Napa Valley

The Ingrid’s Notes blog offers four writing tips on creating great scenes. I really like the following tip that Ingrid recommends a writer should do when editing a scene. It is under the headline, “Is There a Significant Emotional Change in the Scene?” …  “You can track the emotion of your scene by drawing emotion faces (happy faces, frowning faces) at the opening and closing of your scenes. The emotion should reflect the emotion your character carries into the scene, and the emotion the character carries out of it in when it’s over. If the emotion-face is the same, for example both are grumpy faces, then you don’t have any dramatic action in the scene. This indicates that the scene may need to be cut or revised.”

Napa Valley

She further writes about dramatic action in scenes, reader expectations, and how to stop protecting your characters. Excellent tips!

And here’s a terrific post by Zachary Petit on the Writer’s Digest blog, titled: 15 Things a Writer Should Never Do. 



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