by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Y’all probably won’t see me visiting online a lot this week. I’ve got a book to turn in on Friday (well, the deadline is July 1—to me, that means I should hand it over before the weekend) and I’m doing my usual pre-deadline scramble.
I’m scrambling even though I’m happy with the book. My problem (well, one of my problems) is that I never, ever think a book is done. I’d be still working on Memphis 1 if it hadn’t been for the deadline I had back in 2010. :)
Despite my overall positive feeling about this book, there was a scene that I wasn’t happy with on Monday. Something struck me as not being right, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. And this is kind of late in the game to be discovering weak scenes.
So I ran through the likely reasons why a scene doesn’t work:
Too long
Repetitive
Doesn’t advance the plot
Doesn’t offer character insight
Sentence structure needs switching up
Large blocks of text need breaking up
POV issues
Boring—slow pacing
Not enough dialogue
Too many characters in the scene
Lack of conflict
Confusing (check dialogue character tags. Reintroduce characters who have been offstage a while)
Scene has no goal
None of them seemed to apply.
So I did my usual fixes for scenes that don’t work:
I removed the scene to see if it was needed. It was still needed….it provided information the sleuth needed to solve the case.
I considered taking the bit of important information from the scene and sticking it into a different scene. But I decided against it. I still thought the scene served a purpose aside from providing information (I’d written in some character development.)
I made a blind rewrite of the scene—I rewrote it from memory. I still wrote the scene nearly verbatim.
Then I really studied the scene and I found that I’d not considered the secondary character’s motivation at all. I didn’t need to write it from that character’s POV (that would be overkill), but I didn’t think out what the character would be motivated by in the scene…saving his own neck was the main one, but there were others that were equally important to that character.
Once I realized that, there were a couple of other details I put in the scene. Otherwise, there was this gaping hole—something that didn’t make sense. I didn’t see it in the read-through, but it was a plot hole. It tripped me up, although it sure wasn’t obvious. Here’s a good post on plot holes, from editor Jason Black, if you need a refresher. And Janice Hardy has a nice post on character motivation.
What do you do when a scene seems off to you?
Image—Flickr—OneCogTooMany
First I tell myself the book is crap and should be chucked. Then when I’ve had some coffee (or a glass of wine ;-b ) I wrap it up and move on.
Then, when I’ve had time away from the scene I go back start by asking myself what it was I wanted to achieve with the scene, and look at what’s working to achieve that, and what’s not.
Elizabeth – Thanks for bringing up this topic. I’ve run into the same thing myself. Usually I can tell a scene isn’t working when I stop and wonder (or a beta-reader tells me) what is this doing here? When that happens, the first thing I ask is whether the scene needs to be there at all. I can be pretty ruthless about cutting out a scene. If it does advance the story, then I ask what it’s goal is. That helps me figure out how to fix it.
Elizabeth – I hope I do what you do – I love your doggedness when it comes to getting the job done. I definitely do that ‘rewrite from memory’ thing – sometimes I write it as silly as I can so that I can what pops. Thanks – I’m definitely going to bookmark this one!
Paul–Ha! Well, I’ve done that sort of thinking, too, but it leads down a dangerous road…scene is crap, book is crap, I’m a crappy writer–ugh. Yeah, now I stop myself before I go too far down that train of thought.
I like your way of approaching it. Because, if we can’t nail what the original goal of the scene was, it should be taken out.
Jan–A silly rewrite sounds like a great idea! I bet you find a lot of surprising pearls when you do that.
I like your approach. I just went through this with my editor on the final pass of Greed (book 2 in the Charity Deacon series). There was a scene where my POV character was involved in a discussion that would normally not be a 3 person discussion. I needed her there for 2 reasons. First it’s a 1st person POV so we can only see it if she’s there, and I was setting up some conflict for the next book.
The problem with the scene was found in earlier fixes. I needed to make the decision more urgent. So I edited two scenes earlier in the story and shorted the problem scene.
Sometimes it’s helpful to talk through the problem.
Hi Elizabeth .. good luck with your submission – at least you (finally!) realised which part you needed to change around a bit ..
All the best – Hilary
I like the checklist. I’m going to copy it down.
I think for me it’s usually that there’s just not enough there. The scene might be a little confusing or just too sparse.
Yep, I often write scenes in passes — one for the surface, one for each character.
Deadlines, at least, are a cure for that habit of never being satisfied (even when you’re satisfied). And oddly enough, if there really is a problem, your brain, under pressure, seems to come up with the solution.
I’m writing a serial on my blog for fun, and I’m finding that the twice-weekly deadline is really pushing my brain along.
Great post, Elizabeth! I love your list of possible reasons why a scene isn’t working, and the solutions you tried until you found the right one! I’ll be looking forward to reading this book when it comes out.
Great checklist, Elizabeth! Good luck on meeting that deadline :)
Very useful piece, Elizabeth. I shall refer to this regularly. Thank you
x
Margot–Those betas are good at spotting this stuff!
Hilary–It took a while!
P A –Shortening a scene frequently works. As you mentioned, upping the urgency can do wonders, too. Any type of ticking time bomb really helps (even if it’s just in the protagonist’s mind.)
Alex–Good point…that it needs some fleshing out.
Jodie–It’ll be next summer…sigh. But thanks!
Julie–Thanks!
The Daring Novelist–Pressure does amazing things to creative people!
Do you find you also get ideas for other projects as you’re working on the ones you’re under deadline with? I seem to.
Jenny–Thanks. :) And thanks for coming by.
“Do you find you also get ideas for other projects as you’re working on the ones you’re under deadline with?”
With long deadlines, absolutely — even if it’s just me declaring I’m going to write X this month, and then suddenly I come down with a desire to write Y.
However, this twice-a-week deadline for the serial really challenges me and keeps me on task. (Also the episodes are short, so there is time to work on other projects too.)
Good luck with your deadline :)