# Writing the Awesome Moment



## EmmaSohan (Nov 25, 2017)

The first problem is thinking of an Amazing Moment. Or realizing that something in your book has potential. Next is the carefully crafted setup, to maximize the power of your Amazing Moment. Then there's actually writing it. This usually involves isolating it -- an Amazing Moment would probably never appear in the middle of a paragraph.

We normally think of a scene as a collection of events, leading to success or failure, so the Amazing Moment can be a different way of thinking of writing. I'm not sure how many writers look for them. 

Suggestions? Complaints? Ideas? Examples? Questions?

(I can't do this in one posting. Or three. Sorry.)


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 25, 2017)

This is from a kind of children's book, and it isn't that awesome, but it shows I think the typical structure. A strange house has suddenly appeared in the middle of their little town, and three men are looking at it from the nearby bushes and trying to decide what to do. Long setup with a very short, isolated moment.

"Surely that house is empty."

Then all three of them had the same awful thought -- what if it wasn't empty?

"It could contain terrorists."

"Or murderers."

"Or lions. I hate lions, they can just bite you in half."

"I don't think lions can do that."

"Well, they can kill you."

"That they can do."

"A small army could be in that house."

"Very small. Twenty soldiers at most."

"Well how big is our army?"

"We don't have an army."

"Then twenty soldiers isn't very small, is it?"

The door started to move. They each took a step back into the ferns, each imagining their worst nightmare. They saw a hand . . . they held their breath . . .

and out walked a girl.​

Then I actually shift to the girl's point of view and almost back up in time. (She opened the door, stood in the doorway, and looked out) So there is time to savor the moment, which I am guessing is good. In other words, the very "freeze-frame" that is bad in an action scene might be good here.


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## Jack of all trades (Nov 25, 2017)

I'm not sure what you mean by an awesome moment. However, in my first book, there's a scene that just flowed when I wrote it. It's only had typo corrections, and beta readers think it must have been carefully planned. Now that, to me, is an awesome moment.


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 25, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by an awesome moment. However, in my first book, there's a scene that just flowed when I wrote it. It's only had typo corrections, and beta readers think it must have been carefully planned. Now that, to me, is an awesome moment.



Yes, there is the awesome moment for the writer. But I am thinking, not of a good scene, but a single moment for the reader. I can't imagine them just flowing out, I think you have to first think of a moment and only then how to set it up.

So someone is on an ice flow in the Arctic Ocean, about to die of hypothermia. Because she works for a spy agency, she knows there are extremely sensitive listening devices placed all over the world, and that while they aren't continuously monitored and it won't save her life, she can tap out a loud sound and someone might hear it the next day and they might search and find her body, and then they will maybe figure out the whole hoax she had discovered. So she takes something hard and taps out SOS on the ice.
The scene shifts to the person monitoring the sonar on a nuclear submarine. "Captain, you have to hear this."

That's a moment -- and awesome second. This is a double, because, just before she dies, in the desolation of the Arctic Ocean, she thinks she is hallucinating a giant whale breaching next to her ice flow.


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## Ralph Rotten (Nov 25, 2017)

The worst part of writing is when you have one of these flashes of brilliance, the great little nugget of an idea, or that phrase that seems soooo right...but then through editing and story development you realize that nugget has become superfluous and has to be cut.
Arrrggghh!  That sux so much.

Almost as bad is when you have the story worked out to the Nth degree, you know how to write that story, you have the brilliant idea, but your characters develop to the point that you realize that they would never do that thing...and you have to either change that brilliant idea, or find another character to be the catalyst for the event.  Good characters change the story because they come alive.  More than once I have realized "Alex would never do that!"  or "Jenna wouldn't slink away from that fight..."

Sheesh, writers!  Nothing but people who spend their days obsessing about people and places that don't even exist.


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## Jack of all trades (Nov 26, 2017)

The possibility of great ideas being ruined is why I avoid planning in advance. And since I create on the fly, my characters have flashes of brilliance when I have them. So the ice flow example would have to have been an idea I had while writing the heroine on the ice, facing her death.


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## Kyle R (Nov 26, 2017)

Hi Emma.

In screenwriting, they call this the "turn"—where the scene builds up the conflict (or tension), and then climaxes by "turning" (or "twisting") the story in a new direction.

_The Walking Dead_ writers have made a career off doing this: setting up the audience's expectations, building the tension, piling on the conflict—then _BAM_, delivering an unexpected twist.

Personally, I think every scene should have an "awesome moment". It doesn't always have to be huge and earth-shattering, though. If you did that on every scene, the reader would probably get desensitized.

But each scene should give _some sort_ of turn, in my opinion, even its subtle and understated. (Nice examples, by the way. Good stuff.) :encouragement:


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 26, 2017)

Kyle R said:


> Personally, I think every scene should have an "awesome moment".



Jurassic Park (the book) has a lot of potentially awesome moments. But Crichton doesn't work to actually make them moments. To the contrary, actually. Obviously, when the tyrannosaur gets loose has potential. But Crichton treats it as a slow reveal, presumably for suspense: Tim sees the tyrannosaur, the tyrannosaur is holding the fence, Tim realizes the fence electricity is off, the tyrannosaur crashes the fence down, etc.

