Showing posts with label scene. Show all posts

Monday, May 18, 2015

Maximising Want-To-Know Value

Posted by Amazing People, on 10:00 AM
When someone is reading a story they are assigning a value to what they are reading. This value can be anywhere from �I have absolutely no interest in this� to �I have to know what happens next, sleep be damned�. Obviously you want them to be nearer one end of the scale than the other.

While it�s impossible to have a story where the reader�s engagement is turned up all the way to 11 from beginning to end, there are ways to help you get the most out of a scene, no matter what the premise might be.

Action, conversation, or even a familiar set up that�s been written about a zillion times before� they can all be vastly improved if the reader actively wants to know what�s going on. And there are ways you can help nudge them in that direction.

Often, when advice is given on how to improve a story, it is presented in the manner of a tutorial manner. Do more of this, less of this, this way is good, this way is bad. A lot of this comes down to wanting to be concise and get to the point, but it can lead to a lot of very similarly structured stories that end up feeling formulaic.

Your first priority should be to your own creativity. Whatever strikes you as interesting, wherever your imagination suggests you go, that�s what you should pursue.

That doesn�t mean it will be any good. It�s a process that takes time and you will eventually take out things you used to think were essential parts of the story. But trying to second guess yourself and write to a pre-approved template isn�t much fun.

If, for example, you think it would be good to start a story with an introduction of the main character, you might find, once it�s on the page, it feels a bit slow and not particularly interesting. The reader doesn�t know who this person is or what they�re going to do, but they�re expected to absorb all this information about them.

Imagine you�re in a park and you see a man under a tree. Up in the tree is a child, stuck. The man is trying to coax the kid down. You go over to help. How interested are you in who this man is, where he lives, what his employment background is?

You don�t need to know, and generally, other than for the sake of politeness, you aren�t interested. You help get the kid down and you go on your way.

This would seem to be me advocating for not bothering to give the reader details they don�t need. But just because they don�t need it doesn�t mean you can�t give it to them, if it happens to strike your fancy. The reader might not care all that much, but they aren�t going to throw the book down in disgust because your opening lines are: 

Jack Brown, a 31 year old father of three, stood under a tree in the park, trying to convince his youngest son to jump down from the branches he�d managed to climb up into. Climbing down wasn�t proving to be so easy. 

Does the reader have a burning desire to know how old Jack is? Probably not, but if I want to tell them, for whatever reason, I certainly can. But can I boost their interest if I wanted to?

Consider the same scenario, but suddenly a man in a cape flies down and plucks little Timmy out of the sky and returns him to his father. Do you want additional background on this guy?

The thing is we all  have a general sense of curiosity, but we also have a sense of expectation. I may not know the personal details of the man under the tree, but I have a rough idea of the kind of information he might reveal to me. He lives in a house or a flat, he has a wife, or he�s divorced, he has a job, or not. I don�t know the specifics but I expect them to fit into my past experiences.

And, of course, I could be totally wrong. He might have the most amazing history and if I gave him the time he could tell me some things that would blow my mind. But probably not.

Unless we are give some indication otherwise, we assume the norm. And most of the time we turn out to be right, so our level of interest is low.

The man in the cape, on the other hand, clearly doesn�t fit into our preconceived ideas of what�s normal. His story is going to be something different and that increases our level of interest.

That doesn�t mean you have to go to fantastic extremes to grab a reader�s attention. If you went over to the guy under the tree and he spoke with a strong Swedish accent, that could also affect the level of interest, especially if the story took place in a remote part of Scotland. If the story took place in Sweden, not so much.

By being aware of what the reader expects, whether they�re are going to be told something that falls within their realm of experience or not, you can manipulate that level of interest, both in small and large ways.

Being able to judge this scale, and use it to your advantage, isn�t always obvious and you may not always get it right. If you think Marsha looks 20 and she�s actually 21, there�s not much to be gained from correcting you. If she�s 47, it might be worth mentioning. But if she�s 26? 

You have to use your own judgement. but being aware of this ability to increase interest is very helpful when it comes to writing scenes that feel obvious, familiar or info-heavy.

Getting the reader to want to know, even in a small way, isn�t just good in the immediate moment, it can also have a snowball effect where one thing leads to another and the level of interest quickly escalates. At the same time though, it�s also possible to cheat, and if you�re caught cheating you can easily lose any momentum you�ve gained.

