10 Tips for Bringing a Scene to Life (2020 update)
Years ago, I wrote an article on bringing a scene to life—and then I did an exercise based upon my own article. Here are the
Years ago, I wrote an article on bringing a scene to life—and then I did an exercise based upon my own article. Here are the
When starting to write a novel, you should keep in mind:
A good opening should promise the reader a powerful emotional impact if he or she reads on.
If you aren’t excited about a novel, chances are excellent that you’ll lack the energy to finish it. Your subconscious will rebel at the idea, and you’ll just go through the motions, wishing that you were working on another project. So you have to find story ideas that thrill you. You have to write from the heart.
When you’re writing a screenplay or a book, one of the first things that a writer may do is create a tagline. This is a single line that describes the work, defining it in some way, and is usually used in advertising a film.
An even richer source for surprise than setting is your cast. You can of course use the same techniques for creating surprises in characters as you do for settings. You can for example make a character a bit strange or grotesque. In The Godfather, we are fascinated by Don Corleone because of his strange nature—he’s powerful, seemingly warm-hearted one moment and unbelievably vicious the next.
You started a story a while back that felt important and vital to you then, but you’ve matured, and it just doesn’t move you.
When that happens, write something else. Your head and your heart need to be in agreement. Many prolific writers suggest that when you feel thrilled by a story, you should apply your butt to a chair and hammer it out in the heat of passion.
When you create a novel, there is a certain amount of time and money you will need to invest. Some of the time of composing the book is easy to gauge, but other allocations are harder to see.
Brainstorming and outlining your story. This is something that normally takes a few days, at least. You may want to write out your ideas, talk with your writing group, and run it past an editor or agent. I often have authors who have me “greenlight” their outlines as they look for ways to tell a story better or adapt it to a larger audience (email mystorydoctor@gmail.com to set up appointments to do that). So outlining might take a few days, but I’ve seen authors spend weeks honing a good outline to perfection.
“And what genre should I write in?” My answer is similar. “What genre do you most love to read? That’s the kind of story to keep you up at night working, and to give you the most rewarding writing experience. You’ll write it better because you’ll know the genre well enough to understand whether your ideas are cliché or fresh, and you’ll know what your readers expect.”
So let me see if I can make this simple. Let’s say you write a novel. When you do, as it’s creator, you own the “copyright,” the right to print the work and sell copies of it. Under US law, you don’t need to necessarily register that copyright, but it is helpful if you do. (Registering copyright isn’t hard. Just Google the topic. I saw a scammer last week telling authors it was a complex process and he wanted $80 to do something that would actually take the author only a couple of minutes.)
There are ten thousand ways to create a great writing career, but there are a million ways to ruin one. I’ve just told you four of them.
Wait, before you go…
Be sure to get free access to David Farland’s course on how to brainstorm, pre-write and outline a bestselling novel!