I don't think I can criticize Crichton for that. His pay grade is not in sight from where I am standing.

An Awesome Moment?  First they pass by the tyrannosaur and see how powerful it is. It's huge yellow eye looks so alien. But they are safe, because of the electrified fence.

Then they are stopped. Some malfunction. Tim sees some small dinosaur climbing the fence, and it gets outside the fence, and now they have to stay in their car or they might get bitten. But if that dinosaur could climb the fence, the electricity must be off, and they panic, because that means the tyrannosaurus could--
A giant yellow eye appears in the windshield.

My favorite book (TFIOS) has no awesome moments or even the potential for awesome moments, as near as I can see. Or, creating one would ruin the beautiful scene. So I see them as like humor -- you have to have something good in your book, but nothing in particular is required.


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## VonBradstein (Nov 27, 2017)

I read this as really being about pacing, both on a micro scale (within a chapter or, sometimes, a single paragraph) and in a book as a whole. Is that sort of what you mean?

I think this is definitely an often overlooked skill. Often I read something and it's good, but, there's either too much build up or not enough and what could be really powerful is not given its full potential. 

A lot of writers seem to still believe that every chapter needs to end on some version of a cliffhanger or with some kind of explicit resolution. Sometimes, sure, but it gets old fast. Even so, I do believe strongly in chapters ending in a form of tension, even if that tension is understated. Sometimes the best chapters end in kind of a _reverse-cliffhanger_ with the character doing something extremely mundane, like eating dinner and watching tv, and it works because an underlying tension becomes present.  

_"Back at the house, Fred closed the door and turned to the coat rack with specks of snow still hanging on to his cheeks. Silver light shone through the window as he limped back to the kitchen and turned the oven on, watching the blue gas flames come to life. Just watching them twist in the dark."_

^ Probably not quite there (seeing as I just pulled it out of nowhere) but since I couldn't think of any examples offhand I decided to write one real quick  My favorite kind of awesome moments tend to come with endings like that, something very ordinary and even dull given a sense of life and trepidation by what it _isn't _rather than what it _is. _When everything just clicks and you get this shiver in your spine.


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## Terry D (Nov 28, 2017)

Every scene has a climax. That's where those awesome moments reside, it's just that some are 'awesomer' than others. How dramatic those moments are often depends on the type of story being told. Every scene in The Fault in Our Stars had a climactic moment, but the theme and the tone of the book didn't lend itself to those climaxes being loud, showy things. A Jack Reacher thriller is going to have scene climaxes that are much louder, and showier than a YA romance.

As much fun as it sounds, not every scene can have a memorable climax. It would destroy the rhythm of the book. That's a weakness I see in the work of writers just starting out. They try to make every scene they write an awesome moment, and it comes off as cartoonish. It would also dilute the power of the truly great moments, like the moment in Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, when the first humans are entering the Raman spacecraft by climbing down an 8 kilometer high ladder in total darkness (for those not familiar with Rama it was a ship 16 kilometers in diameter and 50 kilometers long). As they are climbing, all the lights in the ship suddenly come on. Now that's a memorable moment.

We try to write awesome (or interesting, or climactic) moments into each sentence, paragraph, scene, and chapter to keep the readers reading. The varying intensity of those moments, and their positioning in our stories, give our work its pace (as VonBradstein mentioned above) and rhythm. If we are lucky, or are very, very good we get two, or three really memorable moments in a book. Hopefully we have a lot more moments that are simply good.


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## moderan (Nov 28, 2017)

Every scene has a climax, and, to me, every page should have a gotcha! where the reader _has to read that line again_. My last edit pass usually involves engineering those and re-inserting all of the inside jokes and snide subreferences I took out the first time.
RAMA had motion detectors. Heck, my porch has those.


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 28, 2017)

I think, to be awesome, the moment has to be unexpected. So most climaxes won't qualify. Yes, like Kyle said, every line perhaps should be as awesome as we can make it. But, like Terry said, there are at most one or two in a book that deserve focused setup and stopping the action.

Guessing at a book I did not read -- these require creativity, but there is an underlying formula.


Clarke worked hard to set up that moment.
The lights didn't flicker on, or mostly illuminate the stairs. Clarke wanted a pop.
He could have had them turning a corner, it was creative the way he did it.
The motion detector more plausibly would have been on the door or the top step, so he sacrificed plausibility for effect.
Clark probably described difficulties in walking or finding things in the dark (showing).
When the lights went on, Clarke probably stopped the action to spend at least a paragraph describing what they saw and how they reacted.
The lights turning on should have been the start of a new paragraph, second choice the end of a paragraph. In modern writing it would probably be its own paragraph. The previous paragraph should end mid-sentence with a dash.


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## Terry D (Nov 28, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> I think, to be awesome, the moment has to be unexpected. So most climaxes won't qualify. Yes, like Kyle said, every line perhaps should be as awesome as we can make it. But, like Terry said, there are at most one or two in a book that deserve focused setup and stopping the action.
> 
> Guessing at a book I did not read -- these require creativity, but there is an underlying formula.
> 
> ...