For example, if two boys at the back of a classroom are having this conversation:

�You sure the security cameras will be off?�
�For sure. I got the codes, we just have to avoid the guards.�

Here you are trying to get the reader to be curious about what�s going on. They�re planning something suspicious but it�s not clear what. This kind of mystery set-up can work in terms of piquing the reader�s interest, but essentially you�re focusing on the question, not the answer.

Having no idea what�s going on will pull a reader in to some extent, but you have to keep it up or otherwise once you reveal what it is, the interest can fade very quickly. For example, if it turns out the boys are talking about a video game they plan to play that evening, the reader would probably lose the curiosity they had built up.

Alternatively, if they had this conversation:

�You sure the security cameras will be off?�
�For sure. I got the codes off my Dad�s computer. The bank�s never had any kind of break in, so they use the same system they�ve used for years.�

It becomes clear these schoolboys are planning to break into a bank for real. This isn�t what you expect of kids, so why are they doing it? How? What makes them think they can get away with it?

Because it�s outside of what you would expect, all sorts of details become much more interesting.

On the other hand, imagine the same sort of conversation between two burly men in basement, standing over a blueprint of a bank.

Now that they�re two professional thieves planning a heist, the details of their personal lives become less interesting. It�s still a dramatic situation and can be great material for a story, but because it�s more in line with what you expect, you won�t be particularly surprised by the whys and wherefores. You don�t know the exact reasons why they�re robbing a bank, but you have a rough idea.

And, again,  you could be totally wrong. They might have a very unusual reason for the robbery. But without any indication of that, the reader will default to assuming to it being pretty much what they�ve seen before.

This can be changed very simply. If it becomes clear that these men aren�t breaking into the bank to take money out, but to put a large amount of money in, then who they are, why they would want to do that, what brought them to this point all take on a lot more value for the reader.

Even though just about every story is probably not going to be about normal,everyday things, letting the reader know that in a definitive way by giving a clear indication within a scene is what snaps them out of their tendency to assume it is.

It�s very possible, even common, that as a reader progresses through a story, they will discover stuff that they will find interesting and engaging. After they find it out.

If, however, you present the story in a way they aren�t expecting, they will be interested and engaged before they find out the answers, and hopefully even more so afterwards.
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Monday, September 8, 2014

When A Scene Isn�t Working

Posted by Amazing People, on 10:00 AM


There comes a time when you have to face facts. You�ve tried to convince yourself that scene where your main character goes back to her old house and stares at it for four pages is a good scene, an important scene where the reader learns things they need to know, but... it just isn�t a very interesting scene.

You know this because none of the people who�ve read it have ever said anything good about it. Quite a few have said bad things about it. And most have not mentioned it at all. You could take their silence as a sign they�re okay with it, but do you really want to write a story that�s just okay?

So, something�s got to change.


You basically have two options. You can cut the scene completely, or you can make the scene better.

With the first option, it�s rare to be able to lift out the scene and that�s it. Sometimes it is possible, if the scene was unrelated to the plot and just a fun interlude of some sort, but mostly it will either have to be replaced with a new scene, or the information contained in the old scene will have to be worked into the rest of the story somehow.

Personally, I think a brand new scene works best (although it requires more work). If things happened in the old scene that are pertinent to later events and you try to squeeze that info into other places, it can end up feeling like heavy-handed exposition.

You cut the scene where Sandra meets Debra and finds out about the new shopping mall being built in town, and you go straight to the scene where she�s having dinner with her husband. But instead of getting straight into the action, you now have half a page of:

�So where were you this afternoon?�
�I went to see Debra. You�ll never guess what she told me...�

There�s no point cutting a scene that isn�t working only to add a summary of the scene that didn�t work. If you cut you have to really cut.

The second option, improving the scene, is usually the best way to proceed, although writers are resistant to making the kinds of changes required. A few line edits and introducing a chatty waiter aren�t going to be enough.

You have to really go back to basics and work out what you�re trying to do with the scene and come up with a completely new approach to getting that message across. I�m not saying there aren�t ways to tweak the current version into working, but once you�ve spent so much time with Version A, it�s going to be very hard to see it any other way than how it already is. You�ve been honing and trimming and getting it just so for so long that being able to see it fresh will be nearly impossible.

