Create the Best Scene to Propel Your Plot and Reveal Your Characters

Revise scenes to enhance the story

Actor Jack Nicholson often offers directors more than one version of a scene. Why? Besides the fact that he's an outside-the-box thinker, Nicholson's rationale for doing a scene more than one way is, simply, choice — to provide the best scene for the story. Writers can benefit from the same approach.

If you're writing a story whose plot lacks forward momentum, or have created a character that isn't fully realized, try this technique:

• Start with a blank page, and write a completely new scene, without considering for the moment whether it meshes with the rest of the story.
• Put the scene aside for a day or two, then repeat the process.
• Wait another day or so, then compare the three scenes — the original and the two new options.

Now ask yourself these questions:

• What does each scene reveal about your character(s)?
• How would each choice affect the story as a whole?
• Which option works best, or feels most real? Why?
• If you're fairly far along in the story, don't start over.

Simply note what will need to change as the thoughts come to mind, and continue writing based on what you know now. You can use what you've learned to inform Draft 2 during the revision process.

What story are you working on that could use a fresh direction?

Happy writing!

For more tips, visit Word for Words, or visit Adele's blog.

The Art of Feeling: The Role of Emotions in Scenes

Emotions in scenes reveal character

Why show emotions in scenes instead of telling how characters feel? Because readers like discovery — it respects their dignity and intellect. But how do emotions function, what should they reveal, and how can writers deal with their own discoveries?

The best approach to writing an emotional scene is to reveal character and advance plot, preferably both at once.

Here's an example:

Bill slammed the garage door. "I told you I didn't want you coming home until you found work."

"But, Dad." Dave slouched against the car. "I'm not cut out for anything."

In two lines, the characters show who they are, how they relate to each other and several major problems.

Caveat: Writers sometimes include information that's new to them, but shouldn't be. Describing Dave as tall in this scene wouldn't add anything, but saying he slouched hints at the same and reveals his mood, if not his personality.

Tip: Writers often make their own discoveries while writing scenes, and wonder whether what they've found is a legitimate character trait, or an anomaly. When you discover something new about a character, rather than stop the scene to ponder it, complete the scene to see how it plays out. Then give yourself time away before rereading the scene and considering how the discovery affects other characters and the plot. If you keep the scene, revise it for as many main characters as are in it. Consider setting a character.

What difficult scene are you working on?

Happy writing!

For more on writing, visit Adele's Online Workshop.

One Potato, Two Potato: The Art of Describing Characters

Two potatoes sat on a counter looking largely the same, but are they? They're both Idaho Reds, and both about the same size, each with small points at one end. But look closer, even without a magnifying glass, and it becomes clear these potatoes are different. As a writer, you'll want to pay attention to detail to take your character descriptions from workmanlike to work of art.

Take our two potatoes—what do you see? One has more eyes and is browner and chubbier. The other is shorter and thinner and has more scars. It also has more pink areas and a bit more stem attached. Is it starting to seem, based on these distinctions, that the potatoes are getting a bit of personality? The same can be true of describing your characters.

The best way to reveal a character's traits is in a scene, where in addition to prose there is dialog, preferably with tension, and characters are revealed organically as they react under pressure. But for those softer moments, when you're describing the character through narrative prose, it's helpful to have done a bit of homework first.

Many writers advocate creating character descriptions before writing the story, and that can work well. But I'm increasingly a fan of the imagery approach, where you close your eyes, imagine the scene, then write it, Consider doing the same with your characters. And when you close your eyes (and silence your internal editor) and see those people you're writing about, don’t be afraid of a little description, especially in the first draft.


Describe those protruding eyes, unsightly scars, chubby bodies, pinched looking noses. Then take the description a step further. Consider the arched posture or the slouch, the feminine curves or lack thereof, not only for what they show about the character, but for what they tell about him or her. What does the slouch or portly shape say about self-confidence? Those traits may not be saying what you think. The slouch could belie a spinal condition, the rotund belly a wealthy lifestyle.

One thing is sure, the detailed—and knowledgeable—description with the right details in the right place will reveal the characters not only to your audience, but also to you so that you can continue developing them throughout the story for that important arc that can raise your characters from couch potatoes to fine dining.

Resources: For more information getting to know your characters, see the Writer's Digest article "9 Questions to Ask Your Main Character," and at Writers Digest University see "Character Description Exercise."