
I could spend a year discussing scene construction. I give a workshop on this topic, and the last time I taught it (in Phoenix, AZ), I got through about half the material in a total of six hours of instruction. Needless to say, we won’t be spending months on this topic, although it would be justified.
I mentioned last week that the greatest issue I come across while critiquing and editing more than two hundred partial and complete manuscripts a year is this: poor understanding and execution of scene structure. Why is scene structure so important? Can’t a writer just tell his plot any way he wants? Sure. As I said last week (and many times before), a writer can do whatever he wants. Doesn’t mean he’ll succeed. Continue Reading…