Do you consciously control scene length, or do you let each scene play out naturally? How much do you think scene length can contribute to pace and tension?
Do you consciously control scene length, or do you let each scene play out naturally? How much do you think scene length can contribute to pace and tension?
Thank you all for commenting.
I have always allowed a scene the length that it needs, without being concerned about too long or too short. In my current WIP, scenes vary from 150 to 3000 words.
I raised the question here after reading an article suggesting that the ideal length was 750 words. There was no real explanation as to where this seemingly arbitrary figure came from, and it left me curious. Personally, I cannot imagine being able to either constrain or pad out my scenes that way. Not that I will ever try. Perhaps it is connected to the TV/visual media attention span problem touched on by David.
I guess that as in any art form, there as many techniques as there are artists, and what works for some would completely stymie another.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I don't have a direct answer to the question - but I think that we need to be cautious of being over-impacted by Film and TV.
I think that TV certainly has fallen into a dread of running anything at all for more than 20 seconds - even the "news".
Both are very visual mediums - so that we can be told a whole lot of things "without words". Similarly they can both use sound. There is a whole art of manipulating our experience with music in particular.
I feel that the thing is that we need to recognise that we are simply working in a very different medium. One aspect of this might be that we have to allow the reader to do a lot of the image building in their own heads. We can attempt to point out a direction but (I think) that we are much less able to manipulate.
:-)
I personally let each scene play out naturally. As per how it contribute's, I think its pretty important. Sometimes a reader can get bored of the length or get annoyed at the shortness of a work. So I will say this- what ever the scene is, if it's interesting, the length won't matter, the reader would want to read it. So it all comes down to instinct as a writer, asking yourself if you think its interesting, and getting beta readers helps too, but many people have many different opinion's so don't get depressed due to negative feedback. As a reader, what do you think of the scene, this is where instinct and believe comes in, you should trust your instincts and write. Write until you are 100 percent satisfied with the work, until then keep going.
A piece that satisfies a reader such as you could impress many other readers such as yourself, so trust yourself.