, Caleb and Quinn are falling in love. 

Julie Miller: I think pacing is one of the main ingredients that sets Intrigue apart from other romance lines. Generally, they need to be fast-paced books. They don't call them "breathtaking romantic suspense" for nothing. But bam-bam-bam from start to finish can wear a reader out or become monotonous. I think it's important to also work in a few short slower-paced sections to give the reader a chance to catch her breath. It gives the tension in the story a chance to build again, to something even more intense and dangerous. In other words, think of plotting an Intrigue as climbing up one mountain toward a high point in the action, then dropping down a bit on the other side of the slope, and then attacking another, even higher mountain. That way you're not only building the tension within each scene, but from scene to scene as well throughout the entire story.

That varied pacing is also a great tool to drop surprises into the story--just when the reader is catching her breath during a quiet moment, THAT'S when you want to hit her with the next surprise. There are plenty of surprises in my upcoming series The Precinct: Brotherhood of the Badge, starting with Protective Instincts in June.