Sure. Clarke did most of that -- as near as I can remember, it's been a good long time since I read the book -- but that's all the same stuff we do for every pivotal scene in our stories, isn't it? I disagree that such moments need to be planned in advance. Some of the best moments in my stories have been spontaneous. The events and characters conspire to create a situation I didn't anticipate or plan.

For instance, in my book, Chase, the titular character is a golden retriever who has spent several years as a 'bait-dog' (a dog used to for fighting dogs to practice attacking). The man holding him has a number of fighting dogs, including a large pit-bull/bull mastiff cross names Shotgun. As the book progresses Shotgun becomes an almost mythical creature. Invincible in the pit and feared by everyone watching the fights. I never planned that for Shotgun. It just happened as I wrote. When a twelve-year-old boy helps Chase to escape into the Ozark Mountains, Shotgun's owner -- a serial killer who uses dog fighting to ease his need to kill -- follows, using Shotgun to track the boy and dog. At this point I realized that Chase and Shotgun were going to have to square-off to resolve the conflict which had_ built itself as I wrote_. I'd written myself into a corner. My readers were strongly invested in the golden (if I had done my job, that is), but I'd created a monster in Shotgun. I didn't know how to get out of it even as I started to write the confrontation. I hadn't planned an awesome moment -- but I was faced with one. And I didn't plan the eventual resolution. It just came to me as I wrote. Here I was, in the forested mountains of Missouri with this huge black killing machine on one side, and a battered and injured pet on the other. Writing what happened next literally brought me to tears, because I hadn't seen it coming, or planned for it. It's also a scene which many of my readers tell me brought tears to their eyes also. 

So, I guess my point is, if you write every scene with an eye to vivid (not flowery, or over-board) imagery, if you write every scene with a ear for rhythm, pace, and flow, and if you write every scene as if it's just as important as all the others, then you don't have to worry about carefully constructing your 'oh, wow' moments. I think the best moments happen spontaneously.


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## moderan (Nov 28, 2017)

[ot]I liked that. It was like the Hound of the Baskervilles met Buck.[/ot]


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## VonBradstein (Nov 28, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> I think, to be awesome, the moment has to be unexpected. So most climaxes won't qualify. Yes, like Kyle said, every line perhaps should be as awesome as we can make it. But, like Terry said, there are at most one or two in a book that deserve focused setup and stopping the action.
> 
> Guessing at a book I did not read -- these require creativity, but there is an underlying formula.
> 
> ...



This is quite interesting. I never really thought about the importance of unexpected occurrences and twists in a story in quite this way.

I still think its largely an issue of pacing, or layering if one prefers that concept. I don't think I would say that every line should be unexpected (or "awesome") because, even if it was possible, I think it would be unbearably exhausting. A lot of my favorite books largely consist of a mix between 'walking pace' character development (often dominating) and set up with occasional "HOLY SH*T" moments where everything is turned upside down. Sometimes there only needs be a couple of really good ones. In a short piece, there is often only one.

I think about those action movies, like Olympus Is Falling or San Andreas or really anything where the action is virtually non-stop and every scene gets more and more crazy. I know a lot of people really do like that, but I never did. It becomes uncomfortable, and without the pedestrian lead-up stuff you cannot really invest in anything enough to be particularly affected when stuff "gets intense". 

More aligned with my genre, a book like "Rosemary's Baby" by Ira Levin interests me a lot more than a straight up mindtwister, gore-fest or something hubris infested, because it involves a lot of slow boil character build up, almost borrowing from a kitchen sink type drama or something similarly unassuming, and a gentle growing of tension. There are only a handful of scenes in Rosemary's Baby that are awesome, but they are extremely effective because they come amidst such an otherwise humdrum story. Ghost Story by Peter Straub is another example where a lot of the (earlier) book is really quite dour and slow and reading it is almost laborious but then it starts to really pay off. 

I also agree entirely with Terry about the importance of natural construction. There is nothing worse than a twist that seems forced, or that comes at the wrong time. The best stuff I have ever come up with I can't explain where I got it from because it literally just fell out of my finger tips. Which is also part of the reason why I don't believe in adhering to strict planning regimens or the notion of 'plotting'.


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 28, 2017)

VonBradstein said:


> I also agree entirely with Terry about the importance of natural construction.



You want natural-looking constructions, but you should be able to construct them unnaturally. Right? If things happen naturally, that's great. But I doubt you are writing to the best of your ability if you can't recognize that some moment could be better if you handled it differently. Not all moments deserve that, but I am pretty sure some do.

You should be able to take a scene from your work, find a moment that has potential, then rewrite it with the form of a moment -- setup, isolation, brevity. Then maybe you won't like the scene as much, that could easily happen. But if you do it three times, you will probably like one of them. And meanwhile this practice will be improving a skill.


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## Terry D (Nov 29, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> You want natural-looking constructions, but you should be able to construct them unnaturally. Right? If things happen naturally, that's great. But I doubt you are writing to the best of your ability if you can't recognize that some moment could be better if you handled it differently. Not all moments deserve that, but I am pretty sure some do.
> 
> You should be able to take a scene from your work, find a moment that has potential, then rewrite it with the form of a moment -- setup, isolation, brevity. Then maybe you won't like the scene as much, that could easily happen. But if you do it three times, you will probably like one of them. And meanwhile this practice will be improving a skill.



