Thursday, September 18, 2008

The Scene Book


I'm a sucker for writing books - but now that I've been at this writing gig for awhile (read: since the 6th grade!), I feel like I need to know a bit more beyond the basics. So I often look for writing books that delve deeper into the writing craft.

And wallah! Look what I found. Sandra Scofield's The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer. Not only do I love the cover and the size, but it's just loaded with wonderful info on how to write a scene. And since the scene is basically one of the building blocks of fiction, it's imperative to get them right.

I've only
just begun to delve into it, but already I'm seeing a lot of promise to Scofield's ideas. As an example, here are some of the chapters:
*Beats - How a Strong Central Event Can Be Broken Down into Beats
*The Focal Point - A Place Where a Scene Converges and Turns
*Pulse - How the Pulse Carries Action and Emotion

She also has some great wisdom on how to write big scenes (scenes that have a lot of characters), scene openings, and scene activity and character response.
I hope to share more information about it after I have studied it more. Anyone else read this book? If so, what did you think?

8 comments:

  1. Love that cover, brings me back to school days. Haven't read this, but it looks good, haven't seen a Writing book done from this angle before.

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  2. Haven't read it either. Can recommend a really indepth (but easy to understand) book on outlining. It's First Draft in 30 Days by Karen Weisner. It really helped me get things going fast with the 80,000 women's fiction I'm sending around now. And you can use it no matter your project's genre. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/First-Draft-Days-Karen-Wiesner/dp/1582972966 (But also try Half.com if interested. Great deals there!)

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  3. I'm addicted to books on craft too. I've got one called SCENE & STRUCTURE, by Jack M. Bickham that I confess to not yet reading. I'm within sight of the end of my first draft, so I plan on breaking out quite a few of these as soon as I'm done...gosh, I hope I reach the end soon!

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  4. Anonymous11:03 AM

    I look forward to hearing about it from you!

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  5. Joanne - I love the cover, too! It looks so personable.

    Angie - I've looked at that book and thought about getting it, but I've found that I can't do that much extensive outlining, or I have absolutely no enthusiasm for writing the book. But I am glad to hear that it's working for you!

    Lisa- I've heard that Bickham's book is a good one - I may have to check that one out soon, too. And here's to reaching the end soon!

    Robin - It's cheap on Amazon.com! :-)

    Devon - I hope to have some words of wisdom soon. :-)

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  6. What a treat new writing texts can be. I haven't seen this one (but I like the cover, too). Let us know what you think.

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  7. Therese - Glad to see you again! Hope the move went well. :-)

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