I was talking to a friend of mine, a writer, and she said that when she is working she sometimes skips the boring bits of her story and jumps ahead to write the big exciting scenes. Which got me thinking...
Firstly, it strikes me that in a good book there shouldn't be any boring bits. Even if you vary the tension and the intensity of the drama (which of course you should) and leave yourself with a few quieter passages, these should always pay their way in terms of keeping your reader's attention.
Secondly, I think it can be a good idea to make the same journey that your reader will make, to walk in their shoes as far as you can, so that you experience the ebbs and flows of your story just as they will. If you cut to the chase, this won't happen.
Thirdly (I'm discovering that I have strong feelings about this!) if you go for the peaks first, you run the risk that your linking scenes will come across as being mere filler, because that is how you have treated them.
Lastly, I'm inclined to think you need a good run at a profoundly emotional scene. You need to have covered all the ground your character has covered, to have suffered as they have suffered, and to have earned your release in the same way that they have.
Basically, I don't think there are many shortcuts with writing and that, just as you do in life, you get back what you put in. You need to cover the ground. You need to make the journey. That's a bracing note on which to start 2011 - Happy New Year.
No comments:
Post a Comment