NEW PARIS BOOK IN PROGRESS IN 2024: STORY SCENE AND SEEN – Blog # 25.
Can you visualize a scene in your book – is the story scene seen? Are the words forming a scene in your mind – can you see it in your mind? Or do you need to see the scene before you write it?
After my long break from writing my book, due to volunteering at the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics, I’m ready to get back into the scene. I need to reflect on the concept and writing to date, scene by scene. This is how I’m going to attempt it.
Do you remember the storyboard approach – the frames – that filmmakers use to prepare for a shoot? A storyboard is a planning tool to illustrate a story – to visualize the location, characters, movement, dialogue, and so on – to test the plot and transition from scene to scene.
To create a storyboard, map out the key steps in the main character’s journey – it can be done scene by scene, chapter by chapter, or location by location. What is the character doing? For example, is the character standing, sitting, lying down, alone or in company, moving from the kitchen to the balcony, climbing down the drainpipe to the ground to escape, how? Visualize the movie story.
Sketch out the movements, frame by frame. It doesn’t need to be pretty – grab a pencil and scribble a scene. Play around with colour, light, shade, dark, objects in the scene, animals in the scene, and so on. Some people I know use the collage technique where they cut out pictures from newspapers and magazines to create the story frame.
After the story picture is complete, scribble words around it or write a brief description underneath to remind yourself what you were thinking at the time – whatever works for you. A sentence or a few words – it’s not the whole chapter, but it’s the prompt for the writing of the chapter.
After a few hours, or a day, or a week, look again at the storyboard scene. Now, here comes the hundred questions:
Is the scene seen on paper as it was in your mind?
Does it make sense?
What can be improved?
What’s missing? What can be added? Is there enough detail?
What can be deleted? Is there too much superfluous fluff?
Is the concept simple?
How does this scene fit with the previous one; how does it help the next one?
What makes it different from the scene of other similar books and stories?
Is the scene unexpected?
Is the scene emotional? How does it make people feel?
Is the scene a story or is it merely this happened then that happened?
How can you explain this scene in one sentence to a five-year-old or to your grandparents?
Are you happy enough to start writing or rewriting?
Good luck!
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Photographer: Martina Nicolls
