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One of the reasons why I love Stephen King’s writing, besides the fact that he is amazing at story telling, is how he writes scenes. I grew up in Massachusetts and there are times when I will read one of Mr. King’s stories and the scene will be so realistic to me, I can smell it. Larry Brooks from Kill Zone shares on how to have a purposeful deeper scene that enhance your story.
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Deeper Thinking About Writing Your Scenes
by Larry Brooks
Deeper than what, you might fairly ask?
Perhaps, deeper than you’re thinking about them now. Because too often, newer writers (in particular) begin writing a scene without a clear intention for that scene. As a means of discovery (finding and vetting story options), this can be viable and legit…
… but unless you rethink and recast the scene once you do understand the purpose of a particular scene – its mission, if you will – chances are that scene will become a liability.
New writers tend to forget that next step. The scene rambles, then it finds (perhaps stumbles upon) its purpose… then it’s on to the next scene.
If you have a bunch of scenes created this way, you may have tanked the whole novel on this one issue of craft alone.
Scene writing is its own core competency, separate from – yet every bit as essential as – the other primary core competencies you need to manifest: 1) a conceptually-rich premise, 2) character, 3) theme, 4) structure and 5) writing voice, including dialogue and the general nature of your narrative.
That’s six core competencies (categorically) in all.
Read the full post on Kill Zone