#creating scenes

Today we’re going in-depth with our main plot Arc and share different scenes type that you may be writing into your story. What is the Story Arc? A story arc is the overarching narrative structure that charts the journey of the main plot from beginning to end. It encompasses the challenges, turning points, and growth experienced by the characters, shaping how the story unfolds and ultimately…

When the question was first posed to me I didn’t understand at first. But the more I thought about it the more I realized just how important it is to understand how to create scenes. If we don’t know what our scenes are, or what to make them, then we can’t effectively build a story because the scenes are the fibers that hold a story together

If you were to take a life and break it into chapters - say maybe a month per chapter - not every moment of that month would make it into the chapter, which means some scenes would never exist in the story but rather in that limbo space between what is and isn’t the story. Other scenes get picked for specific reasons. The car crash on 57th that makes you late for work on your first day? That’s an important moment, an important scene. Spilling apple juice on your homework could be, or could not be, depending on the context. How important is the homework? What was happening around you when you spilled the apple juice? Is spilling apple juice part of something larger? Is the fact that it stained your homework going to be an issue? Which scene is more important and why - spilling the juice or turning in the homework and how the teacher reacts?

Picking scenes for a story boils down to a few things. You start from the biggest picture you have available and chip away at it. Once you break away the larger, more obvious, pieces you start to find the smaller things that glitter to make the whole story shine. What is your story? Why? Who is involved in it? Why? How do these characters know each other, how do they relate? Why? In order to know what scenes build your story you need two things. You need to have an idea of what you want it to look like once it’s finished - as general or as fleshed out as you like - and you need to know what the foundation you’re building on is. Neither of these things come within the first five minutes of the idea, and both of them may change over time. The idea isn’t that they’re permanent but that they’re a place to grow your story from.

So once you have your foundation - your idea, your characters, your world - what happens next? You start building. Look at what drives your story. Is it plot driven or character driven? Both? What’s the goal and how can it be achieved? Also important - what would make it fail?

Planning for your story is not unlike planning things in your life. The biggest difference is that you’re planning the lives of other characters and seeing what's important to them. Say in your life you have an important event coming up of some kind. A job interview maybe. Some important scenes towards that might be applying for the position, receiving a call for an interview, getting ready for the interview, and taking the interview. But there are a few more scenes that can fit in there. Between applying and getting a phone call you might go out with friends - but spend the whole time checking your phone for a call or email, you might oversleep by twenty minutes one morning and be late to your current job and worry about how it might affect the chance at the new job since your boss is a reference, maybe you have to take the dog to the vet one day and miss the call. There are also going to be moments that don’t need including. You’re going to eat a lot of meals, sleep a lot, and talk to a lot of people between the first scene (applying) and the last one (going to the interview). With those scenes it’s about what moves the story along or what highlights aspects of your character(in this case, you). Maybe you have anxiety so you spend a lot of time running back and forth to the bathroom on the morning of your interview - adding a scene like that can be helpful to show readers a bit more of who the character is and plays a role in shaping the story.

5 Tips for Atmospheric Writing

Recently, I’ve been reading Maggie Stiefvater’s series The Raven Cycle, and what has blown me away (besides the characters, plot, and just amazing story overall) is her ability to create atmospheric settings. What I mean by that is that the settings evoke a specific feeling, and this feeling adds to the tension or heightens the mood of the piece. Atmospheric settings can sometimes be so evocative…

Outlines or Not: That is the Question

(reblogged from Cow Pasture Chronicles)    I don’t know about you but I’ve read so many articles on outlining versus pansing, my head is spinning. For the most part, I am one of those who write by the seat of their pants. I let the muse and my characters take me where the story needs to go. Since I’ve been working on my first novel (for a while now), I decided to look at outlining and novel…

DAY 108 Sober: What Ifs Poem

    Sober is the New Black

  Stay Connect with love, Adolfo Vasquez