In the last scenes post we looked at the scene purpose, of which Larry Brooks says, "James Patterson has mastered this, and it has become the accepted model of effective scene writing today: One mission per scene." So I picked up a Patterson book (actually a Patterson/Richard DiLallo book) from my library, the most current … Continue reading Scene Purpose: How James Patterson (and his cowriter) does it
Important Note to Subscribers
First off, thank you for subscribing to WWT's blog posts. I really appreciate it. Here's the news: FeedBurner is ending their email subscription support. This means that if you want to keep receiving WWT posts, we'll need to get your email moved to a new subscription manager. It turns out that WordPress provides their own … Continue reading Important Note to Subscribers
Scene Prompt #18: The Elephant in the Room
Pick a scene you want to write. This will work best if there's a very important noun involved. Person, place, thing, concept, your choice. That thing? It's now the elephant in the room. And what's the deal with the elephant in the room? No one mentions it. At least not by name, not in your … Continue reading Scene Prompt #18: The Elephant in the Room
Scene Elements: The Scene’s Purpose
According to the craft masters, scenes should have a purpose (also called a mission, intention, focus, point, or function). In other words, it needs a reason for being in your story. This isn't the character's reason for entering the scene. (We'll get to that later.) This is your, the author's, reason for including the scene … Continue reading Scene Elements: The Scene’s Purpose
Scene Prompt #17: The Frozen Moment
I'm taking this one wholesale from Tom Spanbauer. Forever ago, I took a week-long class from him, and he gave us a pre-class assignment (your prompt): Write about a moment after which you [or your character] were different. That's it. That's all he said. No further explanation. I, however, will give you a little more: … Continue reading Scene Prompt #17: The Frozen Moment
Scene Structure: Elements of a Scene
So what all goes into writing a scene? Let's find out. As mentioned in the first scene post, these posts are ordered from the macro to the micro (more or less), so this post is mostly another overview post: We're getting a sense of all the elements that make up a scene, with a focus … Continue reading Scene Structure: Elements of a Scene
Scene Prompt #16: The Imitation
For this prompt, we're not going to think about our own work. At least not yet. Instead of the Imitation, we might call this the Borrow or even the Steal. (But not the Copy!) What's the saying? Bad artists copy; good artists borrow; great artists steal? Something like that? Well, whatever... Think about some of … Continue reading Scene Prompt #16: The Imitation
Scenes: What are they?
Scenes! We're finally doing them! Okay, so, I don't know yet how many posts this series is going to turn out to be, but so far it's looking to be about twenty, and that's not including any Wednesday posts. The plan is to order the posts from macro to micro, so this post here is … Continue reading Scenes: What are they?
Scene Prompt #15: Slow Motion
In real life, when things are really stressful or scary, time can seem to slow down. You catch more details. You have more time to process, even more time to move your body if necessary. In life, slow motion probably doesn't happen very often, but in story--really, in every scene--there's a moment where things change, … Continue reading Scene Prompt #15: Slow Motion
Scene Prompt #14: The Big Fight
Do you know what your book's about? For this prompt, you need to know the main character's overall story goal. You also need to know who the goal's main opponent is, the one character who embodies the opposite philosophical position. Yeah, I said opposite philosophical position: We're going to pretend these two characters are captains … Continue reading Scene Prompt #14: The Big Fight
