How to Dig Deeper in Your Scenes
A lot of time, a writer will get feedback and it’ll say something vague-ish like, “Dig deeper.”
And then the author cries or gets angry or feels an emotion that no author wants to feel.
The thing is that this advice is sort of vague, but what it usually means is:
1. You have no setting in your scene or chapter or story;
2. Your character doesn’t react to things and then act on things;
3. When your character does act and react to things, it doesn’t seem to be who the character is. Like you can’t have your introverted hamster making a flash mob dancing disco through the streets unless there is a lot of motivation;
4. There are no stakes going on.
A way to fix this is to realize it’s happening. At the first part of each scene, write:
1. What you want the reader to feel;
2. What you want your character to feel;
3. What the antagonist would think about this scene;
4. What senses are happening in the scene;
5. Look for words that distance the reader from what’s happening (see, looked, smelled, felt, noticed are a good start).
Now, here’s the thing. This works for life, too. Maybe you’re not feeling super fulfilled and you need a boost. Think about those questions about you and your choices. Can you figure out what you want to feel and how to get there?
DOG TIP OF THE POD
Go after the life you want even if it’s a reindeer. – PogieWRITING EXERCISE
Author Nicole Bianchi has a really, really great post with five writing exercises, and I’m kind of in love with it.
It’s here. And here’s an excerpt
“The Ernest Hemingway Exercise for Sharpening Your Observational Skills
In the 1930s, a 22-year-old aspiring writer named Arnold Samuelson traveled to Florida to see if he could get some writing advice from the author he idolized: Ernest Hemingway.Hemingway ended up inviting Samuelson along on a fishing trip and sharing writing advice during their time at sea.
In this video, I detailed the three-step writing exercise Hemingway gave Samuelson.Essentially, Hemingway challenged Samuelson to pick a situation to observe and then try to retell it on the page.
For Samuelson, this was fishing.
For you, it might be an event that happens when you’re commuting to work or shopping at a store or eating at a restaurant or playing with your kids.Pretend you’re an artist heading out with your sketchbook to capture what you see and feel. Pay close attention to everything that is happening and the emotions that you experience.
Hemingway said,‘Watch what happens today. If we get into a fish see exactly what it is that everyone does. If you get a kick out of it while he is jumping, remember back until you see exactly what the action was that gave you that emotion. Whether it was the rising of the line from the water and the way it tightened like a fiddle string until drops started from it, or the way he smashed and threw water when he jumped.Remember what the noises were and what was said. Find what gave you the emotion, what the action was that gave you the excitement.’”
You should check her out.
RANDOM THOUGHT LINK
PLACE TO SUBMIT YOUR WRITING
MenagerieIt accepts fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. “We believe in sentences so sharp they draw blood, the strange and inexplicable, the wild and weird and uncanny, words in thickets, clusters, and flocks, pieces that move us beyond caring what others think about said pieces.” You can read about them a here.Deadline: Open nowLength: Up to 5,000 words for prose, 3-5 poemsPay: $50Details here and here.
SHOUT OUT!
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.
Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.
WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It’s pretty awesome.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