Far easier is to go back to the start of the scene and start again. Take into account where the characters were just prior to the beginning of the scene. How did that affect them? What mood are they in? What are they hoping will happen now? And then the first time a choice needs to be made, if you went left in Version A, go right in Version B. The more different you make it, the easier it will be to come up with fresh ideas.

And it�s important to remember if Version B ends up being even worse than the original, that doesn�t make Version A any better. It still doesn�t work, it�s just that Version B was worse. So, time to start working on Version C...
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~*~
This post first appeared in November 2012. Summer's over so there will be a new post next week (assuming I can think of something to write about).

Monday, May 20, 2013

Things A Scene Needs

Posted by Amazing People, on 10:00 AM


Each character in a scene needs a goal. Obviously the main character�s goal is the most important, but every character should be aiming for something, and those goals should be acted on and in doing so affect one another.

This doesn�t just refer to the protagonist/antagonist relationship, it should be true of all characters in a scene.

If Jack�s goal is to rob a bank and Jerry, the lookout, is starving hungry and wants to find something to eat, then Jerry�s goal is just background colour. If, however, Jerry abandons his lookout post to grab a sandwich and Jack ends up getting caught, then the goals all become pertinent to the same story.

It isn�t necessary to have the goals be similar or to run together, there are many ways to make them intersect. But if you let characters have inconsequential goals (inconsequential to the story) then although it will be perfectly believable it will be little more than a distraction from the main storyline.

This needs to happen in every scene, even the ones where people are reflecting on events or regrouping. The character must be looking to achieve something specific (although they may not succeed). The more tangible the goal the easier it is to hold the reader�s attention. The more you focus on what a character�s thinking the harder. It�s still possible, and most stories require some pondering, but the longer it goes on, the more difficult to hold on to the attention.

Some writers are very skilled at this kind of interior monologuing where the goal is to figure stuff out by thinking it through. Most writers are not.

If Jane wants to know why Dave left her and so thinks about things he said and what he meant, it will be very hard to raise the level of musing above wallowing self-pity.

If she decides to track down his ex-wife and get answers from her, then it becomes much more interesting.

That�s not to say the more metaphysical approach can�t be effective if done right, but it�s important it understand the balance and where things will be stacked against you.

A common approach is to have a character enter a scene with no clear idea of what he wants and he�s just hanging out to see what happens. Him working out what needs to be done is treated as part of the story, and this is obviously something that happens in real life. But the problem with it isn�t that it isn�t realistic, the problem is that it�s usually tedious to read.

It ends up being a long wait on the runway before taking off. And who enjoys sitting on the tarmac waiting for the flight to get going?

Once you know what it is a character wants it�s important to give them a plan of action. They need some kind of strategy and to implement it. Waiting to see how things pan out or what the other person�s move is first moves the focus off your main character. They in effect become a secondary character in their own story.

Each scene should also create the reason for another. This doesn�t mean it spells out what�s going to happen or how, but the reader should be aware that there is something more that needs to be addressed.

When a scene feels like it has come to a conclusion and stops like that�s the end, even when it isn�t, even when it�s obvious since there�s a big chunk of pages still to read, it kills the flow. That doesn�t mean the reader will stop reading, but that momentum you�d built up will dissipate.

You don�t necessarily need a cliffhanger or a big revelation at the end of each chapter, but you do need to show the story has places to go. It�s not enough to have places the story will be going, you need to make sure the reader is aware if it.

It may seem perfectly feasible to let the reader discover where the story is going and what the character has planned as and when they happen in the story, but the rule of thumb is very simple: If the character knows so should the reader. The goal, the plan, the next step, these are all things the character will be aware of in each scene. And so should the reader.

By the end of the scene the story shouldn�t be in the same place it was at the start of the scene. Events have to make the reader feel like things are progressing. They may not go according to plan, or things may actually get worse, but we shouldn�t be where we were. If events instigate no change then there�s no point in telling the reader about them. It�s just more taxiing up and down the runway.

What does your character want? What are they doing to get it? What are the consequences of the attempt?

Those three questions should be answered in each and every scene.

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