Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)

by Lisa Cron

Writing the Scene Itself It’s now time to write the scene in which your protagonist’s expectations will most definitely not be met, and in which his worldview will be skewed. He may emerge emotionally battered and bruised, he may feel triumphant, or he may think that he just dodged a bullet, but as far as he’s concerned, life just taught him an important lesson when it comes to navigating the world. The origin scene will chronicle a single event. It will be specific. You will need to set the place, the time, the context. Don’t simply chronicle what happens externally; put us in your story’s command center by letting us know what your protagonist is thinking as he reacts, internally, to what happens and to what other people say. Often, what he’s thinking and what he’s saying out loud will be two very different things. That is the point.