Chapter Three Newsletter issue #66 (06/22/2021) ✏

IN THIS ISSUE OF CHAPTER THREE

Meeting Recap 06/22/2021
Really good reading and critiquing, staying on-track and on-time.

Elements of the Writing Craft Challenge
LESSON 23 INTO DRAMATIC MOMENT

Writing My Novel
Constructing Scenes: Dialogue, Revisions, Notes

Articles and Other Worthies
The latest from WriteOnSC, Yak Babies, the Write By Night blog, and Writers Helping Writers article.

ELEMENTS OF THE WRITING CRAFT CHALLENGE

PART I: STORYTELLING

LESSON: 23 INTO DRAMATIC MOMENT

PRINTED BOOK PAGES: 29-30

READING EXCERPT: What the Thunder Said by Janet Peery

I saw him many times, caught glimpses of his truck, of him, but only once in thirty years did he look back at me, last summer when Costin’s old place caught heat and burned and everybody gathered there. The barn was still burning, but the house had gone. People shone flashlights over the ash pile, but there was nothing left to see but charred wood and one lone teapot on a blackened stove. Across the ashes that had been the house, against the blaze that was the barn, stood Call.

MY NOTES ON THE LESSON

This lesson is an example of how movement can be achieved in a few sentences—in a beat. In this excerpt, the movement is over time, sweeping across thirty years to “last summer.” There is drama in this passage—an inciting incident (the fire) with complications (house caught fire, spread to barn, house destroyed, etc), and a climax (sighting Call).

The second half of the reading demonstrates how movement can be physical within a scene. Like a camera widening to a panorama or zooming to pick up detail. The third exercise explores this technique and is a really good one for our writer’s toolbox. It can bring setting into character, keeping readers engaged at an almost subliminal level.

MY ANSWERS TO THE WRITING POSSIBILITIES

1. Rewrite Peery’s first sentence. Go from ten years to last week.

I saw her often over the last decade, tending her family’s fields and bartering in the market, seldom noticing me until last week when peasants had reason to acknowledge their overlord.

2. Rewrite this as a reunion.

It had been over a decade since our parting upon being raided at a pre-law class pot party. I lived those intervening years under the assumption she had achieved success in a law firm somewhere. Then last week I received my life’s shock to see her in a drunk tank, all tatted with half-shorn pink-and-green hair.

3. Think about the way we see, the way we focus. Reread Peery’s last three sentences. Write three sentences that make the same move.

The highway stretched beneath the magnified sun into shimmering waves at the horizon. Traffic only stirred hot air that offered less sweat relief than the appearance of her vintage 1965 Ford Mustang in the fast lane. I watched in a fit of Deja-Vu as the ancient muscle-car pulled onto the road’s shoulder, stopping and the driver’s window rolling down for Cali to blow a cloud of cigarette smoke at me.

Constructing Scenes: Dialogue, Revisions, Notes

The last three sections of the Scene Sketch are mostly supportive of the rest. Once I have made entries for everything up through the external and internal value progressions (see Writing My Novel in Chapter Three #65), I pretty much have the scene figured out. Now I want to draft. Depending on the scene’s Story Event, though, I may need to do some more thinking first.

Once again, here is my scene sketch template:

In a scene where I have significant dialogue (yes, I spell it the old English way), it usually helps me to think it through before I begin drafting. This is really just notes on what I want my characters to say and the information I want them to convey. That is, things I don’t want to omit in the frenzy of drafting.

These dialogue notes all go under the “Dialogue” section in the sketch. It may consist of actual dialogue, but is usually just notes. Whatever I think will provide me the needed nudges when I am writing.

Here’s an example of dialogue notes from Legacy of the Ancients:

Dialogue
1. Kent (with Nia, Taurus-Bel, Nathan Tor) demands the reason for the chase of Zane through town. He is sterner, gruff, and more like his old self. Zane notes the change and (internally) relates it to other undoings of the TTR discharge effects.

2. Zane relates his encounter with Loam and escape from the Corbyn leading to the chase in Dentville. Zane does not tell Kent about the maps. He does say that Loam died while they hid behind the waterfall on Cain’s Creek.

3. Kent presses for answers from Zane: why the Corbyn were chasing Loam? Who was Loam? (guess by TB is that he was a Sedona agent). Kent becomes harsh, prompting a reaction from Nia. Nathan Tor speaks in support of Nia.

4. Kent releases Zane, strongly advising him to reveal any other details he “remembers.”

At this point, I usually start drafting. Of course, there may be things I want to consider about the scene and refer to as I am drafting. Just as likely, there will be things I come up with as I am drafting that I want to note for later consideration. These are miscellaneous items and I enter them in the Notes section. For example:

Notes
Kent’s hair has darkened to iron gray. He is a stern badass again. This rekindles conflict in Nia.

Zane is saved by Kent and a squad of Dentville warriors, but the Corbyn mostly escape. A few are killed and one is captured.

Somewhere note his recovery from the illness that struck him at the end of POA. Possibly note this in Zane’s interior monologue.

Feature Nia in this scene. Should show some contention over Kent’s growing harshness.

And finally, I have a place for Revisions in the scene sketch. At anytime in the scene creation process, but especially after it has been drafted, I will come up with revisions needed that are specific to that scene. As I work with a scene, I am pretty constantly coming up with needed changes. And I note revisions that come out of our COLA3 meetings. For example:

Revisions
1. Indicate that Loam is from Sedona. He knew Branch there.
2. Review whether I am using “tech” so much.
3. Reconsider Loam’s internals meant to provide background. Probably too long.

So that’s my scene sketches. I am more flexible with them than it seems from these articles. The point is that I use them to construct scenes before I commit to drafting. Then after I have begun drafting, they help me track changes and provide quick references to what is going on in a scene, without having to reread it. And they are invaluable in keeping up with, and making adjustments in, story flow as I move scenes around.

ARTICLES AND OTHER WORTHIES

COLA III Meeting Recap for 06/22/2021

CALENDAR