She is attacked by three druyds, who seem to be after the key Gideon gave her, and a fourth druyd (presumably Cade) fights them off so she can escape. Cyrene snuck out of the castle at night, realizes how this could hurt her family, and wants to get back without being noticed. What’s literally happening?įirst, we look at what’s happening in the scene on the surface.
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This is one way to review a scene when you know that it could be made stronger, but you’re not sure how to identify a potential problem and what to do about it. This is revised somewhat from the discussion in the episode because, as is sometimes the case, mulling things over yields greater clarity. But what do I mean by that? How did I reach this conclusion? And what are some options available to you to make the scene more powerful? To answer these questions, I’ll walk you through the scene analysis. In terms of next steps for the scene in front of us, I recommend focusing on the turning point and crisis question of the scene. Thank you so much for sharing your submission! You have a great premise that promises lots of conflict and a character who isn’t going to go along quietly, which will pull the reader right into the heart of the story. If you get stuck on this editorial mission, please leave a comment or write to me. Is the decision too reversible? If so, how can you make it harder to call a do-over soon after making the decision has been made?
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Does the POV character face a dilemma after coming to a point of no return? Does the dilemma create a best bad choice or choice between irreconcilable goods? If not, consider how can you revise the scene to bring it to that point. If the scene does change, look for the moment when it turns. If you can’t identify how the scene changes, check out the show notes for episode 119 on scene value shifts. To determine whether you have a strong crisis question in your scene, review and see if it changes from the beginning to the end. We care about the character for lots of reasons, but a big part of that is what she risks when she makes a choice in these moments. If she could reverse the decision in the next scene that diminishes the stakes. To a certain extent, you’ll want the decision to be irreversible as well-or more specifically, the decisions should become progressively more irreversible as you approach the big moments in the story. In other words, it’s not an easy choice and the character sacrifices something when she makes it. To raise the stakes, this should be a best bad choice or a choice between irreconcilable goods. The crisis question is a dilemma the POV character faces that arises from the turning point. You’ll also be able to join us for our next (online) meeting this Thursday November 16. Join now and you'll get access to a recording of October's meeting, in which we read stories from The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 10 and analyzed them the way Leslie does for a Story Grid Diagnostic. Listeners have asked for an index of the podcast episodes and the topics discussed, so we've put together a Google spreadsheet containing details of each episode, its airdate, author name, story title, genre, story type, published location, author website, and topics discussed. As Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” The Writership Index Characterization is best done by demonstrating the characters choices. Our understanding of human nature and psychology can inform the decisions our characters make whether they are under extreme stress or not. Is this just a tangent? I don’t think so.
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I also mentioned that the Rubicon moments are more painful than what happens before or after, and that is discussed in this article. Today you will sometimes hear the phrase "crossing the Rubicon" to mean passing a point of no return. He is credited with saying alea iacta est (the die is cast) as his army marched through the shallow river. The Senate was clear that he should not bring his army across the Rubicon river, the northern boundary of Italy. When his term as governor over Gaul and Illyricum ended, the Roman Senate ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome. This is a reference to Julius Caesar's crossing the Rubicon, an event that precipitated the Roman Civil War. During the episode, Valerie and I talked about Rubicon moments.