Have you every pondered over a scene, hoping it had that “believability”
factor that we all know is necessary if we want to keep our readers engaged? Some
days while working on a scene, I spend hours pondering, re-writing, trying
something different, walking away, coming back and trying again. Some days the
scene literally writes itself and with a bit of tweaking, stands on its own right
away. I love those days! It doesn’t seem to matter what the scene is. What does
matter is the importance of it being believable or at least written well enough
that the reader’s disbelief can be “suspended” enough that they “buy” it
without it pulling them out of the story. We, as writers, must be believable.
We must create our scenes with the expressed purpose of carrying our readers
into our worlds without ever letting them know they left their own. Here is
part of a scene from “The Seventh Man”:
Celia usually felt protected in a crowd.
No one really saw her amongst an anonymous mass of moving persons and she liked
that. But today she felt nervous and not at all protected. London was huge and
she loved it but she didn’t know it well enough to feel safe in it. There was
more space in Atlanta. The strangers mulling around her, pushing, pulling,
laughing and griping jangled her nerves. When police sirens started to wail
farther down the street, coming closer, the noise only added to the chaos and
her discomfort. She tried to turn to see what was happening but was blocked on
all sides. She felt trapped by the crowd, propelled by the tide of humanity toward
the metro station. At least she was going in the right direction.
She felt a body bump into her from behind but her bags tangled against
her legs and she couldn’t move any faster. Before she could react, someone
grabbed her, spun her around and put an arm around her, shoving her face into
the middle of his chest before she could see his face.
Celia reacted instantly, pushed back against him with her elbows,
protest on her lips. But before one word escaped, before her heart-beat aligned
with her escalating panic, the stranger slipped his other hand beneath her open
coat and pressed a sharp point against her back ribs. A knife. She knew immediately,
with a loathsome intimacy, the feel of a knife and what damage it could do. She
whispered her prayer, “Not again! Please God—” Then a bomb went off inside her
head and she started to scream.
The man reacted, pulled her closer, his head next to hers, his breath
hot against her ear as he said, “Be quiet. I can, and will, puncture your heart
if you make one sound.”
The knife pressed harder, silenced her; reinforced his threat. She
started to hyperventilate. Police sirens beat the air. She heard patrol cars screeching
on suddenly overworked brakes, congesting the traffic in front of the store, and
then the sound of cops yelling and the rhythm of running feet on the pavement.
The police plunged through the crowds, rummaging like rabid shoppers looking
for a good deal. “Bloody hell,” the stranger cursed and tightened his grip on
her. He blocked out any thought she had except one. Life or death. ©2012
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Those scenes that work out the first time with little editing are magic! I wish every scene could be so easy.
ReplyDeleteNext to the writing, believability is the most important thing in any story.
ReplyDeleteYes. Won't go far without it! I just bought your novel The Mistaken. I'm intrigued to see how you write in your "emotion" element...
DeleteI worry about believability often when I write because my setting is generally the American Old West. I've lived in the Southwest most of my life, though, so when I have those feelings of doubt I can always drive out to the desert, close my eyes, listen, and just imagine...
ReplyDelete