The Rebellious Art of Scene Writing

Replay and a summary of our second live teaching

Welcome to this “off the schedule” post that wraps our 2nd live meet-up for paid subscribers. If you want to watch the replay now, scroll down.

We talked about the rebellious, even revolutionary art of scene writing, how it’s done, the “ingredients,” and examples. We also discussed the process of building trust and giving feedback on work. These teachings are cumulative and are easing us toward a future writing workshop within our Flight School community where we give and receive feedback designed to elevate our work to the next level.

Remember:

1. Your work is always perfect in the final analysis. It’s an expression of you, a creation of such perfection that there will never be another—never.

2. From the “critical” view, the work can always be improved, but, and this is a huge “but,” such improvement is conditioned on your underlying desire. Do you want readers to take it in? Are you writing only to know something better? What? What do you want? From there, you start to make choices and move into revision.

References:

Sarah Fay

Substack Writers at Work

Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walters (most memorable scene)

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks (for structure)

Story by Robert McKee (for structure)

Seven Drafts by Allison Williams (for structure)

A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders (Russian writers and how they manage “location”)

Tell it Slant by Brenda Miller and Suzanna Paola (wonderful resource for creative non-fiction writers)

Without A Map by Meredith Hall

If you want to watch this terrific teaching and be part of this growing literary community, it’s a matter of upgrading from free to paid. I hope you will.