You are simply talking about the revision process. That point when the writer looks at his or her work and decides what to build upon, polish, or rewrite. It's not about "moments", it's about making the entire story the best it can be. Maybe it works for you to have a structured way to handle what you are calling a moment, your 'set-up' 'isolation' and 'brevity', but I don't think all of a book's memorable scenes are built with the same structure. Trying to create a formula for them is, IMO, counter-productive.


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## moderan (Nov 29, 2017)

Formula is essentially counterproductive anyway. It is the enemy of inspiration. There's a reason why it is fed to babies.


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## VonBradstein (Nov 29, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> You want natural-looking constructions, but you should be able to construct them unnaturally. Right? If things happen naturally, that's great. But I doubt you are writing to the best of your ability if you can't recognize that some moment could be better if you handled it differently. Not all moments deserve that, but I am pretty sure some do.
> 
> You should be able to take a scene from your work, find a moment that has potential, then rewrite it with the form of a moment -- setup, isolation, brevity. Then maybe you won't like the scene as much, that could easily happen. But if you do it three times, you will probably like one of them. And meanwhile this practice will be improving a skill.



My problem with this is it sounds like overthink.

The best moments almost always come by accidentally, and if the writing of them happens to be particularly good that is an accident too. At least for me, but I have yet to meet anybody who was able to sit down and consciously decide to write something genius. 

Yeah, certain parts of the book lend themselves more to profound statements and bold action that others, but there is still little or no forethought that goes into any of it, beyond the barest bones of a setup. There have been scenes I have envisioned at the planning/idea phase being the pinnacle of all great things and actually, once written, they have just been decent (or not even that). Equally, there have been scenes I have imagined being relatively bread-and-butter lets-show-the-reader-how-jimmy-ties-his-shoes which have, for one reason or another, sparkled when actually made flesh.

I agree that going back and finding 'those moments' and refining them to bring the best out is a good idea. Actually it's kind of necessary as part of good revision. But I'm not sure I understand the notion of of 'improving a skill'. What skill would that be? If you're just talking about having the ability to write something well, that is not unique to 'moments of potential'. Even scenes of less importance or reverence should be written with equal finesse to those in which Ol' Yeller dies.


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## bdcharles (Nov 29, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> The first problem is thinking of an Amazing Moment. Or realizing that something in your book has potential. Next is the carefully crafted setup, to maximize the power of your Amazing Moment. Then there's actually writing it. This usually involves isolating it -- an Amazing Moment would probably never appear in the middle of a paragraph.
> 
> We normally think of a scene as a collection of events, leading to success or failure, so the Amazing Moment can be a different way of thinking of writing. I'm not sure how many writers look for them.
> 
> ...



I wrote my first WIP very much based on Amazing Moments. They were all I had, and they continue to be a mainstay of my prose (mostly; somewhat.) I never went looking for them, though I find nowadays that I can engineer to a degree the situations that bring them about; two back-to-back nights on the valerian root will give me more Moments of Pure Amazing than I am really ready for, yet without them I suspect I would lack the motivation to write at all. I think of them as set-pieces. They might, in my mind at least, be big or small, tender or shocking. Plot comes about when I try and link them together; eg. what interesting or unusual sequence of events could link these two moments. Of course if one of my AM's is a narratable event itself then so much the better.

As for writing it, crafting it and so on, yes, I mean, you have to be mindful of pace. Its like a piece of music. If you resolve too early you lose all the impact; resolve too late you risk boring the reader; and if you never resolve at all, well then ... time to cut. That's what we do, isn't it? Have an amazing idea and write it. Learn grammar, read lots, and drink excess herbal tea in service of your goals. Here's an example, where the "moment" is the use of tubular weapons that focus a killing beam of sound at a perpetrator:



Not a handful of minutes had passed than Ixawod and his cohorts startled, and stopped short. A poster, illustrated by a charcoal-drawn likeness of Ixawod’s own face, complete with mismatched eyes, stared out at them from a crumbling brick wall. He stood at it, eyes taking in the detail, one finger at his cleft chin.

“A reward?” he whispered, shifting Bulavel’s weight. “What’s this mean?”

“It means the time for standing around is over.” Pree-Man clapped his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

They stepped into Tremble Way. Several lanes of barouches and motor-coaches broke around them like a sea as they dodged across the avenue towards the rain-veiled yellow of the gaslights on the far side. When they reached the other kerb, Pree-Man handed Ixawod a cloth cap.

“Put this on,” he said. “It _might_ help disguise you, but hell for hell’say, you coming here was a bad idea.”

Ixawod jammed the cap over his head until it nearly covered his eyes. They walked fast, and he lifted a hand to cover Bulavel’s head as they clustered around the entrance to one of the dark alleys.

“I remember the way now.” Ixawod said, and Pree-Man nodded. “Let’s turn down h – ”

But no sooner had the backstreets of Elarga Agamem returned to his mind than a foursome of constabularymen, full-length brown coats covering leather boot-tops, faces hidden by respirators, marched out of the shadows of a narrow side-street. Instantly they raised their weapons and let fly a deafening salvo of sound at the group; for they must have recognised Ixawod from the posters the moment they saw him. Either that or they were actively targeting groups of young men and women. His body began to tingle.

