Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Is it a good review tactic to go back in the story and ask deeper questions about a scene, to be answered in the story?

+1
−0

I have this system of going back in my story so far and asking deeper questions about that scene. I plan on answering these questions in the actual story.

Is this a good tactic because it makes me think more about what is actually happening in the novel.

History
Why does this post require moderator attention?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/29914. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

0 comment threads

1 answer

+0
−0

I don't know about "deeper questions" in a scene; but I generally reread what I have written, in its entirety, six to twelve times before I am satisfied. Even a 250+ page novel. And that is on top of re-reading and rewriting scenes a few times as I produce them, with an occasional "start from scratch" on a scene.

I do this because by the time I finish a piece of work, I know my characters best, what they are capable of, where they are headed. I don't want the beginning of the work to be inconsistent in the slightest way with the end. If possible, I can add foreshadowing, or early hints of pathologies or decisions to come later; basically I can justify a few character traits or skills I now know are crucial to the plot turns or final resolution.

But most importantly I can rewrite things that are out of place, delete things that are wordy or over-explained, and I have enough mental distance from the previous visit to this writing, that I can be brutal with myself, or recognize my writing did not actually describe or convey what I was really imagining. (A problem for other writers too; when they read what they were just imagining, their imagination fills in the gaps for them so the writing seems good: But if they come at it 'cold' after a few weeks or months, they can see the words are not doing the job after all).

"Deeper Questions":

I'd be careful about this, it sounds dangerous. The questions you should answer are those that, if unanswered, could degrade a reader's suspension of disbelief. But those kinds of questions should be pre-emptively answered chapters before the reader would question something in a scene!

The only other kind of question you should answer are those central to the plot or what happens next (or happens later). Delete answers to questions that do not "matter", meaning the answer doesn't ever have a use later in the story. Answers like that are just stuffing to make a story longer, which dilutes action and impact. It is boring.

Do not satisfy your own desire to be thorough, or prove how much you know about some topic: Every time you do that you take a chance of giving readers an excuse to stop turning the pages.

History
Why does this post require moderator attention?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

0 comment threads

Sign up to answer this question »