Today I was working on a fight scene and it got kind of complicated (two of the characters were hiding behind a door waiting to make their move and could only see part of the action) and I found myself having to draw a diagram so I could get everyone's positions and when the characters moved into the POV character's line of sight straight. I was wondering if this means I made the mechanics of the scene too complicated? I was mostly using it to double check that the relative motions of the characters made sense but I would hate to over complicate it or draw the reader from the action by having them puzzle over what's happening.
I put this in the category of Details the Author Needs To Know But the Reader Doesn't. Anything that clarifies your reality in your mind is fine. The trick is to avoid the compulsion to include more of the detail in the story than the reader really needs. I've never drawn a diagram of a room, but I've drawn a few maps when I needed them.
I'm with Ed on this. If it helps you with the continuity and accuracy of what you do describe, then great, but if it leads to a play-by-play, every-little-move paragraph, then that's not so good.
Thanks. I haven't put any extra detail into the scene because of the diagram, it's just clarified things in my own mind.
I personally have never done this before and I have written film scripts in the past. You need to be careful, because it's all good to have weight and detail in a scene, but you can also cross a line and all that weight, makes the scene bomb!!! If you find yourself writing this huge detailed piece, and you don't want to shorten it, my only advice would be to move back and forth to another scene that could be going on elsewhere in the story.
There isn't very long or complicated now that I read back over it. There isn't really anyway I can splice in bits of another scene to break up the action, it wouldn't fit with the narrative style.
Nothing wrong with a diagram or floor plan if it helps you visualise the environment. However everyone will be moving in relation to each other so simple lines of sight aren't that informative. Try to mentally walk your characters through the scene based only upon what you have written, not what you "know" or have on the diagram. It won't be hard to spot blind moments or areas, or where you might need a few more words of description.
