One of the phrases I heard a lot when I was in that strange phase between writing my fourth novel and learning how to write (don’t do it this way, BTW) was the perplexing phrase, “The scene must move the plot forward.”
I never could understand what this meant. Eventually I was able to grasp what it means, and I think it’s just a case of using the wrong words to describe an action.
If you write a scene where the characters stop what they’re doing to have a campfire and eat hot dogs, unless one of them dies during that scene or a killer begins hacking people to death, the scene probably doesn’t move the story forward.
Here’s a way to think of it – “If I cut this scene from my novel, will the story suffer?” If the answer is yes, leave it. If you’re including it just because you like it, save it and publish it on your web site after your book is published.
I mentioned a scene previously about a book I bought once where the protagonist is skateboarding. That’s it. Nothing else happens. I mean, if you need to establish your protagonist is a skateboarder, fine! There’s easy ways to do it without wasting the entire opening CHAPTER on a mindless skateboarding scene where you ride down stairs and across railings, etc.
How about this? Bundle it with your inciting incident! The skateboarder falls, and rolls. He’s looking into an alley where he sees a man being shot. The obviously government type person who pulled the trigger looks, and sees the skateboarder lying there!
Setup complete! And you can do it with three sentences!
But if you’re stopping the flow of your novel to include a campfire, skateboarding, or playing touch football just because you like the scene – skip it.
Learn to establish your characters in single sentences. “He was as unimaginative as his necktie.” Or “His face appeared to have never seen a razor in his life.”
I just told you almost EVERYTHING about the character, and did it in one sentence!
If you love the football game scene so much, either make it the location of a plot point – or move it to your Scrivener research folder.
Don’t make it take up any part of your novel’s precious space.
