Tuesday, November 13, 2001 ( 12:58 PM ) Scene Crafting

I think this fiction writing is best described as scene crafting, for that is what I do. I've come up with my own little formula for getting through this novel. It is this:

Each chapter is at least 2500 words. That's one day's work.

Each chapter has five scenes, at least. I plan the scenes just before I start work each day, writing one or two lines about each in my binder, so I'll know where I'm going. This prevents me from getting stuck in the middle of a chapter without a plan for the next scene.

Each paragraph is about 50 words - of course this varies a lot since dialogue, especially, can be much shorter. I'm writing for children ages approx. 10 to 15, so I don't want my paragraphs to get too complicated or long.

Each scene is about 500 words. If I break down the story into these 500 word segments, trying to do a good job in crafting each of them, they build up into the great work of a novel. Eventually.

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