Jun 03 2010
What Means This Here?
Today my Big Job is revising The Advent, as it needs to be all ready to go to my beta readers by the end of the month and there’s still a lot of work to do. And as always, revision teaches me things about writing (or at least recalls things I already know). Like the biggest question to ask of any scene: what means this here?
What purpose does this scene serve?
In nonfiction you could probably ask the same question of each paragraph/tangent/anecdote, but we’ll stick with fiction for this post.
There are three major purposes a scene should serve. (Ideally, each scene will serve at least two of these at once.)
- Moving the plot forward.
- Developing characters.
- Establishing the setting.
That’s really about it. Scenes that exist just to be funny or exciting or cute or tell a story you’ve always wanted to tell but do NOT move the plot forward, develop characters, or establish the setting should be cut or revised so they DO fulfill one of those purposes. And frankly? Establishing the setting alone is not a good reason for a scene. You can work most setting details in while you’re carrying the story forward or developing characters.
And with that, away I go to apply the rule to my (rather messy) manuscript. See you on the other side :).
Thanks for the tips! I will try to apply them in my own writing.
[...] not bad advice — sometimes. But (as per my recent post on making every scene count) you’d better make really sure that man with a gun ends up serving an important purpose in [...]