Writing Tip: Streamlining Your Scene

by: Ronovan

 

Kill the darlings! Kill them all!

Agents, writing coaches, and even the pros say “Kill your darlings.” It’s the truth. Kill ‘em. Every last lovely one.

Pause for the tears to fall.

Pause over.

I’ll tell you that I only learned about Flash Fiction a month or so ago, or actually learned that’s what a process was called, although I had been using it for years. You take a scene and break it down to its essentials in as few words as possible.

• No extra adjectives
• No extra adverbs
• Tell the story in the dialogue what is happening
• Do NOT get explanatory on the reader

They want the dialogue and to find out what’s going on. Yes, there are times when you have scenes with no dialogue. I’m going to give you an example of a scene without much dialogue, before and after cutting it down to the bare essentials. (I hope I didn’t copyright infringe there.)

Here is a romance scene that we’ll see if it can be cut down. I’m not a romance writer so don’t laugh too much. It is 216 words for a very brief scene.

The man looked across the shadowy room and gazed longingly at the silk covered form of what he had desired for so long. She had finally given in. After so many long and frustrating nights of games played and rejections he could tell that she wasn’t going to deny him this time.

He waited for her to come to him. The chasing had been his to do so far, now it was her turn. The moonlight shining through the window shimmered off the red form as she moved to him.

Her breathy voice was more than he had ever imagined it would be. Her red lips and whispered words tickled his ear in a way that he could feel it in his toes. A pain that was much longed for swept through his body.

“Why are you making me wait? You know I’m ready,” she said as her glossy nails slid down his chest, slowly finding their way.

He swallowed hard and slowly took a breath to gain control before speaking. “How do you know I’m rea…,” his voice was cut off.

“I know,” she said as the smile spread across her face. There was nothing more he could say. Silk slid under fingertips as the tender skin of her shoulder gave heat to his lips.

 

I don’t read romance novels, although I write them in my mind. So I don’t even know if I wrote that properly but it will give me something to go with.

Now here is the cut down version.

The man looked across the room at the body he had desired for so long. After so many  frustrating nights of games played and rejections he could tell that she wasn’t going to deny him this time.

The chasing had been his to do so far, now it was her turn to come to him. The moonlight shining through the window shimmered off red silk as she moved.

Her lips whispered words in his ear that sent a pain of longing sweeping down his body.

“Why are you making me wait? You know I’m ready,” she said, her nails sliding down his chest, slowly finding their way.

He slowly took a breath before speaking. “How do you know I’m rea…,” his voice was cut off.

“I know,” she said. She smiled.

Silk slid under fingertips as her skin burned his lips.

 

The word count for this scene is now 141 down from 216. I cut out a lot of unnecessary descriptions in the beginning that would be revealed along the way. I cut the description of the shadowy room, it was unimportant. I also left out the color of her lips. You tell me if the scene works now, just as well as before or better or worse.

Why all the cutting? To get to where the reader wanted to go while still giving the same mood and not wasting the readers time. Also I leave some things to the imagination of the reader. The physical descriptions of the two people are not given. This means they could be anyone and thus any woman or man can slip into the scene and imagine their fantasy lover.

I didn’t  have many opportunities at dialogue tags in this scene but in heavy dialogue scenes you need to occasionally throw in a he said or she said just to keep the reader on track.

• Keep the paragraphs short, even if not traditionally grammatically appropriate.
• This is not an English class.
• Pull the reader to the next part and make them want to moved onward.

If this had been some psychological court case type thing, maybe there would have been more interior monologue, or maybe not. I tend to like the faster paced ideas when there are two or more people involved. A one person scene can get as ‘thoughty’ as they want to be. (Yes, I made up one of my new words.)

Yes, I would have done more with this scene if I were really writing it, but this was just for an exercise.

Let me know what you thought of the scene. Did either scene work? Was one better than the other? Why?

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