Currently, I am working on my novella, Traption. I practice taking a little off the top at the beginning of each scene. I learned this concept from Jessica Brody’s Writing Mastery Academy course on revision. She recommends going through each scene to determine whether or not the scene begins at the “correct” place. She recommends starting with dialogue or action as opposed to reflection and description.
I felt I had done a good job of starting by scenes with action and dialogue. However, I looked through each of my scenes this week and determined that I had indeed included reflection and description at the beginning of many of my scenes.
So this weekend I’m going to be going through each scene and determine a better starting point for them. This will improve their “pacing.” The description of settings and the reflections of characters are not deleted but instead woven into later parts of the scene.
I started doing this yesterday and found I’m really enjoying the process. It does make the pacing of the scenes so much better.
So, I recommend you check out Writing Master Academy and see if a subscription to all courses would benefit you. It’s a treasure chest of information to help with the writing craft.
Andrew M. Friday 