IWSG_ WHEN A SCENE DOESN'T WORK

lhttp://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html

{My Current Work In Progress}

You're looking at your NaNoWriMo novel, slashing away at words that don't fit.  BAM!

You run into an entire scene that doesn't work.  You study it for a moment.  Nothing occurs to you.

Now, what?

1.)  DON'T BE A WRITER ... BE A READER.

You read a scene that lodges in your muse like a bottle cap in the throat of a straw.  Ouch!  Nothing seems to work as you play out different scenario's in your mind.

It could be you're reading as a writer.  Read that scene as a reader coming to it cold.  Is it suspenseful?  Funny?  Needed?

Your subconscious mind is reading the scene as a reader.  Look at that scene as if you had paid hard cash money to read it.

Is it worth the time and the cash the reader paid to read it?  If something in that scene is not entertaining, trash it.


2.) THERE IS NO LITERARY LICENSE FOR INFO DUMPS.

Info dump draws flies just like dumps in the real world.  If a scene strikes you as awkward and clumsy, it probably is ... and it is probably also an info dump.

BE ENTERTAINING ...  don't drone on about airport security protocol: 

have your heroine endure the tedium and humiliation of enduring it.

GO FOR THE HUMOR OF THE DATA ... 

Put one of your characters through the mill of the aspect of your culture you want to describe.  A laugh will stick needed facts into the minds of your readers much better than a lecture.


3.) DON'T GIVE ME ANY LIP, PUPPET.  JUST SAY THE DAMN LINES!

If a scene doesn't work, it may be what you want the characters to say just wouldn't come out of the mouths of the people you've created.

SOCK PUPPETS SMELL ... They also destroy the sense of reality you have been crafting up until this scene.

SPEAR CARRIERS SERVE A PURPOSE ... It isn't against the laws of Literature to so re-write a scene to introduce a character to say the line you want to be spoken.

Sometimes that character even takes on a life of his or her own ... as did Falstaff with Shakespeare.


4.) IF YOU'RE HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION, GOING FASTER DOESN'T HELP!

If a scene isn't working for you, maybe it is headed in a direction that your instincts tell you isn't where you really want to go.

If a scene bumps and spurts like a Mexican bus on a gravel road, then perhaps where you thought you wanted your novel to go, isn't really that great of an idea.  And your unconscious mind knows it.

ASK YOURSELF: WHAT WOULD BE A GREAT TWIST TO MY STORY RIGHT NOW?


5.) SOMETIMES IT IS THE DESTINATION, NOT THE JOURNEY, THAT IS IMPORTANT.

If nothing important or significant happens on the journey from Point A to Point B.  Just skip the journey.

"We need to get to Tanis," says one character at the end of the chapter.  Start the next chapter with your band of heroes just arrived at Tanis.


6.) NO DANGER, NO READER

Does your scene contain an element of suspense or danger?  Is someone's happiness, life, security, or sanity at risk somehow in that scene?

No?  Re-write that scene.  Re-write the chapter if need be.


7.) THERE IS A REASON NO ONE BOOKS A CRUISE ON A SWAMP

Is your difficult scene one in a parade of directionless scenes: a long line of disconnected incidents that fail to add up to a plot?  Have your scene plugged into the flow of your plot.  Don't have one?  That could be the problem.


8.) DO THE ELECTRIC SLIDE

The cure to your difficult scene could be as easy as changing what your characters are doing and still get the words said or the point made.

Changing the location of the scene could add fire to the scene, too.  Exchange a drab location for one with complications and movement.

I HOPE THIS HAS HELPED IN SOME SMALL WAY