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86th out of 319 books
—
506 voters
The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer
A treasure-trove of scene-writing wisdom from award-winning author and teacher Sandra Scofield To write a good scene, you have to know the following:
� Every scene has an EVENT
� Every scene has a FUNCTION in the narrative
� Every scene has a STRUCTURE: a beginning, middle, and end
� Every scene has a PULSE
The Scene Book is a fundamental guide to crafting more effective sc...more
� Every scene has an EVENT
� Every scene has a FUNCTION in the narrative
� Every scene has a STRUCTURE: a beginning, middle, and end
� Every scene has a PULSE
The Scene Book is a fundamental guide to crafting more effective sc...more
Paperback, 247 pages
Published
March 27th 2007
by Penguin Books
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I read Sandra’s book (she teaches at The Solstice Program at Pine Manor where I am currently a student) out of curiosity but found her ideas helpful. It was more of a workbook, which wasn’t what I was looking for. I think this is a nice craft book to have on hand when trying to fine tune your stories and make sure you have all the elements of scene. What I really liked was Sandra’s little bits about her own writing life and how she created her own self-study of books. The other nice part about t...more
May 05, 2011
Mark O'Bannon
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Shelves:
top-ten-books-on-writing,
books-on-writing
The Scene Book
by Sandra Scofield
If you want to be a writer, you need to master the art of writing the scene. Scenes form the basic building blocks of any story and this book explores them in great detail.
Writers need to think in scenes. There is a difference between narrative summary and a scene.
Narrative summary is a way to quickly cover a lot of ground in a story, without getting bogged down in the details. Narrative summary is a great technique to use between scenes, but some writers don't se...more
by Sandra Scofield
If you want to be a writer, you need to master the art of writing the scene. Scenes form the basic building blocks of any story and this book explores them in great detail.
Writers need to think in scenes. There is a difference between narrative summary and a scene.
Narrative summary is a way to quickly cover a lot of ground in a story, without getting bogged down in the details. Narrative summary is a great technique to use between scenes, but some writers don't se...more
This was my craft book pick for my second term at the Seton Hill Writing Popular Fiction master's program.
One of the things I often struggle with in my fiction, especially in long fiction, is the meandering scene. Sometimes things just draaaag in my writing. I've come to realize that part of that is sometimes a lack of focus in my scenes. They're just *there*.
I'm somewhat of an organic writer. I don't tend to plot much and while I do have an idea of where things are going, and several scenes in...more
One of the things I often struggle with in my fiction, especially in long fiction, is the meandering scene. Sometimes things just draaaag in my writing. I've come to realize that part of that is sometimes a lack of focus in my scenes. They're just *there*.
I'm somewhat of an organic writer. I don't tend to plot much and while I do have an idea of where things are going, and several scenes in...more
This book was recommended to me by a colleague. I was lost on scene writing skills and this book has given me a few important elements to consider when writing scenes. I haven't read any other book on scene writing so I can't compare. I found myself skipping over a lot of material in this book, perhaps it is the writing style that didn't work for me. None-the-less, I am more equipped with scene writing skills than I was before reading this book.
This book came highly recommended, but somehow it wasn't what I expected. To me, there was much familiar advice and I found the references and examples 'too literary' for my tastes (I'm more commercially oriented I guess). The biggest take away for me was the concept of 'beats' within a scene, this really helped me improve my scene writing.
This was a HUGE help to me! I was having problems with my current novel and either 1) Knew what the problem was but was unsure how to tackle the resolution or 2) Had no idea what the problem was .... clear as MUD ... but knew there was definitely issues. This book identified ways to solve problems and also helped me to identify what the problem was. Definitely will be going on my shelf of reference books where I can rely on when I need it.
This book is okay, but I only got a few good tips out of it. As with any writing guide, YMMV depending on what you want to focus on and your level of experience. This book is about scenes, as you can tell from the title, and while the author uses a lot of examples from novels (waaay too many from her own novels, which, judging the examples, seem insufferably dull), I think this book is of the best use to a short story writer.
The back of the book is really all you need to read: Every scene has a...more
The back of the book is really all you need to read: Every scene has a...more
I've never understood beats within a scene as well as I do after reading Scofield's chapter on this. She is clear, has interesting exercises at the end of each chapter, and uses examples from literary novels rather than commercial fiction. I love the way she talks about "Big Scenes" -- those with many characters, which I am juggling in my book right now. She recommends focusing on your POV character as your life jacket in jumping into deep water. I find her guidance clear and compelling, and she...more
Very good way of looking at how to keep a story moving and create tension. Excellent examples drawn from many different eras and styles.
great for teachers, writers & readers of all kinds...exercises, reading list
A great book to delve into the way scenes work. I wish I'd read this a lot earlier.
I've always considered good writing an art, something that can't really be taught or learned. This book showed me how wrong that idea was. Talent is important to good writing, but so is form and technique. Scofield teaches how pulse, events, beats, point of view, scenarios, and several other tools add up to create a story that really works. She also gives some really good tips for revising your own writing. I would recommend this book to anyone who is seriously considering writing a novel.
This book was practical and helpful, and I found myself taking notes and jumping into a working on a scene after having read a chapter or an exercise. I didn't think all of the exercises were right on, and some of the example passages got long and wieldy, but overall would say it was a good intro.
Very good books on how to write scenes in a book. LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! All writers should have a copy in print on their desk to use.
this book focuses on writing effective scenes by breaking a scene down into its components (action, character response(s), ending). there are examples from other authors (both well-known and obscure) and exercises at the end of each chapter. my only complaint is that the longest examples come from her own work.
Reading this for my writing class.
Although there is some very helpful information here in a structural, editorial way, the fact that she doesn't ever stop mentioning her own work, or quoting from it, or using it as a good example, made me never want to read her again.
A must-read for writers, but I wished she'd used more genre fiction examples than literary fiction. Still, it was worth reading and was pretty meaty. Not as "beginner" as you'd think.
Mmmm, this looks good. I like the cover, just like a comp book, black and white. Good, useful information on beats, tension, pulse, focal points in a scene.
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Ever get that writing book that you wish you would've had before you started the project you're currently working on? This is that book.
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