Revising Scenes--the Big Picture by Elizabeth S Craig

Right now, I’m preparing a book for e-publishing.  It’s a mystery that I wrote five years ago. 

It’s one of those editing tasks where you think it’s going to be a breeze.  That you’ll maybe change some character names, put in more action verbs, brush up a few things and you’ll be done.  Instead, it’s like a “simple” home renovation project where you plan on just painting a bathroom and end up discovering your house has a dangerous structural problem that involves demolition.
The revision is taking me absolutely forever.

One thing that I’ve found that’s making me go quicker is to actually diagnose what’s wrong with a scene.  I did a quick read-through and there were several scenes right away that I wasn’t happy with.

One of the scenes involved a murder suspect’s visit with my sleuth.  The scene just didn’t resonate with me at all.   At first I thought it was because the transition between the previous scene and that one was really brief.  The scene felt abrupt after the discovery of the body.  And it was abrupt.  So I changed the transitions and it read better.

Then I thought that the suspect’s dialogue didn’t sound true to the character.  And it didn’t.  She was using language that didn’t fit her street-tough mentality.  It just didn’t work.  So I changed it.  But then I didn’t like it because I didn’t think the young woman would speak to my elderly sleuth that way.  And it didn’t sound like something I would write for my readers (and I keep my readers in mind while I’m writing.) 

So I decided to look at the big picture.  What was the purpose of the scene?  It was there to give my sleuth some information about the crime scene from the person who discovered the body.  I needed to get my sleuth that information—but she didn’t necessarily have to be the person to deliver it.  Wouldn’t it be better if someone else delivered the information? Oh—and what if the person delivering it was unreliable?  Maybe that person has some useful information, but maybe they’ve got other parts wrong.

Not only could someone else entirely give my sleuth the information, but it didn’t have to be delivered right then.  Not knowing this tidbit was making my sleuth antsy…why not keep her a little antsy for a while and bug other people for the facts she needed?  Why not give her a little mini-conflict?  Why just dump it into her lap without her having to work for it?

Diagnosing a scene’s problem:
What am I trying to accomplish in this scene?  What’s the big picture?
Does this scene need to take place at this particular time?
Should this scene be set in this location?
Should this scene involve these particular characters?  Should other characters be involved?
Does the scene have any conflict? Can conflict be added?

If the above answers are yes, then could the problem be something simple like clumsy dialogue, poor transitions, not enough showing instead of telling?

Finally-- can the scene be cut altogether without losing anything?

When I started really analyzing the reasons I was feeling dissatisfied with a scene, the revision started speeding up. 

Have you had to do CPR on some of your scenes?  What’s your usual approach when doing so?

Elizabeth writes the Memphis Barbeque series for Penguin/Berkley (as Riley Adams), the Southern Quilting mysteries (2012) for Penguin/NAL, and the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink. She blogs daily at Mystery Writing is Murder, which was named by Writer’s Digest as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers for 2010.  Find her on Twitter (@elizabethscraig), Google+ (Elizabeth S Craig) and the Writer’s Knowledge Base.