Don't Give Your Readers a Roller Coaster Ride Between Boredom and Excitement, Choose Effective Scenes

Once you've created your plot, main characters, and setting, it's time to start your verbal blender and mix up some muse-inspired sentences. The problem that often creates writer's block and that if not addressed creates a roller coaster ride from boredom to excitement to boredom and then back again, is that we fail to realize which scenes are important enough to include, when to start them, and when to stop them.

For example, whether your character is traveling to St. Louis in a minivan to start a new job or to some fictional land called Rameolus to save a princess, it is not beneficial to the author to detail every road, turn, song on the radio, and in the case of our second example, every time he stops on the side of the road to start a fire and hang-out Middle Earth style. This could be rather dull and loses readers left and right.

On the other hand, if there is an important event that progesses, complicates, or enhances the plot, if the characters are going to have some sort of important converstatin or experience, then do tell! Each scene, and each page for that matter, should contain material that supports the plot and creates some kind of change that's interesting or unexpected. I've seen some visually stunning movies that contained predictable plots and just didn't pull me along. You want your scenes to do that, reach out and grab the reader in a ninja-like grip and pull them along from page to page, paragraph to paragraph, sentence to essential sentence.

In short, when you are choosing which scenes to write, skip the dull parts of the story and fill the reader in later, or use one tactic that I've seen many successful writers impliment: use a sentence or two to fill them in so you can relish in and dabble with the interesting parts. Here's an example:

"After getting ready for the day, John unexpectedly--even to himself--took a left turn on Broadway and found himself at his favorite Starbucks. There were two lines, and he decided to stand in the longer one. The one where Suzy Renolds would help him order an Espresso."

With that single paragraph, we know our character woke up the next day, that's a given, got ready, started off to work and then took a detour. The scene is set, the action begins as he takes his place in line and tries to catch the eye of the lovely Miss Renolds.

Hopefully this post not only helps you get rid of some of that writer's block but also aids you in creating richer, more vivid content that keeps your readers hanging on every word. Take a moment and share this post with yoru writing friends by clicking "Tell-a-Friend" below, and subscribe to this blog to recieve regular advice on writing and publishing.