This is not an uncomfortable confession about my personal life. I swear it’s not. I hope no one’s too terribly disappointed.
This is actually about transitions. You know, those horrible points in your writing (or hey, your career) when you have to find a way to tie two things together without mindless babbling or too much information.
I’ve found lately that I’ve gotten fairly decent at coming up with the major points I need to hit in any book. Plot points, pinch points, black moments, I know where those are and what they’re going to be.
It’s the in between stuff that trips me up. The day-to-day, what did you have for lunch stuff. Not, mind you, that I spend a lot of time on what people have for lunch, but sometimes it’s important, you know? You can’t just hope from a car chase to a sex scene to the resolution without Stuff ™ in the middle.
So how do you do it? How do you determine what’s good and right to use as filler and what will put you or, God forbid, your readers to sleep? Do you use examples from your own life? Do you only include things that interest you? Or is there the occasional cotton-between-the-toes nail painting scene?
February 7th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
I was just talking to someone about this. It’s part of what brings you from a short story to a single title too.
I add more of the day to day scenes, down time for the characters where you can see their personality traits more too. When I write them, that restaurant or movie night scene, I just try and write it as if I were there. As if I were one of the characters. Those scenes fly by for me, and can even tend to be my strongest dialogue moments.
February 8th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I think as long as the scene actually works (does work) you’re okay. Jane Graves did a workshop for us about a year ago and talked about putting our characters in unusual situations–ie different types of dates etc. You can use it as a chance to reveal character traits–at least I try to but it’s so organic. I remember in TBGG I got just over the 1/2 way point and I knew I needed something to happen, not just talking ya know? So I gave my hero the opertunity to cheat on the heroine.
February 10th, 2007 at 2:06 am
I try to put myself there as well. How would I react? What would I do in the same situation? These are the scenes that make your books longer which I’m trying to work on.
February 12th, 2007 at 12:51 am
When it comes to writing long, my biggest problem is the sagging middle. Ugh.