Scene Shuffle

Imagine the power you writers have.  You can shuffle the scenes you have created like a deck of cards. In fact, you HAVE to shuffle your scenes.  Why?

We tend to be linear human beings.  If we write a memoir, we begin at what we think is the beginning of our lives. Or we start explaining who is who in a family. Then, in my long experience teaching and editing memoirs and fiction, writers often go into details about the family. Often endless details.  How much better it is to weave those family details into the body of your novel or memoir.

Around the 6th chapter, or so, more or less, of the manuscript the story starts to take off.  We are in media res - in the middle of the action.  It is in the middle of the action that our story should begin.

So take your scenes, lay them out on the floor, on a long table and shuffle them around.  See what happens.  Will you have to rewrite some transitions and some scenes? Sure.  But it will be so exciting to do it...because your work will be electric and you will feel the excitement rise within you as you see your wonderful words sparkle.

So shuffle those scenes, have some fun and your work will be even more terrific than it already is.