They ran, dodging down a tiny lane, dashing this way and that, doubling back on themselves, squeezing between tottering structures made damp with the evening’s drench and ducking under archways that gushed rain. Pree-Man banged his head on a stone doorway. The Constabulary darted after them, repeatedly blasting on their weapons. Much more and their bodies would shake themselves into a bloody mess, reduced to component parts by the acoustic beam. Boots thumped cobbles, and pedestrians cried out as pursuers and prey thundered past, kicking over half-empty baskets of wares.

Rounding a corner, a blinding arc-light reflected off the wet roadstones. Ixawod stopped in his tracks. He turned, turned again. Where was Varyonet? He raised a hand to his eyes, and Pree-Man smacked into him from behind. In Ixawod’s arms Bulavel began to wail and he fought to subdue her cries.

Before they could think, someone grabbed the pair and bundled them into a dark doorway whose threshold was sharply shaded by the illumination, and completely black. Varyonet pressed them both up against the door, holding them there with one forearm as footsteps approached. Then they stopped; and the trio heard quite clearly the constabularyman’s trumpety buzzing as they communicated to each other, no doubt wondering which turn the three had taken.


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 30, 2017)

I think I am ready to talk about the set up.



> Well, she thought, at least she had pictures. But when she turned back to the table, she saw that her camera was gone. Jurassic Park.



You sense the moment is underperforming. You identify the moment: her camera was gone.

1. It isn't isolated. Try rewriting the paragraph so that it has good flow, etc. but ends. "Her camera was gone." In other words, you don't want a last line that flows well with the previous lines, you want previous lines that flow well with the last line.

2. Managing expectations. The glaring flaw is telegraphing "her camera was gone." Really, it could have been left out, it was so obvious. And most of the problem is that word "but" coming way too soon.

Perhaps not here, but in other situations you would lead the reader astray (without actually lying).

3. Her camera was gone. So what? Well, that means she has no evidence. It also means they were desperate enough to steal. Or if she doubts her sanity, she has pictures. Of course, those explanations could follow the moment. But you are supposed to put the information before that. In other words, the setup gives the reader all the information the reader needs to understand and appreciate the short line that makes the moment.

Something like: "Should she say anything to the police? They hadn't actually committed any crime. And the police wouldn't believe her word against theirs. Except she had pictures.

She looked on her desk. The camera was gone.


These are three basic things to explore. When you have explored, maybe you want them, maybe you don't. I suspect you usually will.


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 30, 2017)

Example. The MC has the Holy Grail (magic cup) in her attic and people come to see it. Telling her mother about the Holy Grail would spoil the plot, but eventually the MC has to explain these visitors.



> My mother is standing with her hands on her hips, one foot pointed out, and she's really angry. "Time for an explanation, Sandra. I'm not kidding."
> 
> I just turn around. "Follow me."
> 
> ...



I am hoping that you think her mother is talking about the cup when she says "This is amazing." I wrote that to be as misleading as I could without actually lying.

(Cleaning the attic was discussed pages ago in the context that the MC thinks it's her mother's job. So, setup, the reader already knows the attic needs cleaning and the MC having been responsible is another part of this moment.)


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## Terry D (Dec 1, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> I think I am ready to talk about the set up.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





EmmaSohan said:


> Example. The MC has the Holy Grail (magic cup) in her attic and people come to see it. Telling her mother about the Holy Grail would spoil the plot, but eventually the MC has to explain these visitors.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I don't see either of these as being moments worthy of the 'awesome' title. In the first you're rewriting, and expanding a pretty minor issue in a book where the real moments worthy of being singled out are dinosaurs eating people. Since the book was enormously popular and well received, I think it's pretty obvious that what Crichton did worked. Not much need to add verbiage and melodrama. In the second, it's a simple humorous moment, and like all jokes it does need to be set-up, and the delivery needs to be timed well. It's a cute moment, but not, IMO, an 'awesome' one. It's also somewhat hampered by the incessant repetition of short sentences. The staccato rhythm is distracting to me.


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## VonBradstein (Dec 1, 2017)

Emma, 

I am still intrigued by your theory despite still not fully grasping it because it sounds like quite an important and useful skill, however I am totally lost with the notion of Jurassic Park. I’m not the biggest Crichton fan but I never felt that he underplayed any of his awesome moments and as essentially a made for the screen bestseller I honestly can’t say it lacked anything.

Is there another book you could use as an example? Perhaps a “lesser” or more derided work that you can show really would have been improved with this kind of thing? 

Dan Brown, perhaps?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## EmmaSohan (Dec 1, 2017)

Thanks. Great idea for learning. At least for me.

 Brown didn't want to create awesome moments. Example:



> The agent gave a dire sigh and slid a Polaroid snapshot through the narrow opening in the door.
> When Langdon saw the photo, his entire body went rigid.
> "The photo was taken less tan an hour ago. Inside the Louvre."
> As Langdon stared at the bizarre imagine, his initial revulsion and shock gave way to a sudden upwelling of anger. "Who would do this?"



The character gets to see the photo. We don't. So it was an awesome moment for the character, not for the reader. But Brown is about information and he was trying to create a hook.


