Re: Scene with no dialogue
Just want to toss my thoughts in.
While I agree with the various suggestions regarding formatting, for me there's a larger issue.
Scenes in general are about intention and obstruction. Somebody within a scene wants something and something or somebody is keeping them from achieving it.
This can be as straight-forward as wanting the money inside a locked bank vault or wanting to achieve some emotional advantage within an apparently casual dinner conversation.
So your character has some intention here -- getting these various thingamabobs -- but there seems to be no obstruction. Nothing, either external or internal, is preventing her from getting what she wants in this room. She just goes about the room and gets these objects, bing, bang, boom -- the end.
And because there's no obstruction, the scene feels dead. It is dead. It is noteworthy that at no point do you describe her reactions, what she is feeling, how she responds to these various objects. She has no apparent reaction. She might just as well be picking out objects on the shelves of a supermarket.
So, in reading it, I don't know what they mean to her, how important they are to her, what emotional weight they carry -- what she has overcome internally, if she has to overcome anything, to go into this room to gather up these objects.
That is, they may have some "plot" significance, but what "thematic" significance do they have? What mountain, if any, does she have to climb -- what obstacle does she have to overcome, to go into this room and get these things?
Because is there's no obstacle, either external (that is, you create some sort of ticking clock -- she only has a very short time in which to get them --- risks being caught, etc.) or some internal obstacle -- because they carry some emotional weight and she has to face whatever that emotional thing is -- then you have no real scene.
And "that" is what you need to figure out, not just the business of breaking it up into chucks of four lines each.
When you figure out what the "scene" actually is, then you will be able to write it properly, because then you will know what it is about, whether your protag needing to hurry into this room with only thirty seconds to quickly gather these critical items and the clock ticking and she's seeing the second hand on that big clock sweeping down and she can't find that last critical item and can hear the approaching footsteps and, my God, where is that final item and then the door starts to open -- etc., etc.
Or whatever. The point is, then it's a scene. Not a shopping list.
Again, just my two cents.
NMS
Originally posted by Jab2019
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While I agree with the various suggestions regarding formatting, for me there's a larger issue.
Scenes in general are about intention and obstruction. Somebody within a scene wants something and something or somebody is keeping them from achieving it.
This can be as straight-forward as wanting the money inside a locked bank vault or wanting to achieve some emotional advantage within an apparently casual dinner conversation.
So your character has some intention here -- getting these various thingamabobs -- but there seems to be no obstruction. Nothing, either external or internal, is preventing her from getting what she wants in this room. She just goes about the room and gets these objects, bing, bang, boom -- the end.
And because there's no obstruction, the scene feels dead. It is dead. It is noteworthy that at no point do you describe her reactions, what she is feeling, how she responds to these various objects. She has no apparent reaction. She might just as well be picking out objects on the shelves of a supermarket.
So, in reading it, I don't know what they mean to her, how important they are to her, what emotional weight they carry -- what she has overcome internally, if she has to overcome anything, to go into this room to gather up these objects.
That is, they may have some "plot" significance, but what "thematic" significance do they have? What mountain, if any, does she have to climb -- what obstacle does she have to overcome, to go into this room and get these things?
Because is there's no obstacle, either external (that is, you create some sort of ticking clock -- she only has a very short time in which to get them --- risks being caught, etc.) or some internal obstacle -- because they carry some emotional weight and she has to face whatever that emotional thing is -- then you have no real scene.
And "that" is what you need to figure out, not just the business of breaking it up into chucks of four lines each.
When you figure out what the "scene" actually is, then you will be able to write it properly, because then you will know what it is about, whether your protag needing to hurry into this room with only thirty seconds to quickly gather these critical items and the clock ticking and she's seeing the second hand on that big clock sweeping down and she can't find that last critical item and can hear the approaching footsteps and, my God, where is that final item and then the door starts to open -- etc., etc.
Or whatever. The point is, then it's a scene. Not a shopping list.
Again, just my two cents.
NMS
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