The Lost Art of Scene Writing

The power of the present moment in your storytelling

An Exclusive Writing Lab on scene writing and the single most neglected scene ingredient: Location. Plus details on your second live meet up with paid subscribers

Welcome and a huge welcome to our new subscribers. 🤗

The tsunami known as

Sarah Fay

blew my subscription numbers up over the holiday and we close in on seven hundred readers.

It’s an honor to have you hear. Now, let’s get to work.

Save this Wednesday, 12/6/23 at 12 p.m. PST:

We will discuss the fundamentals of scene writing, why it matters, and how to write one following a simple recipe card I created.

A bonus conversation will center around critical discussions of personal work. How we have these conversations, and how the writer can make the transition from being overly connected—emotionally—to their own memoir work and learn to see what they write from the view of the reader.

If you cannot be with me on Wednesday, do not worry. I’ll record the meeting.

Scene writing is this simple: Show. Don’t tell.

Showing is scene and it elevates your writing to an entirely new level.

Telling is, well, telling and those who do it too early in their creative work (in the first 25% of the whole) are doomed to be skim-read by just about everyone to include agents, editors, and publishers.

Why?

Telling is boring. In fact, I am boring you right now by telling you to show so, let me show you a scene.

Death Dances Divinely by Patricia B.

(300 words)

The parking lot is lit poorly. One weak light points like a spot in the area of the dumpster. Another single bulb shimmers above the back door. The nearest street light is out front at the intersection of Central and San Mateo and at two am, it may as well be lighting on the moon.   

His arms around me are low on my hips, fingers laced, relaxed, and one hundred percent adrenaline-laced wrong. To anyone watching, we might look like lovers.  Alone, late at night, in each other’s arms. But I don’t know this man, don’t remember how he got so close so quickly. Why did I just stand there and let it happen? Even now, this memory clip jumps and skips as if the sprockets are torn.

I hold him in a mirror of the same low-slung completed circle, my arms relaxed around his waist. No resistance from me.