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## Kyle R (Dec 1, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> I think I am ready to talk about the set up.
> 
> *Well, she thought, at least she had pictures. But when she turned back to the table, she saw that her camera was gone.
> *
> ...



I'd say a lot has to do with personal choice, and pacing.

Crichton's scenes develop at a relatively brisk, "page-turning" clip. To linger on this POV character's thoughts, at this part of the story (the prologue), just to build up the dramatic reveal of the missing camera—that probably wasn't what Crichton was going for.

If we look at the full prologue, the _real_ reveal comes at the end, when Bobbie—after being confused by her discussion with a local midwife—finally discovers the meaning of the word _raptor_.
Bobbie looked at the stars, and listened to the peaceful lapping of the surf at the shore. In the darkness she saw the shadows of the fishing boats anchored offshore. The whole scene was quiet, so normal, she felt foolish to be talking of vampires and kidnapped babies. 

Bobbie went back to her room, remembering again that Manuel had insisted it was not a Spanish word. Out of curiosity, she looked in the little English dictionary, and to her surprise she found the word there, too:

*raptor*\_n_ [deriv. of L. _raptor_ plunderer, fr. _raptus_]: bird of prey.​
There's the real hammer-fall of the prologue.

Crichton puts a little narrative "lull" before the reveal, too, by having Bobbie look out at the night, feeling peaceful and foolish and nearly dismissing the whole thing, before deciding, on a whim, to look up the word in English.

I believe it was wise of Crichton to put more narrative emphasis on this moment, and less emphasis on the missing camera moment—otherwise, the prologue would've had two distinct "awesome moments", which would simultaneously diminish both of them.

Like others here have said, it's best not to make _all_ the moments awesome. Got to save those build-ups for when they really count. :encouragement:


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## VonBradstein (Dec 2, 2017)

I think the phrase "Brown didn't want to create awesome moments" is probably the most savage yet accurate assessment of his work I've ever encountered.


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## EmmaSohan (Dec 2, 2017)

It was spit.
_The creature had spit on her._

My impression is that if this is from _Twilight_, people will say it's repetitive and overdramatic. And an overuse of italics. If it's from _Jurassic Park_, then it's an example of how to write a dramatic scene.

It was spit.
_The dinosaur had spit on him._
It was creepy, he thought. He looked back at the dinosaur and saw the head snap again, and immediately felt another wet smack against his neck, just above the shirt collar. He wiped it away with his hand.
Jesus, it was disgusting. But the skin of his neck was already starting to tingle and burn...

The handling of the start seems perfect to me. The setup was done in advance -- the reader knows that the spit is dangerous. So we have dramatic irony -- the reader knows the truth and yet sees the scene through the perspective of the character.

But the second moment -- when he realizes it isn't spit -- isn't handled right. Two people have suggested that Crichton would deliberately write a scene to not be as dramatic as it could have been. That isn't plausible, there or here. At the least, isolate the moment and make it direct:

It was creepy, he thought. He looked back at the dinosaur and saw the head snap again, and immediately felt another wet smack against his neck, just above the shirt collar. He wiped it away with his hand. Jesus, it was disgusting.
The skin of his neck started to tingle and burn...

No matter how much you like smooth writing with soft transitions, the awesome moment can be a time to be abrupt.

The [tyranosaur's] forelimb gripped the fence . . . 
The fence wasn't electrified any more!

But, really, there are always choices to be made. If you prefer less abruptness, you can write it differently, the important thing is to know your choices.

The [tyrannosaur's] forelimb gripped the fence . . . 
And then Tim realized: The tyrannosaur was holding on to the fence!
The fence wasn't electrified any more!


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## JustRob (Dec 2, 2017)

In my supernatural short story Another Degree of Freedom the awesome moment is probably signalled by the apparently innocuous remark, "So, where shall we go?" You'd have to read it to see how though.

Maybe the impact of an awesome moment has to do with how sharply it is executed. For example, in my solitary novel someone says, "By reducing the open space on the middle deck and moving equipment up from the engineering deck we were able to provide for the installation of a new – ’ but is then cut off permanently in mid-sentence. One of the listeners then says, "I don’t think they installed anything new. I think they installed a nuclear reactor." This interpretation of what was heard has enormous implications concerning everyone's fate if he is right, but is he? The chapter ends at that point. That's definitely a turn on a single word, or maybe just half of a word, the typical last-gasp-of-a-dying-man conundrum.

Writing an awesome moment is like tossing a coin in the air and then shooting a dent in it. We're lucky when the trick works and we'll just keep on trying until it does.


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## Terry D (Dec 2, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> It was spit.
> _The creature had spit on her._
> 
> My impression is that if this is from _Twilight_, people will say it's repetitive and overdramatic. And an overuse of italics. If it's from _Jurassic Park_, then it's an example of how to write a dramatic scene.
> ...



I think you are missing the point in Nedry's confrontation with the _dilophosaurus_. The scene is written from Nedry's POV, so, since Nedry doesn't understand the risk associated with dilo-spit, he's not overly concerned when it initially starts to irritate. He's not frightened by it. It's not a moment at that point. And I'd bet Chrichton would argue that it shouldn't be... yet.

