Scene it!!

I think one of the most important points I learned when I began to write was to write in scenes.

In all my books, I write in scenes. Sometimes my scenes are 1000 words, sometimes they are 5-6000 words.

What is a scene?

Anyone who has scene a movie or television show knows what a scene is. A person walks into a room and dialog and action take place in that one room, that is a scene. Next, someone enters another room or exits the house, that is another scene. A book can have hundreds of scenes.

How can you write a scene?

When you begin, orient the reader, tell the reader what is different from the previous scene...ex) the time of day, the day of the week, the season changed, the room or setting changed...set up the scene...

If they have moved from a house to a car, or from a ski hill to the lodge...or from the murder scene to the lab or police station or witness resident...the reader must know there was a scene change.

In my books, I arrive at the crime scene, I write about 1000 words a day so I will, in my notes, write down that I am at "the crime scene" and I have a 1000 words to describe the crime scene or what the body looked like...whatever you want...

If I am stuck for words, I will get up from my computer and pretend that I am actually in that scene (like my book has been made into a movie and I am an actor in my own scene, I am the characters) I look around, I imagine what I would be seeing. What do I want my readers to be seeing? What clues do I want them to have? What false clues do I want my readers to have? I am the director (preferably Hitchcock because he is one of the best at making scenes...watch his movies, you could learn a lot about being a good writer by understanding why he was a good director.) What do I focus my camera on...the answer to these questions is what I write about...