9 February 2016, this blog is about writing in scenes. I’m focusing on the tools to build scenes. I’ll leave up the parts of a novel because I think this is an important picture for any novelist. I’m writing about creativity.
- The beginning
- The rising action
- The Climax
- The falling action
- The dénouement
Announcement: Ancient Light has been delayed due to the economy. Ancient Light includes Aegypt, Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness. If you are interested in historical/suspense literature, please give my novels a try. You can read about them at http://www.ancientlight.com. I’ll keep you updated.
Today’s Blog: The skill of using language comes from the ability to put together figures of speech that act as symbols in writing.
Here are my rules of writing:
- Entertain your readers.
- Don’t confuse your readers.
- Ground your readers in the writing.
- Don’t show (or tell) everything.
4a. Show what can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted on the stage of the novel.
- Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.
Creativity is the extrapolation of older ideas to form new ones or to present old ideas in a new form. It is a reflection of something new created with ties to the history, science, and logic (the intellect). Creativity requires consuming, thinking, and producing.
Scene development:
- Scene input (easy)
- Scene output (a little harder)
- Scene setting (basic stuff)
- Creativity (creative elements of the scene)
- Tension (development of creative elements to build excitement)
- Release (climax of creative elements)
The plot is the revelation of the characters. The author doesn’t show everything, and the plot is where the necessary revelation occurs. To develop the plot, the author takes the characters and the theme and imagines the portions (scenes) of the plot that might be entertaining. I’ll give you an easier means to accomplish this.
The last three steps of scene development are fully encompassed by creativity.
- Creativity (creative elements of the scene)
- Tension (development of creative elements to build excitement)
- Release (climax of creative elements)
Entertainment is the focus of every scene. Tension and release is how an author gets entertainment into a scene. The creative elements are the pieces an author can use to develop the tension and release.
What makes a scene entertaining is the ah has, the gotchas, the revelations, the resolutions, the action, the solutions, and all. These are all release. In the simplest example of tension and release. A couple in conversation begin to argue that breaks out into a fight. The tension is the argument. The release is the fight. Tension builds and builds to the point of fisticuffs. I told you, this is a simple example. A more complex example can be seen in some of my novels. A very complex example of tension and release is a conversation between potential enemies that on the surface is calm, but under the words is filled with tension. The release might be a simple gotcha, or a more complex ah ha where one of the characters realizes something important in the context of the conversation. The creative elements are these pieces that are made into the tension and release.
I’ll write more tomorrow.
For more information, you can visit my author site www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites:
http://www.sisterofdarkness.com
fiction, theme, plot, story, storyline, character development, scene, setting, conversation, novel, book, writing, information, study, marketing, tension, release, creative, idea, logic
Zen of Scenes 