  Drama
This week: Action and Dialog in the Earlier Scenes Edited by: Joy  
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“You can’t write a novel all at once, any more than you can swallow a whale in one gulp. You do have to break it up into smaller chunks. But those smaller chunks aren’t good old familiar short stories. Novels aren’t built out of short stories. They are built out of scenes.”
Orson Scott Card
"The most boring scenes are the scenes where a character is alone."
Chuck Palahniuk
"I love 'To Kill A Mockingbird' - it seems to offer up new layers every time you read it. I also love Kate Atkinson's 'Behind The Scenes At The Museum' - that's the book that started me writing."
Jojo Moyes
"Thought and inner dialogue can be used to raise the emotional level of a scene."
Beth Hill
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about the function of dialog and action in the beginning scenes.
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
Note: In the editorial, I refer to third person singular as he, to also mean the female gender, because I don't like to use they or he/she.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
It is true that a writer can summarize the action instead of putting it down in a scene, but would that make exciting writing or would it arouse the reader’s interest in the story? The answer is no. Some action can be summarized, but important action needs to be shown in a scene.
The action in any scene can work through two components. The first one is to create the idea of a real time with the characters moving in, out, or through a scene using dialogue, place, and time. The second one is dramatic action that has to do with the emotional quality of actions when the main characters are after the goal they have set for themselves. In a good story, these two components are inseparable and they usually work concurrently.
The beginning scenes are for setting up the story elements such as introducing the primary characters, setting, and story’s goal and giving a hint to the conflict, but their main objective is hooking the readers and establishing a steady platform for the rest of the story to depend on.
The first scene especially has a specific role, depending on the story or the genre; however, most first scenes, regardless of the genre, focus on three important ideas:
 To introduce and set up the protagonist with a convincing goal. Depending on the length of the story, that goal may be an initial goal to be replaced by a stronger and more meaningful goal later in the plot. Here the protagonist may be confronted by similar situations or the shadow of the real conflict, and he may have to face people, possibly the protagonist and/or his allies, which he or she can or cannot handle.
To show how the goal motivates, creates, or leads to a first major action or, in other words, the catalyst, and makes the protagonist engage directly in that action.
To create results and consequences for the catalyst.
It may be important to use dialog in the beginning scenes because, while doing that, the writer can reveal character, the character’s emotions, create a real-time feeling, and show a few aspects of the plot without the need for a long-drawn narrative or a backstory.
For example, in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, the two main characters are Paloma and Renee, in an upstairs-downstairs situation, both high-brow people although of different classes and Paloma is only twelve. Both are in search of the answer to the question, “Is life worth living?” The first scene shows Paloma talking to a small boy where she shows who she is inside. The second scene, written in the first person, belongs to Renee, the 54-year-old concierge. Since this book is literary with philosophical musings, the setup and the depth of the characters are important to its plot, and the first few scenes breeze through that objective successfully.
In another example, in Outlander, Book 1 by Diana Gabaldon, which is in a very different genre from The Elegance of the Hedgehog, the first scene still opens with Claire Randall talking to her landlady, Mrs.Baird, and then to her husband, offering information on what she is like as a person and what she and her husband will be up to, next. The landlady is important here to hint at the makeup of the series because she has a connection to old Scottish magic and superstitions.
Beginning scenes usually bring the protagonist right up to the edge of a difficult situation, pointing to what he wants as his external goal and what prevents him from achieving this goal. As in the two books above, there is very little information about the background of the characters and not any clutter at all, and each action leads to other actions and troubled situations until the main character approaches his real goal.
Until next time!  |
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This is the opening chapter of a novel that I am writing. Rough draft
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This Issue's Tip: Keep in mind that subplots are meant to reflect the theme in the overall plot of the story.
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Feedback for "Writing the Profound Fiction"
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Christopher Roy Denton 
Hello Joy!
Wow! Thanks for mentioning my "I love Marigolds" story AND "The Pink Fluffy Unicorns Contest". You're spoiling me!
As for "Jane Eyre", I always felt the most effective thing Charlotte did in the whole book was to kill poor Helen Burns in chapter seven. After that, you'd have to have a heart of ice not to love poor Jane! And, of course, the emotions are so well written because Charlotte had in mind her own older sister Maria who died when Charlotte was only ?eight and who was a huge inspiration in her younger life.
But, anyway, THANK YOU! 
You're welcome! And thanks for the feedback.
Brontes are an interesting bunch, aren't they! I read Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, last year. I thought she was just as good if not better than her sisters. Too bad Charlotte ruled over the younger ones with an iron fist. 
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innerlight 
Dear Editor
I'm in the midst of editing and rewriting some parts in my current novel. The plot is a young woman forced to accept the role of a marionette. She has no choice as the story progresses she finds the courage to fight back and get at the truth.
Sounds great. Good that you gave your main character a strong backbone. Best of luck with it!
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Drama: May 03, 2017 Issue [#8250]
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