Write the Big Scenes
I’m currently working on edits for my 2025 novel - it’s current title is Closest Kept, but since I very much doubt it will end up with this title, my 2025 novel is what I’ve come to think of it as.
I haven’t been asked to make any major changes - yay!! Okay, the third act needs more work, but mainly I’ve just been asked to dig deeper.
As a creative writing tutor, I often picked my students up on places in their stories where they’d omitted to write a big scene, skimming over it in a few reported sentences. You need to dramatise this, I’d tell them. (Many of my students on my mailing list are probably nodding their heads at this point. Either that, or smiling wryly.)
The places where they’d skipped over a big scene were always so obvious to me - there was their audience, in their seats, waiting to be caught up in their characters’ emotions. To have that prickly feeling on the back of their necks as their hairs stood on end. To grip the book tighter as they experienced empathy, horror, or absolute joy, and the writer hadn’t even opened the curtains on the scene, leaving the reader thinking, Oh, is that it?
Well, it turns out it’s easier to spot these places in someone else’s writing than your own, because last week I read this note from my editor:
So much we miss here - that feels too important to skip over to me.
And of course, she’s right.
That’s the wonderful thing about working with an editor you’re on the same wavelength as. Someone who really ‘gets’ your book and your characters. She can point things out, say a few words, and bing, there’s a chemical reaction inside your head and you know exactly what needs to be done.
I don’t know if other writers find this kind of collaboration daunting; whether it undermines their self-confidence. I suppose it’s possible they feel reluctant to let go of their autonomy. But for me, happily, it’s a very positive experience. I don’t feel as if I’ve been told what to do, just as if I’ve been given a packet of seeds to sew and cultivate exactly as I want.
So, prepare to grip the book tighter, buckle up, and put your scarf on ready for that chill on the back of your neck.
I’m diving in!
I haven’t been asked to make any major changes - yay!! Okay, the third act needs more work, but mainly I’ve just been asked to dig deeper.
As a creative writing tutor, I often picked my students up on places in their stories where they’d omitted to write a big scene, skimming over it in a few reported sentences. You need to dramatise this, I’d tell them. (Many of my students on my mailing list are probably nodding their heads at this point. Either that, or smiling wryly.)
The places where they’d skipped over a big scene were always so obvious to me - there was their audience, in their seats, waiting to be caught up in their characters’ emotions. To have that prickly feeling on the back of their necks as their hairs stood on end. To grip the book tighter as they experienced empathy, horror, or absolute joy, and the writer hadn’t even opened the curtains on the scene, leaving the reader thinking, Oh, is that it?
Well, it turns out it’s easier to spot these places in someone else’s writing than your own, because last week I read this note from my editor:
So much we miss here - that feels too important to skip over to me.
And of course, she’s right.
That’s the wonderful thing about working with an editor you’re on the same wavelength as. Someone who really ‘gets’ your book and your characters. She can point things out, say a few words, and bing, there’s a chemical reaction inside your head and you know exactly what needs to be done.
I don’t know if other writers find this kind of collaboration daunting; whether it undermines their self-confidence. I suppose it’s possible they feel reluctant to let go of their autonomy. But for me, happily, it’s a very positive experience. I don’t feel as if I’ve been told what to do, just as if I’ve been given a packet of seeds to sew and cultivate exactly as I want.
So, prepare to grip the book tighter, buckle up, and put your scarf on ready for that chill on the back of your neck.
I’m diving in!
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