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Posts tagged ‘scenes’

Aug 11

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The shape of a scene: endings

Each scene in your novel has a shape. The beginning is the set up. The middle is the rise of action with alternating beats. And then there’s the end of the scene which should have a little, or sometimes big, rise in tension.

Best-selling fantasy and sci-fi author, Nancy Kress, says that tension comes from two things pulling in opposite directions. The tension at the end of a scene could be something as small as a character’s thoughts conflicting with their actions. Or something as large as good vs. evil locked in immortal combat.

Kress says a rise in tension can be effected in several ways. Two specific ways are as follows: Read more

Jun 15

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Four ways to revise scenes

So much of writing is actually revising. Whether you’re writing a poem, science fiction novel, essay, memoir or short story, writing and rewriting is where you fully discover your story and add emotional meaning and depth to your work. Revision is where you have epiphanies about your characters, see new themes, find ways to add symbolism and more. Author Anne Lamott illustrated this idea when she said:

“When I was a young writer, I was talking to an old painter one day about how he came to paint his canvases. He said that he never knew what the completed picture would look like, but he could usually see one quadrant. So he’d make a stab at capturing what he saw on the canvas of his mind, and when it turned out not to be even remotely what he’d imagined, he’d paint it over with white. And each time he figured out what the painting wasn’t, he was one step closer to finding out what it was.”

Whether you plot and plan out your book before you type the first word or just dive right in, you’ll find rewriting a necessary part of the writing process as you figure out what your “completed picture” looks like. The elements below can serve as a mini checklist or starting point as you work through scene revisions. Read more

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