“You look upset,” Sally said as she sat down on the deck. She wore a white shirt, her hair pulled back in a sixties’ style headband and a sleek summer tan. I sighed, stirring my frappucino. “I just had a difficult conversation with my son about his driving skills.” “Did you argue?” “No. And that’s the problem. He said everything right. It’s what he didn’t say that bothered me.” She frowned. “We were driving into town. He was riding beside me, his elbow out the window, when I broached the topic. I mentioned that we’d seen him driving in town recently a little too recklessly, and if he wanted to drive our cars he’d have to slow down.” “And?” “He said, ‘Sure, Mom. Whatever.’” “That doesn’t sound–” “He was scrolling […]
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Writing a A Not So High Action Scene
So yesterday, we went through a high action scene, working through the details that went beyond structure to words and cadence. “But, Susie, I don’t write a thriller!” you say. Not a problem. You can still write a riveting scene using the basic princicples I laid out yesterday…. First, we: Start with Setting and the Current State of Affairs Then we establish the Goals of the scene And we won’t forget to fortify the Motivations of your characters action/decisions Finally we can write the Action of the scene. And we’re going to pay special mind to the sentence structure and words we use to create mood. This excerpt is from Finding Stefanie – it’s a subplot character named Gideon who wakes up in Stefanie’s house after […]
Read the RestWriting (High Action) Scenes
So, the last few weeks we’ve been talking about Character change – bringing him through the various steps, until he’s finally on his knees, (black moment) realizes what he needs to sacrifice to change, (epiphany) accepts the truth, and then emerges a new man to test his resolve and fight his final battle. Awesome. Lot’s of great theory and structure there. Now, let’s get specific with scene building for a bit here. We’ve already covered Scenes and Sequels (go to the articles section to read more) as well as action objectives. We’ve also talked about sizzling dialogue, paring your backstory to a minimum, and using strong sensory words to create mood. So let’s talk about how you put those elements together. It’s about beat, and drawing the reader […]
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