thought for the day: driven to distraction

A technique that distracts the reader is never a good idea. The means by which one tells the story should not call attention to itself, yanking the reader out of the narrative world one has taken great pains to create. Distracting technique is a violation of the promise one makes with the reader: I will transport you to another existence, where a meaningful journey awaits. How rude to remind the reader he does not actually exist in that world.

and . . . scene!

Yesterday I struggled with two scenes from the novel. What did I need each scene to do? How did these scenes advance the plot? How did each scene mirror the novel as a whole? Had I entered and exited each scene effectively?

Often the universe will point me in the right direction when I reach out. Here's where it took me.

From The Craft of Writing by William Sloane:

"The experience of fiction is accumulative as well as sequential. All scenes are contributory and all scenes are contributory on most of the various levels of the novel. List, if you must, what each scene does for the action, for the characterizations, for the foreshadowing, for the reader's entire experience at your fiction. Lay the scenes out in front of you and look at them in as relaxed a way as you can and see what they say back to you. But keep in mind that a scene that shows the reader nothing except a couple of characters being all too forgettable is not a scene but a fictional entry.

Scenes are something like miniature stories. They have in them the germ of the entire story or book, and they are like the larger whole in other respects. Scenes have a beginning and an ending, like any complete story. Each scene has a means of perception. Occasionally more than one, but rarely. Each scene has a setting -- it takes place somewhere. Each scene poses the same problems that the story or novel poses. It must establish the reader as fast as possible. It must give evidence as soon as possible that it intends to continue the contract with the reader."