The decision as to which scenes to make into 'moments', and how that happens, belongs to the writer. I could take any book and say, "This moment could be more dramatic", and probably be right. I think most of us took up fiction writing because of the awesome moments in the books we read and loved. We want to do the same thing in our writing. We try our best to create those moments for our readers, each in our own way. The moments in my work aren't written as you would write them. They are written in my voice, just as yours are written in your voice, and Chrichton's are written in his. It fine to study other writers and deconstruct how they handle their scenes. I think we all should do that. But I don't think its at all productive to try and distill that deconstruction down to a formula. Do that leads to pedantry and a loss of creativity. I don't want to build my scenes like Chrichton, or anyone else.


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## EmmaSohan (Dec 2, 2017)

Terry D said:


> The decision as to which scenes to make into 'moments', and how that happens, belongs to the writer. I could take any book and say, "This moment could be more dramatic", and probably be right. I think most of us took up fiction writing because of the awesome moments in the books we read and loved. We want to do the same thing in our writing. We try our best to create those moments for our readers, each in our own way. The moments in my work aren't written as you would write them. They are written in my voice, just as yours are written in your voice, and Chrichton's are written in his. It fine to study other writers and deconstruct how they handle their scenes. I think we all should do that. But I don't think its at all productive to try and distill that deconstruction down to a formula. Do that leads to pedantry and a loss of creativity. I don't want to build my scenes like Chrichton, or anyone else.



You correctly pointed out the similarity to a joke, which I don't think I had yet mentioned. The punch line to a joke must be short. Nothing comes after, so it's isolated that way, and I am going to guess we get a break before the punchline. Do not explain the joke after the punchline -- whatever the listener needs to understand the punchline has to go before in the setup. The managing expectations is almost always in the direction of misleading the listener as much as possible without lying. Telegraphing the punch line is bad.

In other words, the punchline has a lot of similarities to the awesome moment.

You can say you don't like that format and you want to tell your jokes differently. But we both know that isn't going to work. You can write your moments any way you want, and I support everyone ultimately using their judgment. But you want an awesome moment, check at least once if you aren't following the formula.

There's another thing I haven't mentioned yet. You can make your joke be about a guy in a restaurant, but if it works better, you can change it to a woman in a bar. You sometimes have choices like that to make in the setup. Part of the setup above (for the first moment I chose as awesome) is that Nedry is portrayed as somewhat overconfident.


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## Terry D (Dec 4, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> You correctly pointed out the similarity to a joke, which I don't think I had yet mentioned. The punch line to a joke must be short. Nothing comes after, so it's isolated that way, and I am going to guess we get a break before the punchline. Do not explain the joke after the punchline -- whatever the listener needs to understand the punchline has to go before in the setup. The managing expectations is almost always in the direction of misleading the listener as much as possible without lying. Telegraphing the punch line is bad.
> 
> In other words, the punchline has a lot of similarities to the awesome moment.
> 
> You can say you don't like that format and you want to tell your jokes differently. *But we both know that isn't going to work.* You can write your moments any way you want, and I support everyone ultimately using their judgment. But you want an awesome moment, check at least once if you aren't following the formula.



Do we know that? Let's see; here's a joke by Gallagher, "If your knees bent the other way, what would chairs look like?" That's it. No 'set-up' no pause, no isolation, just a question, yet it still works just fine.



> There's another thing I haven't mentioned yet. You can make your joke be about a guy in a restaurant, but if it works better, you can change it to a woman in a bar. You sometimes have choices like that to make in the setup. Part of the setup above (for the first moment I chose as awesome) is that Nedry is portrayed as somewhat overconfident.



Yes. We can revise our work in any way we wish. And there are things we do to build tension, heighten conflict, and achieve resolution. That's just good writing. Good writing breeds 'awesome moments', not the other way around.


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## EmmaSohan (Dec 5, 2017)

> If your knees bent the other way, what would chairs look like? And would they have to revise the Kama Sutra?




You could have given a better example of a joke. I asked my friend if it could possibly generate a laugh, and he said yes, but it would need a punchline.

Ignoring that problem, sometimes jokes, and awesome moments, don't need a set up. Then there is no setup and no need to isolate this from the setup. You would still isolate it from whatever you were going to say next.

Brevity? The line isn't especially long, though if the whole thing is the punchline it is awkwardly long, though with no solution. You might think about the order if the second half is moreso the punchline, so I think Gallagher got the order right. (We can find on the internet with the phrase order reversed.)

So, really, this follows the formula perfect. Try again? You can find exceptions, but there are good reasons for all of the "rules".

BTW, I think "our" is much better than "your" for a written joke. That seems more common on the internet. (In front of an audience, "your" wouldn't be so bad.) The punchline works best if it refers to everyone, not just listener -- if it was just the listener, chairs would not be different.


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## Terry D (Dec 5, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> You could have given a better example of a joke. I asked my friend if it could possibly generate a laugh, and he said yes, but it would need a punchline.
> 
> Ignoring that problem, sometimes jokes, and awesome moments, don't need a set up. Then there is no setup and no need to isolate this from the setup. You would still isolate it from whatever you were going to say next.
> 
> ...



