Emily's Five Ingredients Of The Scene
The Five Ingredients of the Scene
One of the most important steps that a fiction writer can take is journeying out of self and into your characters. To do this, you must see the world through your character's eyes, feel what your character is feeling, know what he is thinking and hold his memories. When you do this, you are in the world of the imagination, where anything is possible. Through your fiction writing, you viscerally experience a world beyond your mind’s horizons.
How do you accomplish such a transformation? By learning The Five Ingredients of the Scene. Together, the Five Ingredients create a scene, and the scene is the building block of the novel. Not only are scenes critical to the success of your book, but they’ll make your writing much easier.
Consider this: Of the three choices below, which would you prefer to write and feel great about you accomplishment?
Working with me, you’ll learn to use the Five Ingredients to make scene development easy and powerfully constructed.
1. Point of View:
Point of View is one of the most liberating techniques in fiction writing. Successful use of Point Of View means you're inside your main character’s head, heart, gut, memories, and motivations. When this happens, the writing can become amazingly fluid.
2. Setting and Mood:
Your scene might take place in an empty office, a noisy factory, a darkened bedroom, a rainy alley, a foggy beach, a windswept blizzard… or anywhere imaginable. But that’s the Setting. Each of these settings could portend many different Moods. However, the mood is determined by the Point Of View of your characters. The bottom line is how a Setting perceived by your characters.
A rainy alley may lead to the apartment in which she'll be joining her new love for a romantic dinner. Or maybe she's gone to break off the relationship. Perhaps this is a rendezvous with a blackmailer. It's the same Setting, but the way it's written comes from the character's Mood or Point of View.
3. Dialogue:
Dialogue is fun and fast-paced! Good dialogue builds dramatic tension and moves the plot along. In fact, a character might say something in the middle of a dialogue that you never expected. A dialogue can open doors to unexpected twists and turns. It can be quite revealing. It can open a memory; it can tell a story. It can also show a side of the character that you never expected! The key is to not try to control the dialogue. Let it flow and see where it takes you!
4. 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. When you work with me on your manuscript, you’ll learn how to use both!
5. Flashback:
Sometimes it's effective to have one or more scenes that take place prior to the main action. But it’s important to know when this is appropriate. In the right setting in the novel or memoir, Flashback can be powerful. I’ll teach you how to use it effectively, and how to avoid overuse of it.
One of the most important steps that a fiction writer can take is journeying out of self and into your characters. To do this, you must see the world through your character's eyes, feel what your character is feeling, know what he is thinking and hold his memories. When you do this, you are in the world of the imagination, where anything is possible. Through your fiction writing, you viscerally experience a world beyond your mind’s horizons.
How do you accomplish such a transformation? By learning The Five Ingredients of the Scene. Together, the Five Ingredients create a scene, and the scene is the building block of the novel. Not only are scenes critical to the success of your book, but they’ll make your writing much easier.
Consider this: Of the three choices below, which would you prefer to write and feel great about you accomplishment?
- An entire book, with all its characters and its twisting and turning plot?
- A ten page chapter?
- A scene?
Working with me, you’ll learn to use the Five Ingredients to make scene development easy and powerfully constructed.
1. Point of View:
Point of View is one of the most liberating techniques in fiction writing. Successful use of Point Of View means you're inside your main character’s head, heart, gut, memories, and motivations. When this happens, the writing can become amazingly fluid.
2. Setting and Mood:
Your scene might take place in an empty office, a noisy factory, a darkened bedroom, a rainy alley, a foggy beach, a windswept blizzard… or anywhere imaginable. But that’s the Setting. Each of these settings could portend many different Moods. However, the mood is determined by the Point Of View of your characters. The bottom line is how a Setting perceived by your characters.
A rainy alley may lead to the apartment in which she'll be joining her new love for a romantic dinner. Or maybe she's gone to break off the relationship. Perhaps this is a rendezvous with a blackmailer. It's the same Setting, but the way it's written comes from the character's Mood or Point of View.
3. Dialogue:
Dialogue is fun and fast-paced! Good dialogue builds dramatic tension and moves the plot along. In fact, a character might say something in the middle of a dialogue that you never expected. A dialogue can open doors to unexpected twists and turns. It can be quite revealing. It can open a memory; it can tell a story. It can also show a side of the character that you never expected! The key is to not try to control the dialogue. Let it flow and see where it takes you!
4. 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. When you work with me on your manuscript, you’ll learn how to use both!
5. Flashback:
Sometimes it's effective to have one or more scenes that take place prior to the main action. But it’s important to know when this is appropriate. In the right setting in the novel or memoir, Flashback can be powerful. I’ll teach you how to use it effectively, and how to avoid overuse of it.