The Art of Writing: How to Write Bestselling Novels

Making Scenes Interesting

A lot of writers are familiar with The Pope in the Pool rule from a screenwriting book called Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder. You're probably wondering why it's called The Pope in the Pool. Good! That should prove its effectiveness.

Here's the rule: if the characters in your scene are doing something really boring and the scene drags on as a result, it's time to use The Pope in the Pool technique.

In Save the Cat!, Snyder mentions a movie script called The Plot to Kill the Pope by George Englund. It was never made into a movie, but Englund speaks about a really important change he and the others working with him made to the movie script.

He said there was a scene where the Pope was laying out a plan, but it was a really boring scene. So someone in the brainstorming group says, "Let's put the Pope in the Pool."

Say what?!

Well, think about it. If a scene is really boring, how much more interesting would it be to see the Pope, of all people, in swim trunks, kickin' it in the pool?

It's something that's weird enough to really catch you off guard and maybe even make you laugh. And that's exactly what the writers were going for. They needed something intriguing for the audience so the scene wouldn't be so boring, and that did the job.

This is exactly why you see people on TV shows or movies walking down the street while they're talking. If they were just standing around, it'd be boring. But if the characters are moving, heading to the scene of the crime or to a new lead or to catch a criminal, then it gives the audience the idea that something is happening, something that feels like the story's moving forward.

Just walking down the street has been done, though...a lot. So be much more creative than that. Really entertain the audience. Think up some really interesting, crazy scenes that truly fit with the characters and storyline and then use those ideas to reshape your boring scenes.

MIXING SCENES

While trying to keep my writing tight, I decided to mix scenes in order to save pages and make the story move faster. But the technique isn't only good for tight writing--it's also great for eliminating boring scenes.

This technique is discussed in more detail in the chapter titled *****.

After your first draft, you'll want to summarize all of your chapters into short paragraphs that are one or two sentences long. This provides a quick look at your overall story and gives you a functional outline to work with.

Next, you'll write down all of the important information each scene gives the reader. Then you'll eliminate absolutely every piece of information that isn't vital to the story. What you're left with is the barebones of information that drives the story. And what you'll notice is that some of your scenes give hardly any necessary information.

Thats your que!

Those are likely the chapters you need to eliminate. "But where, Brian, do I put that vital information from those scenes??" Glad you asked!

You simply figure out a way to work it into other scenes naturally. Let me say that again. NATURALLY! Did it look like I was yelling? Good, because I was.

If you put information into a scene that's completely out of left field, the readers won't buy it. They'll immediately feel like the author is infringing on the story, screwing it up. It completely disengages readers, and disengagement is your #1 enemy. That's when readers think, "Well, I guess it's time to go play a video game,"...or, "check my email,"...or, "call my boyfriend."

Never, I repeat, NEVER do anything that disengaged your readers.

Something that really takes a lot of time for me is developing my characters' conversations. Readers can smell inauthentic dialogue a mile away because they speak to their friends and watch movies all the time. They know what natural dialogue sounds like. And they know what the natural flow of a conversation sounds like. So I'm always trying to make my conversations lead from one subject to another in a very natural way. It helps if you're a natural at directing conversations in an unsuspecting way, which is something I became good at as a kid.

In fact, every book you write should have a draft where you went through, examining all your scenes for entertainment quality, and The Pope in the Pool is instituted wherever necessary.

Making Scenes More Interesting

So let's say you have a scene where two characters are just standing around talking and you need to make it more interesting. This is where you get creative.

Start thinking about your plot and setting. Is there anything more interesting that the characters could be doing that relates to the story in an important way?

Are there really beautiful and/or interesting settings in the story that they can be in during the scene?

Are there characters who can interrupt the other two characters for something really important to the story?

Think about the profession and passions and weird habits or hobbies of the characters to find something interesting they could be doing.

In fact, if you can think of something one character likes but that makes the other character really uncomfortable, that's an interesting thing to have the characters do to cause tension. Anything that causes tension is useful to the story, unless it's something that doesn't make sense with the story or that the readers wouldn't like.

Also, above I mentioned two characters standing around talking is boring. However, it's important not assume that that's boring in every case. It all depends on how you do it.

For instance, if two characters are really into each other and you need a scene where they're talking, have them talk about something important to the story, but make sure they're doing things that show they're interested in each other (body language and maybe doing small things that show rather than tell). And if possible, have some type of romantic or affectionate events or some other type of interaction along those lines. That way, you give your readers more to enjoy if they're really into the relationship aspect of the story.

ASSIGNMENT

Now take what you've learned in this chapter and use it on your stories. Test every scene for whether it's entertaining enough or not. Rewrite the ones that don't measure up. Mix them together with other scenes when you can. After you've done this for several days, it'll be a natural part of your writing process.

Good luck, and as always, vote for this chapter if you liked it!