Please don't misquote me, or, in this case, misrepresent my quote of Gallagher. The 'Kama Sutra' crap is your addition.

One liners are as old as comedy and don't need modifications to suit your definition of what a joke is. My point is, and has always been, your formula for an 'awesome moment' (a phrase I wouldn't use when talking to anyone older than 13 about writing) is just a rehash of storytelling techniques as old as language. I don't see the need to try and slap some new terminology on the stuff we already know, tension, conflict, resolution, denouement (which you seem to disregard since you think there should be nothing after the resolution.


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## moderan (Dec 5, 2017)

[ot]You mean the denouement _isn't the climax_?

Heavens, whatever will I do now?[/ot]

If chairs bent the other way, what would your knees look like?


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## EmmaSohan (Dec 5, 2017)

Terry D said:


> Please don't misquote me, or, in this case, misrepresent my quote of Gallagher. The 'Kama Sutra' crap is your addition.



Yes! I wasn't quoting you. It was the first time ever I had a good use for cross-out! And then I couldn't find it on the menu -- it was a minor tragedy.

It can take me days to find the best way of handling an awesome moment. Or, to continue the parallel, a joke.



> If your knees bent the other way, what would chairs look like? Would front doors be in the back of the house? Who would revise the Kama Sutra?


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## EmmaSohan (Dec 7, 2017)

Terry D said:


> I don't see the need to try and slap some new terminology on the stuff we already know, tension, conflict, resolution, denouement (which you seem to disregard since you think there should be nothing after the resolution.



I think I see the problem in communication. Sorry. Conflict, tension, resolution is just one of the ways we can make our story interesting. But I never meant to imply the resolution and awesome moment are the same. Usually the resolution is expected, so that's a hindrance. The ways we prolong tension can work against an awesome moment.

Sheila Jackson has the best ending I have seen, but it's actually an explanation of resolution. If I think about five awesome moments by Kinsella, only two are around the resolution, and I don't think either is exactly the resolution.

The pivot of a story could easily be an awesome moment.


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## EmmaSohan (Dec 7, 2017)

VonBradstein suggested that maybe we could come across our awesome scenes by accident.

He was _banned_!

Those probably aren't connected, but we will take that as an omen from above to work a little more intentionally on your awesome moments. As I noted, you don't have to have them. But you might have a moment or scene that isn't working as well in writing as it was in your head. Terry suggested trying to write well, which is always good advice. Kyle pointed out that we also have good lines that don't need to be treated as awesome moments, which is also true.

No formula is perfect, and you have to use craft in any case, but I am still convinced that the formula is a good guide. Don't sit there just wondering why things aren't working as well as you want without trying it.

I think I'm done! Yay! Unless anyone wants a few more interesting examples.



> One of the amazing things about science fiction is that it teaches us to think about the impossible. Like, suppose our knees bent the other way. Would chairs be different? Would we walk out the back door of our houses instead of the front? And most importantly, how much of the Kama Sutra would have to be changed?


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## Ralph Rotten (Dec 7, 2017)

Von got banned?


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 7, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> VonBradstein suggested that maybe we could come across our awesome scenes by accident.
> 
> He was _banned_!
> 
> ...



vonBradstein wasn't banned because of his opinion. If he was, it's time for me to leave.

I don't believe in omens, either.

And I don't put effort and planning into awesome moments, nor do I recommend that others do. We should each approach those awesome moments in the way that works best for each of us.


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## Terry D (Dec 8, 2017)

Just a friendly reminder that site rules do not allow for discussing moderation on the open boards. Please keep the discussion to the topic at hand.


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## SueC (Dec 11, 2017)

Jack, that is the way I write too! I try (with no effort) to immerse myself into that character and their surroundings and think, _what now_? I typically do not orchestrate, which is why timelines are sometimes a challenge for me. Because of this string here, I just re-read a scene in my book where a son is in the attic of his deceased mother's home. It was creepy, and I completely submerged myself in the experience when I wrote it, and I think I pulled it off. Our technique is also the reason why I cry so much when I write, or get the chills. Ha ha. And then it's dinner time and I'm still in my pj's.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 11, 2017)

SueC said:


> Jack, that is the way I write too! I try (with no effort) to immerse myself into that character and their surroundings and think, _what now_? I typically do not orchestrate, which is why timelines are sometimes a challenge for me. Because of this string here, I just re-read a scene in my book where a son is in the attic of his deceased mother's home. It was creepy, and I completely submerged myself in the experience when I wrote it, and I think I pulled it off. Our technique is also the reason why I cry so much when I write, or get the chills. Ha ha. And then it's dinner time and I'm still in my pj's.



I write mysteries, so having an acurate timeline is important to me. I manage by creating a timeline document while writing the book.  At the end of each story day, I add the day's important events to the timeline. That helps me not have characters in places at the wrong time.


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## Mello (Dec 16, 2017)

SueC said:


> Our technique is also the reason why I cry so much when I write, or get the chills. Ha ha. And then it's dinner time and I'm still in my pj's.



it happens to me too Sue. It happens all the time :nevreness: I think it's a very good thing to get deep inside each character's emotions:grin: 

I'm not good with timelines, but I don't have a good memory too, so I need to start with them because I'm getting confused all the time T__T


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