Scene Building Process Question

[sknox]

What you describe is pretty much for me as well. I stumbled and groped my way through my first novel. I thought I had learned some things and vowed to do better next time.

Next time, I maybe did a few things better, mostly in settling on my software choice and file management, and proceeded to do a whole bunch of new things ... ok, make new mistakes. *sigh*

But, really, not a lot of it was mistakes, it was just doing things and then I did them differently. And did a whole bunch in more or less the same way and ended with the same vague sense of dissatisfaction. Surely I could do better.

By the third novel it was more and more about two things: productivity and pacing. I felt I could do ok with characters, setting, narrative, but had plenty of room to improve with creating a sense of tension and moving the story along in ways that felt exciting or engaging. I also felt and continue to wish that I could produce novels more quickly. Not necessarily write faster, but get a first draft that is closer to a final and so shorten the time from inception to completion. Outlining doesn't seem to do the job, and I don't have other solutions, so I fall back on the most reliable.

Maybe next time.

Down at the scene level, though, I do think I'm good, with a significant exception. I have to finish scenes. I have a bad habit of visualizing how a scene should go, getting in and getting it written, knowing more or less how it should end, but wandering off once that end is in sight. The place to improve (my resolution for Next Time) is to keep going not until I see the end of the scene, but until I see the beginning of the next scene. To pay more attention, IOW, to transitions.

 

[dgackst]

What you describe is pretty much for me as well. I stumbled and groped my way through my first novel. I thought I had learned some things and vowed to do better next time.

Next time, I maybe did a few things better, mostly in settling on my software choice and file management, and proceeded to do a whole bunch of new things ... ok, make new mistakes. *sigh*

But, really, not a lot of it was mistakes, it was just doing things and then I did them differently. And did a whole bunch in more or less the same way and ended with the same vague sense of dissatisfaction. Surely I could do better.

By the third novel it was more and more about two things: productivity and pacing. I felt I could do ok with characters, setting, narrative, but had plenty of room to improve with creating a sense of tension and moving the story along in ways that felt exciting or engaging. I also felt and continue to wish that I could produce novels more quickly. Not necessarily write faster, but get a first draft that is closer to a final and so shorten the time from inception to completion. Outlining doesn't seem to do the job, and I don't have other solutions, so I fall back on the most reliable.

Maybe next time.

Down at the scene level, though, I do think I'm good, with a significant exception. I have to finish scenes. I have a bad habit of visualizing how a scene should go, getting in and getting it written, knowing more or less how it should end, but wandering off once that end is in sight. The place to improve (my resolution for Next Time) is to keep going not until I see the end of the scene, but until I see the beginning of the next scene. To pay more attention, IOW, to transitions.

Did you find during your trials of trying out outlining that it worked pretty well for the opening scenes but slowly unraveled as the story, slowly or quickly, started taking a different direction during the first draft? Or did it not do the job for you for a different reason?

And I hope your resolution to continue until you see the beginning of the next scene for your 'Next Time' works well.

 

[Astro Pen]

I'm a pantser. I reread over the last couple of chapters to reimerse in the story (and catch anything I might want to tweak, fix, etc.) and then just start writing. Sometimes the scene will be pretty much perfect right out of the gate, other times, when I reread I find places where it needs to be fleshed out a little more in some way. Perhaps it's dialogue heavy, if that's the case, I look for ways to break up the dialogue and interject narrative, description, action, and/or internal thoughts; perhaps I have a fair bit of description, but it's largely visual, if so, I check if there are ways to tie in the other senses; etc. In other words, I look to see if anything is missing to really bring that scene to life and check the 'balance' of the scene as well as the pacing. By the time I finish writing the whole story though, it will be exactly as I need it to be. Also, I don't do multiple drafts. My writing system is writing, editing, and revising all at once so my first draft is also my final draft and, by the time it's finished, is only in need of that last look over by a separate pair of eyes for the final edit/polish which is typically very minimal for me.

This pretty much sums it up for me too, so I won't replicate @Laura R Hepworth post.
Down the acceleration lane of the last chapter and straight into it. Writing chronologically, and editing as I go.
Notes are minimal, more brainstorming what might happen to set a scenario. Full rewriting of scenes is anathema tending to lead to a loss of rhythm rather than improvement. I only do it if I discover a logical flaw and these are rare since I am writing linearly, not assembling a patchwork of scenes.
Scene description tends to be minimal, settings chosen that people already have imagery for, walking along a beach, entring a dusty old library or a laboratory. Details that come into those tend to be departures from the norm, which foreshadow something. An ancient churchyard that has no gravestones as a real example from my novel.

 

[sknox]

>your trials of trying out outlining
I still outline. It still unravels. The trick is not minding that it unravels. (thank you, Peter O'Toole)

I outline in the planning stages because it just makes sense to do that. I'm looking for a general arc from here to there and I should write that down, and since there are some milestones along the way, it sort of turns into a list, and why not number the list and oh, that's an outline.

Sort of like that. And that's the one that reliably unravels, because in fact I've not thought very deeply about the plot and I don't really know my characters well yet, so of course it's not going to follow exactly that path. But at least it's a path.

I use outlines later on, though, in two ways, both of which have at least some utility to them.

One, I outline what I've actually written. There's my general outline of what I mean to write, and then there's a notion in my head of what I've written. But once I have most of the story written, I make an outline of what I have actually written. That gets rather brutal, as it reveals both consistency problems and pacing issues. But an outline is a good way of summarizing the story back to myself. What I believe I have in hand is rarely what is actually in hand.

The other use for outlines is at the level of a scene or chapter. Much as above, it's a way to look at what is actually there on the page, giving me a way to judge whether the scene delivers what I think it should.

IOW, outlining can be used to summarize and describe. It's not just for planning.

Also, ftr and fyi, to all you who just don't cotton to outlining, you can do much the same just by writing summaries. No need for those scary Roman numerals at all.