Write Only Lantern Scenes

26 January 2011 | Filed Under Planning 


The lantern scene from Tangled

These types of scenes go by different names. Holly Lisle calls them candy bar scenes, Alexandra Sokoloff calls them setpieces – and I’ve decided to call them Lantern Scenes, thanks to Tangled. Don’t freak out, you already know what they are: those scenes that make up the meat of your story, the ones that are delicious to write or read.

When I saw Tangled, I had just learned about candy bar scenes. And as soon as the first lantern floated into the air, I knew that this was one of those scenes.

Now I bet that you or one of your writer friends has said, at some point in their writing career, “I can’t wait to finish this boring stuff and get to the interesting part!”

Stop. Think about what that means. If you find your story boring, how on earth is your reader going to feel?

The solution: write only lantern scenes.

Obviously this isn’t practical. Not every scene will be a joy to write. (Heck, J. K. Rowling was crying at the end of Deathly Hallows.) But you can plan out a number of lantern scenes, and find ways to string them together with scenes that are more than transitions, that build up to the next lantern scene.

I’ve already made a huge long list of lantern scenes I want to do for Fragment of the Moon. I don’t yet know what order to put them in, or how to connect them. There’s certainly a lot of conflict to account for. I think index cards will help.

Come back Friday to see the results of my experimental method!

Comments

6 Responses to “Write Only Lantern Scenes”

  1. Dan on January 26th, 2011 10:12 am

    Just make sure to sprinkle in a few boot scenes, too :p

  2. Jenn on January 27th, 2011 11:44 am

    What’s a boot scene? haha

  3. Dan on February 6th, 2011 6:10 pm

    I totally forgot to come back and see if you’d replied. A “boot scene” is when you lead into a romantic situation between two characters, and then rather than actually describing the sex scene you just skip to the man putting his boots back on. :p

  4. Jenn on February 6th, 2011 6:15 pm

    Awwwwwwkward

  5. Dan on February 8th, 2011 4:20 pm

    And now Jenn sets all comments by me to be moderated :(

  6. Jenn on February 8th, 2011 9:12 pm

    Oh, that’s nowhere near the worst comment I’ve seen. You’re in the clear!

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    Hi, I'm Jenn, new grad student and old YA fantasy writer. I've long dreamed of being a novelist, and I bet you have too. I hope you find my blog helpful, inspiring, and maybe just a little bit fun. (But not too much fun. Writing is serious business, you know.)

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