An Emblematic Element for Writers

Have you ever gotten excited about something and can’t get past it? I feel I’ve discovered a real bonus for my writing, using emblematic elements to dramatically perfect those background or dry talking scenes.  It’s a lot of fun. One way to use these elements, (and this comes from my brilliant mentor, Dr. John Yeoman and The Writers Village) is setting up elements to denote the scene. When writing a background scene, which can be boring, one way to make it more interesting, is to add some action. A symbolic gesture or deed that restates the meaning in the scene.

Not only does it add tension, it emphasizes a key idea in that scene.

Suppose you have one character, Evan sitting in a coffee shop, talking to a second character and someone walks past bumping into Evan, slopping his coffee on his sleeve. That produces a little tension and adds interest. Especially if the scene is about Evan going through a tough time at work, “getting bumped around.”

If you take this idea and play with it, you might come up with interesting ways to improve your own scenes. For me, it’s like adding chords to a melody line. It fleshes out the song. Thank you, Dr. Yeoman!

Just finished reading two books that I recommend: The Shipping News by Annie Proulx and Body of Evidence by Patricia Cornwell. And I have to admit I love Janet Evanovich’s books. Finished Notorious Nineteen. She always makes me laugh.
Out loud!