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SCENE-SETTING
"Scenes" are a blockbuster novel's building blocks. They create the Big Questions at the outset: Will she get the man? Will she be murdered? (Will he be killed by the giant fly from Outer Space? Naw!)
"In a blockbuster novel, a scene is almost always more than merely a well-written account in description and dialogue of an episode between characters. Popular authors intuitively or deliberately build their scenes. Somewhere in the first few lines or paragraphs (or carried over from an earlier scene) a question is subtly (or not so subtly) raised"
The question could be anything from "Should I kill him while we're playing Bridge next week? Charlie asked himself" to "Will Ormond find our from Marianne what she was not supposed to tell him about Elaine's emotional trauma with Gerald's libertine lesbian sister?"
By informing the reader early, either before the scene actually begins or just as it starts, of what a character wants and is trying to accomplish, or of what danger (or pleasure) lies ahead, about which the character involved knows little or nothing, the author sets up suspense for the oncoming scene. We become hooked, wondering how the particular issue will be resolved. Our attention can then remain engaged through pages and pages of relatively non-dramatic material (backstory of the characters, general history of the place and period, dreams and fantasies of major and secondary characters, cultural mores of the world of the book) until the issue is joined and the scene's dramatic question, if not answered, is at least dealt with.? (P153 of Writing the Blockbuster Novel)
The trick, in short, is to create compelling anticipation.
Two (or is it three?) techniques are offered to induce this.
1. Begin the chapter or scene with a sudden shock. . . then backtrack in time to one of the characters involved and affected by this climax. .. then build back the narrative to the shock, the fate, the Greek tragedy, of which we have already been informed.
2. Introduce the issue/shock/climax early in the scene through 'thought' dialogue or the omniscient narrator.
3. ?Planting questions? says a heading in my notes on the How-to book. It refers to a third technique I assume. The note below the headline reads: "Keep readers' attention by leaving unanswered questions raised by an introduction beginning 'Father I have sinned'(?). Narrative goes back to childhood, then returns to present, but goes round the 'sin'(?) to lesser sins and other memories . . .is brought back to 'I fornicated.' (?). Questions: Why? Whom? What's the problem?? Chapter ends as ?'liff-hanger?.
Building Anticipation Question of 'sin' can be 'spine' of a 30-page chapter. Build-up to a scene (other than a novel denouement) has lasted (Gone with the Wind) 100 pages."
Perhaps you can unravel this old, cryptic note, and make good use of it in writing your novel. It may be an 'inexplicable' - but in any case I hope you find it as intriguing as I do. It makes me want to read on . . . and I haven't even written further than this yet.
Obligatory scene
This has to be the clash, near the end of your BIG book, of two main opposing characters or forces who, in a scene of great power, resolve the issue between them. The clash is not always between two individuals. It could easily be the survival or triumph of a family (or a community, one wonders) over its enemies.
The denouement must be steadily, cleverly built up. It requires effort.
If you are serious in your effort to hit the popular bigtime, get to it right away.
And try to locate Writing a Blockbuster Novel, for it uses examples from BIG books - Gone With the Wind, The Godfather, The Man from Petersburg and others to illustrate the points he makes.
Personally, I still rely on genius, even though it hasn't worked yet; hasn't even shown up yet.
Anyway, the next and final piece in this series on blockbusters offers some quick tips on writing them.
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