![]() I dread coming up to London, as we must do the day after tomorrow for poor Mr. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my troubles in the midst of your own happiness but, Lucy dear, I must tell some one, for the strain of keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here that I can confide in. Oh, it is too hard that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his-a nature which enabled him by our dear, good friend’s aid to rise from clerk to master in a few years-should be so injured that the very essence of its strength is gone. But it is here that the grave shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. I try to cheer him up, and my belief in him helps him to have a belief in himself. He says the amount of responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account. I never knew either father or mother, so that the dear old man’s death is a real blow to me. Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come to so love him that it really seems as though we had lost a father. Let’s look at two examples, one from Dracula and the other from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, to see the effect the 5Cs have on scenes: Excerpt from Dracula, written by Bram Stoker There’s already a ton of information about the five commandments in Shawn’s book, on this blog ( here and here) and in both Story Grid podcasts ( here and here), so I’m moving forward with the assumption that you’ve got a handle on them. If they’re missing, you’ve written exposition or shoe leather. If the commandments are there, the scene works. This will tell you whether, at a fundamental level, your scene is working or not. ![]() The first step in analyzing a scene is accurately identifying the five commandments (5Cs) of storytelling within that scene. For that reason alone, it’s worth the effort. However, if you take the time and make the effort to really learn how to do it, the improvement in your writing will blow your mind.Ī deep understanding of scenes-and how and why they function-represents a quantum leap in a writer’s ability to tell an amazing story not one that merely works, but one that gets people talking. Scene analysis is not a sexy concept, I’ll grant you that. The only way to master this skill is through study and application study scenes that others have written then apply what you’ve learned to your own work. Scenes are the basic building blocks of story, so knowing how to write them is vital. Download the Math of Storytelling Infographic
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