Analysis of Three Winter Tales

An exclusive writing lab that uses your scene samples to deepen the teaching

Welcome to 2024:

Over this break, I’ve read several dark and rather gloomy laments about the holidays here on Substack: Too commercial. Too much hype. Too much expectation.

Perhaps you’ve read the same?

Bucking trend, I’m happy to report the opposite on all counts.

No commercialism. No hype. No expectation. But rather, appreciation, gratitude and good will. We laughed at each other’s jokes, took long walks, ate great food, and when we parted, were genuinely sad to see each other go.

Why, I wonder, were things so good this year? Perhaps the neurofeedback that re-wired my formerly cynical brain into a functional one that can be with what is without fear or worry? Perhaps my new found faith (or better, my return to my original faith that is so full of promise, it’s hard not to be at peace now)? Perhaps it is simply an acceptance of the limitations of this life and not expecting a holiday or other people to fill me?

I don’t know.

Maybe a bit of all three.

What I know is that the holiday passed easily and without event.

Perhaps you have a happy tale to share about your own holiday? If yes, pop it in the comments. I’d love to see how you fared…

Now let’s take a look at three scenes submitted from the Winter Tales Prompt with the goal of extending and deepening this powerful teaching.

Read more about the evolving scene lessons here:

• The Lost Art of Scene Writing

• The Rebellious Art of Scene Writing

Finally, here is the Scene Recipe Card we’ve been using:

Scene Recipe Card Fs

168KB ∙ PDF file

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We begin with Lori’s Winter Tale about a gruff foster-father and how a snowy day changes her life. She’s done a nice job holding to the word count and works hard to give the reader context about this relationship which makes it easy to track the arc of transformation.

I’ve recorded my comments on her sample in a video and below is a .pdf of her pages. I suggest watching the video to get a sense of how I comment and make notes on a piece of writing. After watching the video, you’ll better be able to track my comments on Bernard and Andy.

Let’s get started…

If you’re a paid subscriber, read on! And if you’re not, I hope you’ll become one in order to enjoy this truly enlightening teaching on scene.