On Jan 29, 2012, at 9:30 AM, Nat Russo wrote: > Hi Ray, > > Have you ever come across a scene on revision that you were so unhappy with > you just completely rewrote it?
Rarely, if you mean delete it entirely and start over. Usually if I tweak the setting, or change something around, say take a scene that had Jim Dasher and Pug and change it to a scene with Jim Dasher and Miranda, or take a Miranda and Pug scene and make it a Miranda and Nakor scene, it suddenly makes sense. I have deleted stuff but it's when I realize it's unnecessary to the story. > > This happened to me while I was writing yesterday. I re-read the scene that > introduces my antagonist and decided it just wasn't working. So now I'm > sitting here making a bullet-point list of everything I need to accomplish in > the scene and I'm going to have another go at it. Do not over-think. "Paralysis through analysis" can totally waist your time. So, introducing a new character? There are tricks to the trade. Tell the reader only what the reader must absolutely know at that point. This also depends on your narrative style and voice. First person can say, "I didn't know who the man with the smoking gun was who had just saved my life, but years later I knew he was . . . " Third person: Jack felt panic for the first time in his life when he heard the gunshot boom, but a moment later he realized it had come from behind him. He saw the man who had just pointed his revolver at him falling forward, his blank eyes highlighting the masked of surprise that had been his last thought. Jack spun and saw the stranger there, putting his guy away as he glanced at Jack with an expression that said he knew something that Jack didn't know, such as who was that man who had just tried to kill him and why. OK, so that's 90 seconds off the top of my head, but the point here is that you have to hit the ground running in such a way as the reader instantly wants to know what's going on and sticks around to find out. It doesn't have to be an action scene. Jack looked up from his book to take a sip of his Cafe Americano and saw the man in the tweed jacked. It felt as he was almost a friend, despite the two men never having spoken. But for over a month now, neither man's routine had varied: Jack arrived at the coffee shop at 7:15 for a half-hour to read the paper and enjoy a decent coffee before the endless cups of bad instant at the office that would punctuate the morning, and the man in the tweed coat arrived at 7:30; Jack could set his watch by it. With slight amusement Jack noticed the man repeated the same order he had every morning since Jack had first noticed him. Jack had it memorized: a small espresso, a sesame seed bagel with cream cheese, and a danish in a bag to go. Jack considered the oddity of lives passing so closely, but never really touching, and was about to return to his paper, when he noticed another man, large and looking out of place in his particular shop, moving to stand behind the tweed coated man, brushing against him as he put something in the pocket of the man's coat. A muffled "sorry" and he was off with the man in tweed muttering "no worries" and returning to his order. Now, in that example (which probably needs a decent rewrite) when the man in the tweed jacket shows up dead before the end of chapter one, Jack's off on an adventure. There are other examples; open any really good book and you'll find one. So, do not over thing. Just write the damn thing. > > The original scene was a whole lot of sitting and thinking. I wanted the > reader to get into the head of my "bad guy" to see how he justified his own > perspective on things, but I think I overdid it. I'm going to try it again > by moving some of my other characters into the scene and adding a bit of > conflict. I'll still internalize him a bit, but it may be less "boring" if > there's some actual action taking place. > Unless you're brilliant (and I'm not saying you're not) getting into the head of the heavy/villain/bad guy is a serious break with how to suck in your reader. Your reader wants someone to care about, and unless you're trying to do what Mike Resnick did with Walpurgis III, sending the galaxy's nasties assassin after the galaxy's most heinous mass murderer (I call it bad guys and worse guys) you've got a real tough sell. Your reader will think your trying to make the heavy sympathetic which is a mistake. Unless you're pulling what I did in Darkness, where it ends up that the Heavy (Guy) isn't a heavy but really a guy with a different approach that makes sense to him, you've doing it the hard way. As my dad used to say, "Kid, give the audience someone to root for." Good luck. Best, R,E.F. ---- www.crydee.com Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
