So I did a site search before making this thread, and I couldn't find a previous discussion on it. So I've decided to start this one. How do you personally start a new scene in your novel, short story, what have you? I mostly want to know because I've written a couple scene changes recently and I just simply made it abundantly clear this was a different setting. I didn't use dashes, extra spaces, parentheses, gorrilla glue or a spacetime continuum. I just started a new paragraph and made the scene change notable by description, no explanation. Example: So and so is dancing around being stupid. They saw the cart they were pulling and decided to stop when the wheel broke. I looked out the window of the airplane, dumb clouds blocked my freaking view. I am dissapoint. There isn't a great example to give since I'm not trying to post my actual work here, but you get the jist. If you were reading a story and it broke into a new scene without a dotted line or a chapter change, etcetera, would you get that the scene had changed, or just be confused despite it being pretty obvious this wasn't the same scene? I see a lot of people use lines or something for a physical representation of scene change, and I used to use them too not that long ago, but I've suddenly stopped. I find it breaks up the read too much and makes things unnecessarily chopped. What are your thoughts?
I generally prefer really clear scene breaks - a symbol, a bunch of spaces in the text, or some other visual cue. If I can't have that, I think cue words can be important, but they tend to feel sort of cliche. Something like "Meanwhile" or "Elsewhere" or "Two days later" or whatever. I think you definitely need more than what you showed in your example--that was totally jarring and unclear to me. As an aside - I really don't think you need to worry about posting a few lines from an unfinished MS online. Why are you trying to avoid it?
Yeah, I suppose that example wasn't too good. The only good sample I have from my recent work is something I was going to try posting in next month's short story contest, so I can't really post that here if I still plan on doing that. I kinda made this thread when I came to that point in the story. My example was only meant to show that there wasn't any break, just the obvious point that it wasn't the same scene. I agree that saying something like "Meanwhile" is very cliche, and it also makes it kinda feel like a comic or graphic novel. Other than an inserted line, what symbols do you use> Just curious. I suppose that would work, and break it up enough to make it more clear, but not be overly choppy. My only concern is that it would look like an extra space was accidently shoved in, but maybe not, I'll try it later and see.
Most of my writing goes through publishers, so I just use a # and then the typesetters or e-book formaters insert whatever symbols they want. My current series takes place in Montana, so the scene breaks are marked with a little silhouette of a mountain range!
I gotta admit that's pretty cool, using an element to mark the scene change. It could be an insignia or something even, I'm not sure if I've ever seen that done before. Much better than a dotted line.
The double space is industry standard so I wouldn't worry about reader's being confused. The symbols work too and are becoming more popular because e-readers will often lose the double space at the bottom of the page depending on magnification and aspect ratio. I always liked the double space so I started DOING BOLD CAPS for the first few words of the new scene in case the break got lost between pages.
I use ~*~ for a scene break within a chapter, and I use them religiously. I used to not use them and I got my ass handed to me by my first professional editor on it. I can't even tell you how much of a headache it was to go back in a 100K+ manuscript and insert all of them.
I didn't use them at all - I just time jumped and/or switched POV in the next paragraph with no warning to the reader whatsoever. It was terrible and I don't know how I got through over three years of posting my writing online without someone pointing it out to me.
That would suck. So I'm getting the strong sense now that an indication is pretty important, double space might not even be enough in the long run.
It gets even better. Originally I was trying to salvage my dual POV so I revised and added section/POV breaks accordingly. Then after banging my head against the wall repeatedly for about a week, I realized I had to dump the dual POV for a single POV and thus wound up taking most of them out again. It's a lot easier to write something well in the first place than to have to go back and fix it. Editing is always 30 days of pure hell for me.
I'm sure each agent/publisher is different, but my publisher will not accept a MS with any double-spacing. They clearly require in their submission formatting requirements that the entire document be 1.5 spaced throughout.
Good to know. Sounds like you've found all this out the hard way too, I appreciate the insight. This is especially important as I write my first book. Haven't come to a point in it yet where this has been an issue, but when I do, at least now it won't be all screwed up.
I looked at your publisher's submissions page once. I found their list of dos and do-nots fascinating. Very specific.
I theorize that they use them in part to weed out potential authors that might be more difficult to work with. If you can't bother to put in the effort to format your MS according to their guidelines, it could be an indicator that you can't follow directions or don't have proper attention to detail. But for the most part I just think it's easier for them to read and judge MS's that are all formatted the same.
