Monday, October 19, 2009

Writing a Scene

It's funny, when I write the first draft of a scene I find it often seems more like a radio play than anything else. It will be virtually all dialogue with a few essential movements thrown in. But when reading it back it's almost as if it's all taking place in a giant white room with nothing around the main characters.

That, of course, will never do. But yet, I need to know what happens in the scene before I can go back and add the finer details. So I let my first draft read like a radio play and then later I go back and throw in the color.

How do other people do this? Do you have all the details to start with or do you just write the dialogue you hear in your head (okay, I don't really hear voices or anything) and then go from there?

7 comments:

  1. Scenes come to me in different ways, I guess. A lot of the time, I'm like you. It's all voices and cool dialogue. Sometimes, I want to create a certain mood and get hooked on coming up with as many words as I can for that mood. Sometimes, I see a view and go on and on describing it. But, always, always, I have to go back and add the other stuff to make that scene complete.

    Nice blog. I never really stopped and thought about HOW I wrote before. Thanks.

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  2. Thanks for stopping by, Linda. I think I never have scene come out fully formed. There's always something that has to go back and be added. But I do find that easier once I know where the scene is headed!

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  3. Sometime I feel like I write stage directions with no dialogue. I need to learn to bring dialogue into my stories sooner.

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  4. PJ - together we could write an awesome first draft scene. I'd supply the dialogue - you'd supply the stage directions!

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  5. I'm the same way. I took a playwriting course in college and think I probably would be better off sticking to that. I end up sticking in narration and it's always repetitive and never sounds natural. Something I'll be working on a lot in my revisions.

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  6. Keri - I figure there's always a chance to revise - that's why I don't worry about the first draft scene too much. I just try to get the story out there!

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  7. If I write dialouge without the description and all that, I feel like it's empty and I rewrite it better. But, actually, that rarely happens. I seem to be able to write dialouge fairly well. I didn't know other people had a problem with it.
    ( HA! And you thought I just wrote poetry!)
    KRM

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