Scene writing

While I am busy with the novel writing course – which is going great – I decided to share a technique I worked on for developing a scene and then sketching that in the mind of the reader.

There is a couple of things to know and keep in mind about a scene before we start.

•  A scene has purpose and exist to move the storyline, plot or sub plot on – never write a scene just because you feel like it.
•  A scene has a focal point, something that you need to bring to the reader’s attention, or an event that sets wheels in motion… etc.
•  A scene has an beginning, middle and end
• The beginning of a scene must always connect to the end of the previous scene (Continuity)
• The end of a scene must set the stage for the beginning of the next scene (Continuity)

With these points as a rough guideline you can now proceed.

Let’s create a scenario for our scene. We are in a clearing out in the woods, there is a large lake to one side and the entrance to a cave. From this you can see we can describe the water, the shore, the skyline, the forest, boats on the water, birds in the sky… etc, and I have not come to my focal point the entrance to the cave yet. So the question is where to draw the line? When do you start to bore the reader with too much detail and when is it not enough.

You as the writer have a perfect picture of the scene in your mind, you need to convey that picture as best as possible to the reader without dumping so much detail that he actually gets bored with your book.

I came up with a technique for breaking the scene into small sections that will allow you to progress the reader’s attention towards your focal point. This will guide you to describing just enough detail about the scene to let the readers imagination do the rest.

Take three things that stand out to you from the mental image of your scene, the last one in the list is your focal point. Then describe three things about each of the first two focal points, that will gradually lead the reader towards the focal point. You then describe three pertinent points about your focal point, and voila you have a very good scene.

This is a guideline, and not the ultimate step by step guide on how to write a scene. It has helped me in the past, I hope it can help you.