This week, I’m continuing my discussion of “show, don’t tell,” by introducing your show, don’t tell secret weapon: writing in scenes.

There are three ways that writing in scenes can help writers show instead of tell:

1. Scenes lock us into a specific moment in time which primes us to narrate specific actions as they happen instead of summarizing them.
2. When the scene is narrated through a specific character’s perspective, all information (worldbuilding, backstory, etc.) is filtered through their perspective, giving you a simple metric for deciding what gets added on the page and what gets left out because it’s not necessary for readers to know in that particular scene.
3. Scenes happen in a specific time and place which means adding specific details and that immerse readers in the world of your story and keep us focused on what is happening in that specific time and place instead of just feeding us information detached from space & time.

Here are the resources and tools mentioned in this episode:

• Download my scene writing checklist here - perfect for making sure your scenes have all the ingredients they need, whether you plan them in advance or shape them up in revision. Grab the checklist here!
• Have a response to this episode? Hit me up on Instagram @oliviahelpswriters

Thanks for listening, keep writing, and keep getting better one word at a time!

For a full transcript of the episode, please visit https://oliviahelpswriters.com/bwp/18.