So I'm not a Southern writer in the commonly held sense of the term, like Faulkner or Eudora Welty, who took the South for their entire literary environment and subject matter.
Sometimes you can do all the right things and not succeed. And that's a hard lesson of reality.
But it's for every writer to decide his own pace, and the pace varies with the writer and the work.
Storytelling and elegant style don't always go hand in hand.