Creative Writing: the Quick Matrix by Susan Lee Kerr

Author:Susan Lee Kerr
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780955137013
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Scene Staging Demo [56]

The elements of scene are the same as the elements of story, but more focussed: setting, character or characters, something going on. It can be as short and silent as someone ringing a doorbell and no one answers. It can be as busy as a protester being arrested. But two characters in a situation is the most useful place to practice writing a scene. Demonstrate by inviting the whole group to rough out a scene with you on the whiteboard in bubble-chart style. Robert J Ray, in his The Weekend Novelist, has a longer, more detailed version of this. The demo scene could be from fragments you’ve mentioned before, like two characters chatting by the coffee machine [above], or the man walking his dog in the park [Mini-Lecture 3]. My favourite is to use a scene from Cinderella. Call out the elements and write the possibilities as the responses come:

Setting: The ballroom? What colours, what sounds?

Character: Cinders – how old, what colouring? What is the dress like?

Character: Prince – how old, what colouring? What is he wearing?

Opening action: What are they doing?

Dialogue: Not the actual words they speak, but ideas on what they say.

Inner thoughts (subtext): She’s thinking/feeling… He’s thinking/feeling…

And then: What can go wrong or right or almost right?

Outro: What happens at the end of the scene? A cliffhanger? A sense of resolution?

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