Weak scenes? No Problem!

Before I share my latest tip, I want to tell my fellow bloggers from New Zealand that my prayers are with you. I hope your beautiful country recovers fast from the devastation of the latest earthquake.
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Reading some articles in the Writer’s Digest yesterday, I found this great exercise for creating three-dimensional scenes. This makes a lot of sense! The activity below, according to the article, will strengthen a weak scene in your novel in just 30 minutes.

Choose a scene from your own work or one you want to add to your story. Practice writing the same scene over and over. Use all dialogue the first time. Then use all narrative. Then all action. Finally, weave all three fiction elements for a three-dimensional effect.

Pull a troublesome scene from your own story. Which element does it have too much of? Too little of? Consider how you might weave all three elements to make it more three-dimensional.

Take a look at some of your woven scenes and see if you can speed them up by taking out all of the narrative and using only dialogue. Or slow them down by taking out the dialogue and using only narrative. Maybe a scene should be focused on the action alone, for the sake of moving the external plot forward. Remember that not every scene needs to be woven to be effective.

Go exercise now and happy writing everyone!