Writing the Scene

Last updated on: December 23, 2014 at 6:25 pm by willduquette

Writing the Scene 2014-12-23T18:25:13-05:00 willduquette

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’ve got a character, John St. Cloude, captain of the freezer ship Our Lady of Loreto; a sequence of events, the voyage to S’Mary’s World; I’ve even got a title, always an important point for me, Watchman for Daybreak; yet I can’t seem to get started.

Part of it is simply lack of time: we went away for President’s Day weekend, sharing a rental unit with another family; being present to family and friends is not conducive to writing fiction. Saturday is usually good writing time, but today I’ve got a retreat all day with my Lay Dominican chapter. And then, the week after this I’m going to be on a business trip all week. (I might possibly do some writing on the plane.) And then of course there’s the Blog, which must be Fed.

But whining aside, a lot of it is simply not having a mostly blank page to start with, so that I can let the world develop as it will. I know almost too much. Patricia Wrede gets it; here, she’s talking about systems aimed at new writers that aim to help the writer figure everything out in advance, so that all they have to do is the writing:

There are two major problems with this theory. (Well, three, but that gets into where and why they all fall apart, which I will come to in a minute.) The first and largest problem is that not everyone works the same way, and, in fact, the same author won’t necessarily work exactly the same way from book to book. There are plenty of authors for whom any advance planning at all is the kiss of death to their story. Their process is “sit down in front of a blank page and surprise myself.” I’ve done that twice, and for me it feels like working without a net, but Talking to Dragons and Sorcery and Cecelia are two of my most popular books, so it obviously worked better than I was afraid it would.

Her point is that even if you scope everything out in detail ahead of time, you still have to write the scene; and there are things you simply won’t be able to scope out until you sit down and write the scene. (Writing software is like this, too: it doesn’t matter how good a design you have, you learn things during implementation that make you change it.) Or, as the man said, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. In this case, the enemy is the actual scene.

I’m trying something new and ambitious with Watchman for Daybreak, and frankly it’s hard to buckle down and get started. I suppose the best thing to do is pick a scene and follow it where it leads, just so that I have something written down, rather than trying to figure out everything in my head.

It seems odd to ask for prayer for the execution of a short story (which shows signs of wanting to be a novel), but if any of you are so minded, I’d appreciate it. It’ll be motivating to know that people are waiting to find out what happens next.

Links to This and That

S'Mary's World

s'mary's world

writing

Previous Post

February 25, 2014

UPDATED: I'm a Catholic Techie!

Next Post

February 27, 2014 Words I Wish I'd Written: Zeal and Resolve

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Admin App o' the Morning Ask the Dogmat Believing Thomas Bits of Fiction Blasts from the Past Bootstrapping the Interior Life Catholic Mom Christian Living Deep Thoughts from the Doghouse Dominicana Evangelii Gaudium Interviews It Was A Dark and Stormy Night Links to This and That Lumen Fidei Meme Watch On Writing Operation Gratitude Pedant Errant Photography Quill Random Barkings S'Mary's World Shakers of Salt Software Development The Dog Whistler The Dogmat Sez Third Orders Thomas Aquinas Uncategorized Vikings at Dinos Woof Guide to Cinema Woof Guide to History Woof Guide to Literature Woof Guide to Obscure Catholic Music Woof Guide to Philosophy Woof Guide to Popular Music Woof Guide to Technology Woof Guide to Theology Words I Wish I'd Written Works For Me

Select a Month September 2016 August 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was Jesus' profession before starting His ministry?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Shepherd Tentmaker Carpenter Fisherman