“Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth. Clarice Starling reached it flushed after a fast walk from Hogan’s Alley on the firing range.”

Freakin’ Silence of the Lambs.

This is THE prime example of good pacing and rhythm and character building in a book, so let’s dive in and deconstruct the opening.

Watch the video for the full visual breakdown 👇

Right away, the structure is doing exactly what the scene needs.

It’s efficient, it’s matter of fact.

And the whole opening moves very quickly. In only 100 words, you’ve got Clarice rushing away from the firing range, you’ve got this telling character moment when she primps in front of a mirror, and you know something urgent’s about to happen because “Chief Crawford’s summons said NOW.”

Think about it. The writing itself is showing you there’s no time to stop and smell the flowers. When your story’s moving fast, your sentences should too.

Another thing that’s really interesting is the variation in sentence lengths when it comes to narrative vs. dialogue.

At the start, you can see a lot of long sentences, but when Clarice meets Crawford, It flips into almost all purple and green highlighting in Writhm (see video above).

The dialogue is very staccato, very to-the-point — which is PERFECT for the relationship between Starling and Crawford.

“Hello.” Her smile was only polite.
“Nothing’s wrong. I hope the call didn’t spook you.”
“No.” Not totally true, Starling thought.

So here are 2 takeaways from the opening of The Silence of the Lambs:

#1) Make sure your pacing reflects the environment you’re writing about; in this case fast, urgent, no fluff.

#2) For realistic dialogue, try short back-and-forth lines.

For more deconstructions, follow on TikTok – and if you want to play around with Writhm, sign up for a free account. It’ll help you improve the flow of your writing.