And my scenes are giving...nothing
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I am still on my break from my first novel, and I have been filling the time with catching up on my TBR, and I completed a puzzle on Saturday.
This week I finished a Rebecca Yarro’s novel. No, it is not one of her Fourth Wing novels but a romantic novel called Variation. I was interested in the novel because the FMC is a professional ballerina. While I did not become a professional, I spent many years at the ballet studio. In the story, our female protagonist, Alessandra, or what her male romantic lead calls her “Allie,” is living at her family’s vacation home in a Cape Cod-like town while she is recovering from an injury. While in town, she runs into a childhood friend/crush who she hasn’t spoken with for ten years due to a friendship fallout. The story is a fun read, especially if you are or once were a ballet dancer. My complaint would be that one of the plot twists was not eventful, and the ending was a bit confusing, but I would suggest it for an easy bedtime read.
I shouldn’t bore you with my other activities for the week, and I’ll get to my point and share why I thought my scenes were giving…nothing.
While I write, I like to listen back to my chapters and hear how they sound. If I say them aloud to myself, I miss grammatical errors or gloss over awkward sentences. I am especially glad I listened back to my chapters because they sounded…off. Sure, the robotic voice doesn’t help, but the narrative wasn’t as exciting as it was in my head.
Therefore, I dissected my chapter like a chemically odorous sheep's eyes we had to slice open in seventh grade (or maybe that was just me). First, I glanced over the chapter and sliced it into different scenes. Once I split the chapters into scenes, I jot down quick bullet points, and I created my narrative outline.
This is the most important part; I review this webpage and check if I cover all the fundamentals of a great scene. And I didn’t. Yep, I performed the greatest crime in writing; my POV character was a witness to the scene. My other characters were participating in witty banter, and the world-building was flourishing, but my POV character didn’t have a clear chapter goal, conflict was minimal, and tension was as flat as water.
So how have I been fixing it? One extreme I did was switch the POV. In many of my chapters, the events were the same, but instead of choosing a character that was a witness, I picked one that was heavily participating in it. I’m sad to cut out some internal thoughts, but now my chapter is focusing on the action rather than a bunch of internal thoughts. If I can’t switch the POV, I increase the stakes so conflict has to rise from it. Or finally, I make my characters spend more time processing the situation. I tend to be too concise of a writer (often I need to add more words than subtract), and I can gloss over an event.
Another lesson I learned this week is I am a plotter, even before writing blog posts. I knew what I wanted to write about, but I thought I could let the words flow from my noggin to the screen. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Instead, I have been too distracted and figuring out every excuse not to write this post. At one point, I chose to do laundry over finishing the post.
How do you resolve flat scenes? Share in the comments below!
To everyone who came to visit. Thank you, and I hope you stop by again.
Love,
Alise Nicole Kane
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