When is it a good time to be able to state in a sentence, what an essay, scene or chapter is about? When you need to see where the overall plot of fiction is heading, or when you want to be sure your essay hasn’t digressed from its one idea. Or when you need to tighten your editorial belt.
I have an editorial client who has complained that she can’t afford my line-by-line critiques, even though that’s what she wants–and usually tries to get me to “go over” line-by-line every time she comes for a consult. To help her afford my time, I promised her I’d only make general scene comments for each chapter. The result is summing up what happens in each scene and chapter.
Writing Tip For Today: When you look at a scene or passage in an essay or fiction project, ask yourself what happened or what you want the reader to take away from that portion of the work. If you find (as I did in my client’s work) that a lot of scenes capture the routines of life without advancing the story, you may want to rewrite those parts or simply omit them. It’s true that we all rise to an alarm clock, pad downstairs in our fuzzy slippers to make coffee and shower and dress before greeting the day. But unless you’re writing a “Psycho” scene, you don’t waste the reader’s time with showers or whether your character applied mango lip gloss. Only illustrate (as in write a scene about) what is crucial to the story. Leave out boring stuff! Skip over times when “nothing much happened.” Weed out dead wood and stick to the details that force your characters to face their fears and problems. In other words, only act out the parts where your character is emotionally moved or challenged. You’ll be glad you did.