The Five Ingredients Of The Scene
A New Five-Session Fiction Writing TeleWorkshop
Using The Five Ingredients of the Scene is like riding a bike; once you get it, you’ll never forget it!
Scenes are the locomotive that pulls plot and character forward. Not only are scenes critical to the success of your story, novel, or memoir, but they’ll make your writing so much easier.
Introduction: In this five-session TeleWorkshop, you’ll learn how The Five Ingredients of the Scene℠ combine to build all manner of scenes, from dramatic to tender to scary and more... We’ll break down The Five Ingredients and then watch how beautifully they come together in a powerfully constructed scene that you'll write in each of the five sessions!
Scenes are the locomotive that pulls plot and character forward. Not only are scenes critical to the success of your story, novel, or memoir, but they’ll make your writing so much easier.
Introduction: In this five-session TeleWorkshop, you’ll learn how The Five Ingredients of the Scene℠ combine to build all manner of scenes, from dramatic to tender to scary and more... We’ll break down The Five Ingredients and then watch how beautifully they come together in a powerfully constructed scene that you'll write in each of the five sessions!
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Point of View: This is one of the most liberating techniques in fiction writing. It gets you out of yourself and into your character’s imagination, heart, history, thoughts, and instincts.
Setting and Mood: Your scene might take place in an empty office, a darkened bedroom, a rainy alley, Venice in the 16th century … or anywhere imaginable. But that’s the setting. Each of these settings can support a number of different moods, which originate with your character. How, at this moment in time, is she perceiving the setting? What is she feeling?
A rainy alley may lead to the apartment in which your character is joining her new love for a romantic dinner. Or it may be a rendezvous with a blackmailer. Same setting, different moods. |
Dialogue: Your character can say whatever she wants, however she wants to say it — so long as it’s true to who she is! Dialogue is a fast-paced, fun way to bring character and dramatic tension into a scene. Example: You’re typing away and all of sudden, your characters says… What? OMG! I can’t let her say that! Yes, you can. And yes, you should, if you want your story to take off!
I’ve never worked with anyone who can’t write good dialogue, only with someone who thinks she can’t.
I’ve never worked with anyone who can’t write good dialogue, only with someone who thinks she can’t.
Dramatic Tension: Every story needs dramatic tension – a sense of mystery – to create "What Happens Next?" This is what makes the reader want to turn the page! Understanding the difference between inner dramatic tension, which is character-driven, and outer dramatic tension, which is plot-driven, will help demystify the process of fiction writing. One session with me on this TeleWorkshop, and you’ll get it forever!
An example of how quickly The Five Ingredients Of The Scene can come together can be seen in the piece below, written by my student Cynthia Ayres. She wrote this partial scene in just twenty minutes, during a recent TeleWorkshop. While the Prompt she chose was the picture above – Dramatic Tension – you can see how beautifully she integrated all five Ingredients into her scene!
An example of how quickly The Five Ingredients Of The Scene can come together can be seen in the piece below, written by my student Cynthia Ayres. She wrote this partial scene in just twenty minutes, during a recent TeleWorkshop. While the Prompt she chose was the picture above – Dramatic Tension – you can see how beautifully she integrated all five Ingredients into her scene!
I was so thrilled when Cynthia read this in the Workshop. She really took the Prompt and ran with it, but even better, her short scene (just twenty minutes of writing) used all five Ingredients to great advantage. You can do so, too!
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Flashback: Sometimes it’s most effective to have one or more scenes that take place prior to the main action. It’s really important to know when flashback is appropriate, and when it’s simply lazy on the part of the writer.
In this workshop, I’ll teach you how to use flashback effectively and how to avoid overuse of it. |
These Five Ingredients of the Scene allow your characters to find their voices and the plot to unfold. Once you fully begin building your scenes with The Five Ingredients, this technique will open your creative imagination, release your writer’s passion, and bring joy to your writing.
- Participate from anywhere in the world through your phone or your computer!
- This five-session workshop runs from February 28th to March 28th.
- Each session runs from 12:00-2:30 PM ET, each Thursday.
- All sessions are recorded so you can revisit them later.
- Five Sessions: $250
- Save 20% if you register by January 25th!