Happening Scenes

Today on Straight From Hel and on The Blood-Red Pencil, I’m talking about cutting the mundane out of your writing and making your scenes “happen.”

If you lived through the 70s or have read about the 70s, you know that was a happening time. Lots of things were happening, from free love and open drugs to protests to streaking. Things happened.

You want things to happen in your scenes. Not necessarily free love, drugs, sit-ins and panty raids, but you don’t want your scenes to be mundane or stagnant. Things have to happen to move the story forward, establish character or motivation, hide clues, foreshadow events, create roadblocks for the protagonist … all scenes should have a purpose.

Part of creating scenes with purpose is editing out the mundane.

Let’s say you have a character leaving her house and heading to work. Do we need to see her drive there? Why? What happens? Why do we need to see the actual drive, route, traffic and passing scenery? If none of that actually adds to the story, then why not skip the drive? Or why not put someone in the car with her?

Maybe they discuss something significant to the plot. Maybe she and her husband get into a fight over something stupid and it will have repercussions later in the book. Maybe a panhandler races toward her car at a stoplight, she swerves to miss him or sees his unkempt face and looks away – and later in the book this man or this action is important.

Cut the mundane and make your scenes happen.

I talk more about this and give examples on The Blood-Red Pencil today.

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I’d love to hear from you about making your scenes happen. Have you ever fallen into the trap of writing the mundane? What mundane things have you seen in published work that should have been cut? Tell us about it in the Comments – or ask a question.