The Importance of Context
Sometimes you'll have an idea for a scene, one that's so vivid or so (at least at the time) good, you feel compelled to write it out, even if it's from a completely different part of the book than you're working on at the time. In your head it's amazing, so you can't wait. You feel everything happening and it sings, but then when you go to write it out, it's actually pretty muted, and doesn't stay on the beat, and it's out of tune. Why?
For me, I've come to realize, it's because there's no context. Scenes for me don't really sing until they're nestled within everything surrounding it. The transitions from one to the next, something somebody said just a few pages earlier, a realization you or a character hadn't had when you sat down to write that amazing isolated scene. To me, that's what adds life and makes it breathe. How you think a character feels versus how you know they do given everything that's led up to that point. Your great idea scene may be preceded by another great idea scene, but you didn't think of it until six months later, and now you have to re-write both anyway. For example, a scene that ends on a gag or joke might be perfect in isolation, but if in the next scene it ends up that someone has an emotional breakdown, it's no longer funny. It's weird and inappropriate; the tone is now all wrong.
You don't have to write things in order, I don't, but I'm also the type of writer who does more work on the second draft than the first. My Scrivener drafts are a technicolor nightmare that way, but it helps me when I look back at previous books to remind myself that the first draft needn't be perfect, or even close to it. I'm in the middle of my fourth novel and I still have to remember that things can be fixed at any point, and that the polish goes on last.
So while I still write down those Eureka scenes, I don't expect them to be final, and sometimes I'll just write down the Cliffs Notes version so I can savor unfolding the entire thing later with proper context. The goal, in the end, is that you the reader never notice which was which, and it's all equally enjoyable.
For me, I've come to realize, it's because there's no context. Scenes for me don't really sing until they're nestled within everything surrounding it. The transitions from one to the next, something somebody said just a few pages earlier, a realization you or a character hadn't had when you sat down to write that amazing isolated scene. To me, that's what adds life and makes it breathe. How you think a character feels versus how you know they do given everything that's led up to that point. Your great idea scene may be preceded by another great idea scene, but you didn't think of it until six months later, and now you have to re-write both anyway. For example, a scene that ends on a gag or joke might be perfect in isolation, but if in the next scene it ends up that someone has an emotional breakdown, it's no longer funny. It's weird and inappropriate; the tone is now all wrong.
You don't have to write things in order, I don't, but I'm also the type of writer who does more work on the second draft than the first. My Scrivener drafts are a technicolor nightmare that way, but it helps me when I look back at previous books to remind myself that the first draft needn't be perfect, or even close to it. I'm in the middle of my fourth novel and I still have to remember that things can be fixed at any point, and that the polish goes on last.
So while I still write down those Eureka scenes, I don't expect them to be final, and sometimes I'll just write down the Cliffs Notes version so I can savor unfolding the entire thing later with proper context. The goal, in the end, is that you the reader never notice which was which, and it's all equally enjoyable.
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