How to use this Page

The Stuff Between Scenes

Guest Post by Deborah Halverson

Join us on Facebook for a discussion of scenes.

As you give thought to what happens in your scenes, give thought, too, to what happens between them. There’s a trove of information and emotion lurking in the white space separating the last line of one scene and the first line of the next. You’re the master manipulator of your story—you should know exactly what’s happening in that space.

Magical Leap. Only in fiction can a kid transport magically from, say, a humiliating moment after school to the next morning when he must deal with the fall-out in the school halls. In real life, we don’t get to skip from scene to scene. We must live those in-between moments, going home and dealing with dinner and the family, doing the dishes and brushing our teeth, trying to sleep only to fail or perhaps achieving sleep only to nightmare—or maybe even sleeping soundly and feeling refreshed in the a.m., determined to take down the bully who served up that monster wedgie during the seventh grade talent show. As a writer, you wouldn’t show all that at-home minutiae to your readers because it would hobble your pacing and nuke the tight tension you’ve built up. But you should know what’s happened in that white space so that you can fully understand how one scene’s ending has simmered and stewed its way into the first line of the next scene.

Simmer. Consider that kid who suffered humiliation—he might interact badly with his family that night if he interacted at all, he’d scrub the dishes and forget to rinse, he’d fumble his dad’s favorite mug and get chewed out, he’d cut his gums with the floss and cry. He’d work himself into a real funk, or a real stink, or a downright rage as his day flowed from terrible to just too much to bear. When something rotten goes down in your life, your minutiae seems to gang up on you, doesn’t it? Don’t start a new scene with the assumption that a character’s emotion and state of mind are exactly where they were when you left him a day or even an hour ago. That’s not realistic and it undermines your scenes. Simmering happens. And that simmering takes place in the white space. By the time your character reaches the opening line of your next scene, he’s in an advanced state of emotion or has had time to hatch a plan, as flawed as it probably will be. Fully understanding how his mindset and emotion have festered during the scene jump allows you to fully exploit both of those things in the happenings of the new scene.

Mull. Mulling is an important part of writing, and that’s what this is—mulling the off-stage events that are part of your character even if you don’t share them with your reader directly. And you won’t. Just as you may know a character’s life story but won’t deliver it when you introduce him, you don’t deliver the stuff in between scenes even tho

While we were traveling last week, I didn’t get any new scenes revised, but I did do some line editing.

3 Line Editing Strategies

When I line edit, I’m trying to balance three things:

1. Smooth, easy to read. First, I want the text to be smooth and easy to read. I try to read aloud or at least move my lips, so I can see/hear places where sounds collide, words are difficult to get out, or where I stumble for any reason whatsoever. Then, I either rewrite, or at least flag it for attention later.
   
   Often, these are places where my fingers were typing so fast that I left out a word that’s needs to smooth it out. Or places where I did some major editing and it just hasn’t had enough passes through it to be smooth yet.
2. Cut unnecessary words. I’m also watching for awkward repetitions, unnecessary prepositional phrases, unnecessary adjectives or adverbs, “nothing” words – those words which add no new information, such as good, happy, wonderful, etc., and places where I can leave out speech tags and the reader won’t wonder who is speaking. Sometimes, I realize a whole paragraph could be left out because I said the same thing in the last chapter. For repetitions like that, it’s essential to get the long view to do this editing, to read large chunks at a time.
3. Fine-tune the voice. Finally, I’m fine-tuning the voice, and really, this can override the other two concerns. Would this character really say THIS? And say it in THIS WAY? I’m writing in first person, so it’s particularly hard. I know that I would say something a certain way, but would this character say that? It’s hard because I think I have a tin ear, not good at catching these slip-ups. I have to focus hard and when my attention wanders, I have to go back and repeat it for that section.

   Overall, I’m liking the voice of this story and I think it’s working well. It’s just the small things, the word choices that matter here.

   I saw the sun was getting low.
   I realized it was getting late.
   When Sam turned on a lamp, it jerked me away from the game. I glanced at my watch. We were late.

   Any of these would work in my story. It’s not just a matter of Show-Don’t-Tell here, but how would this character, in the first person, perceive and record what is happening. Would he notice the sun out the window? Would he just get a general feeling of being late in the afternoon? Would he be oblivious until someone turned on a light? It’s the voice and character that matter.

Related posts:

1. editing
2. Voice Trumps Everything