I structure my scene changes like this: Paragraph indentation stuff stuff stuff stuff. Paragraph indentation stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff. Paragraph indentation stuff. Paragraph break stuff stuff stuff. But here, there's a space between every paragraph so I use a dash.
I was referring the subject material. Like no straight couples or bestiality unless one of the characters is a shape-shifter. And everyone has to live happily ever after? Where's the fun in that? Kidding... I know how the genre rolls.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch.... When you're organizing this kind of thing there are many ways to do it. But ...you MUST consider your readers. That's the most important thing. If you become too artistic or vague during a scene change, you'll risk confusing them. By the time they figure out what you've done (IF they figure out what you've done) they will be a) annoyed and b) yanked out of the story while they backtrack and try to figure out what they're missing. It may take effort on their part to get back—an effort they may not make—and probably won't make if it happens more than once. My own personal mantra is this, when it comes to the start of a story, the start of a chapter or the start of a new scene: Always orient the reader at the start. Make it clear to the reader who is in the new scene. Make it clear where and when the new scene is taking place, in relation to the previous scene. If the scene directly follows the previous one, that change is relatively simple. Your character can yell "I'm off to school now!" and slam the door behind him to end a scene. Then, the next scene begins with him sitting down in algebra class. That's an easy scene change to pull off, because you set it up in the previous scene. It's what the reader will assume. If, however, the algebra scene takes place two months after he slams the door, then you'll need to make that clear to the reader ...otherwise they'll assume he's at school the same day he left the house. And if they get that wrong, your story will be temporarily derailed when they finally realise their (actually YOUR) mistake. Ditto if you are changing characters. You can launch a scene at the end of the previous one, simply by mentioning something about the characters who will be coming up next. Or you can make it clear who the new characters are, and how the new scene relates to another earlier one, if you're jumping back and forth between locations and/or POV characters. Whether you use a double line, or an asterisk (or series of dots) or a bold line or whatever, just make sure you orient your reader as to who, what, where and when. Every time. Otherwise they'll assume the scene directly follows the previous one, and can get into a spot of bother with that assumption.
Okay, this is actually what is happening in the scene that is in question for my short story. The whole reason I started the thread. I was changing scenes and changing characters, so I wasn't sure if it was okay to do that without any other indication, just using a description that was fairly obvious. It kinda' read okay to me when I did it, but I'm aware of what I'm doing, wasn't sure if the reader would understand what happened or not. So you're saying that it's okay to change scenes without indication other than description of another character?
Oh yes, the folks who run the show at LT3 are very particular about defining "romance" as a story with a HEA or HFN ending.
What you ask yourself EVERY time is this: will the reader follow me? Will the reader know what I'm doing here? If the answer is 'maybe not—at least not for another couple of paragraphs' then you should work at nailing the information the reader needs within the first couple of sentences. If you return to a character in a new scene, make sure you give their name and something about what they're doing, so the reader knows it's a different location and contains a different character from the part they've just finished reading. "Meanwhile, back at the ranch," is a cliché ...but that's the kind of thing you need to do for your readers to follow. 'Meanwhile' indicates the scene they're about to read takes place at the same time as the one they just finished reading. 'The ranch' is obviously some place your readers have already been, so they will be ready for what comes next. "Oh, okay, we're going back to the ranch now...." If your story is chronological, and your characters are well-established, then this transition doesn't need to be quite so laborious every time ...unless there has been a huge time lapse. In my own story I usually keep the same POV character for each chapter. Head-hopping within one of my chapters is rare—as are significant time changes. The few times I do change the POV character, or advance time more than just a few minutes, I make the change very clear. And I make it clear at the start of every chapter who the POV character is, where they are and what they're doing. If you're truly not sure if you're doing it 'right,' you need feedback from beta readers. Ask them specifically to mark any parts of your story where transitions aren't clear. Here's a link that might help: http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/16/mastering-scene-transitions/
@jannert Thanks, and I'll check that site out too. I think ultimately the key here is to get outside opinion. As the writers, we're automatically too close to the tapestry to see the faults in it all the time. Things like scene jumps can especially trip up the reader if it's done poorly, but the writer is thinking "It's fine, can't you see we're in a different scene?" I appreciate the insight, and you're right, making sure the scene change is clear is more important than having it be cliche. It's not a movie where we can see it visually, so in this case sometimes the reader must be "told". We can't always "show" them everything.