As you\u2019re writing, and\/or rewriting, ask yourself this very key question: what is the purpose of this scene? This issue may be more prevalent for seat-of-the-pants writers, but outliners can lose sight too. And if you lose sight, you might lose readers… <\/p>\n
Scenes should:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Advance the plot <\/p>\n
\u2022 Bring the hero and the heroine into a new dynamic in their relationship (in a romance), whether that\u2019s closer together, or further apart (depending on where you are in the story arc). <\/p>\n
\u2022 Offer reveals about the characters so readers learn more<\/p>\n
\u2022 Keep us engaged <\/p>\n
\u2022 Leave us hooked so we keep reading<\/p>\n
As you outline, write, or rework your story, remember to focus on each scene\u2019s purpose. If it doesn\u2019t have one, give it a purpose or delete it. Write tight. <\/p>\n
Your turn: what other things should a scene do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As you\u2019re writing, and\/or rewriting, ask yourself this very key question: what is the purpose of this scene? This issue may be more prevalent for seat-of-the-pants writers, but outliners can lose sight too. And if you lose sight, you might lose readers… Scenes should: \u2022 Advance the plot \u2022 Bring the hero and the heroine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[175,10],"class_list":["post-366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-scenes","tag-writing-craft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}