You may have heard the old line from Elmore Leonard about skipping the boring parts when you write, and that’s powerful advice. Most people apply it in a micro sense, or as we now know it, the Game of Thrones Season 7 sense, which is usually expressed as no one wants to see Jon Snow in a boat traveling south for six episodes. In other words, detailing your character as they drive seven hours someplace is maybe not worth you or your reader’s time.
Another aspect of “skipping” can be just as powerful. Simply put, if you’re having trouble writing a scene or sequence in your novel, consider just skipping it (for now) and writing something in your plot’s “future” that’s more fun.
Getting to the Good Stuff
Now, some writers already work in a non-linear fashion, writing scenes in any order and then piecing them together. Even then, though, some scenes are easier than others. Some scenes are more fun than others. And some scenes are like black holes that suck you in, and six months later you’re still struggling to find the right approach.
You probably have to write those scenes eventually, but if you’ve been struggling for a while on a specific scene, take a break. That doesn’t mean you take a break from the book in general. Instead, you could just take a break from that scene and skip over to some other scene that’s more fun. An action sequence, or a fun moment—or maybe the climax of it all, the Big Moment you can’t wait to write. Sure, you’ll likely have to do a fair bit of clean up work, but in the short term it’ll get your writing jump-started. And you might learn something about your story that will help you when you get back to the tough scenes.
Or maybe you’ll realize you don’t need the tough scenes at all.
This does require a bit of Plotting, so for Pantsers this might be a tougher trick. Even Pantser usually have some notion of where their story is going, or at least of cool moments they want to include. Skip to those cool moments, then skip back, refreshed and re-energized.
Or go the Somers Way and have a cocktail. It’s almost as effective.
So Jon Snow survives beyond Book 5…? Okay, I think I can handle that spoiler. 🙂 What will be interesting is if Martin skips or edits down those extended rowing scenes when he comes to include them in the novels.
Good advice, and a trick I am not averse to applying myself. Indeed, for this very comment, I skipped a boring rant about spoilers and how big the GoT books are, etc. Wow… making me sleepy even thinking about what I was going to write… *yawn*…
Ah yes, this is a familiar road for me, and can more easily pave that tough writing scene since I know where I’m coming from and where I’m going, which unfortunately, for now anyway, isn’t the bar. Cheers to your weekend!
Cheers back! May the page (screen) rise to meet your pen (keys).