# Pulling Punches vs. Raising the Bar



## Kyle R (Jan 9, 2019)

Charlie opens his laptop and gives Janet a wink. "Okay," he says, "today we're writing the first romantic moment between the characters!"

Janet sips her wine and slips into the seat beside him. "Excellent," she says. "I love love."

Charlie raises a finger and says, "But it's not the _big_ romantic moment. That's for later in the story. So we should probably keep that in mind."

Janet shrugs and takes another sip. "Okay."

Charlie rests his fingers on the keys, then lifts them off again. "But, you get what I mean, right? That this isn't going to be _the _big moment. So we should write it light, and hold back a bit."

For the first time all evening, Janet sets her wine glass down. "Woah, woah," she says, "hold on. _Write it light_? Hold back a bit?"

Charlie lifts the wine glass and scoots a coaster under it. "Yeah. So that the real big moment hits harder."

Janet frowns. "So you think that, in order for that later scene to work, we need to _skimp _on this earlier scene?"

Charlie looks up at the ceiling and blinks. "Well, I guess that's one way to put it, yeah."

Janet's frown deepens. "So you want to shortchange the reader here, so that you can make it up to them later in the story."

Now it's Charlie's turn to frown. "Well, not _shortchange_, per say. But I don't want to use up too much emotional currency. It's like gambling: bet low now, so we have enough money to bet _big _when it counts."

Janet cocks her head and says, "Why not bet high now, and then just bet _even higher_ later on?"

Charlie: "Because I don't want to diminish the hitting power of that later scene by having this earlier scene feel too emotional."

Janet: "It won't diminish the later scene—it'll make the later scene feel that much stronger, because the reader will have felt _more_ for the characters from this scene."

Charlie frowns and scratches his head. "Yeah, but ... Hmm."

Janet sighs, plucks her wine glass off the coaster, and takes another swig. "I think we're going to need more liquor."​

Who do you agree with more: Charlie, or Janet? :encouragement:


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## bdcharles (Jan 9, 2019)

I agree with Charlie, as Janet seems to have conflated a lighter-touch style with failing to connect, as though brute force is the only option. If that was the case, every piece of music would be like Spinal Tap covering Rachmaninov. Mind you, Charlie doesn't really express himself very well.

So, what do I win?


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## Jack of all trades (Jan 9, 2019)

Subtle (or tease) versus blatant. It's not a one-size-fits-all -- again. There's a time and place to be subtle and a time and place to be blatant.

Cute presentation of the question, though.


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## Kyle R (Jan 9, 2019)

Charlie points at the laptop and says, "See? This _Charles_ guy agrees with me." He flashes Janet a smug grin and adds, "Once again, proving that _Charlie_s know best."

Janet refills her wine glass and taps a fingernail against the screen. "What about Jack's response? Seems very even-handed. He's got a point."

Charlie nods. "Sure, but we still haven't reached an agreement. I still think we should hold back. If we want that big scene to feel like, say, 90% emotional, it makes sense to have the earlier scene feel, like, only 30% emotional. Know what I mean?"

Janet shakes her head. "No. You're approaching it like math—as if there's a finite amount of emotion a reader can experience. I think of it like a snowball instead. If you start with a tiny snowball, you'll get a larger one by the end. But if you start with a _bigger_ snowball, you'll get a _monstrous_ one by the end. It's the difference between a reader saying, "Hey, that was pretty good", versus, "Holy CRAP that story WRECKED MY SOUL."

Charlie scrunches his face and says, "I still like my math analogy more."

Janet rolls her eyes. "You would."

Charlie chuckles. "Touché. Okay, then. What now?"

Janet shrugs and points to the laptop. "Maybe see what else they have to say." She gives Charlie a wink and says, "It'll give me more time to drink."


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 9, 2019)

Hold back in what way? Don't hold back on the writing, always write everything as well as you can, but maybe hold back on what the writing is about; after all they have only just met, this is the beginning. People nearly always hold back a bit of themselves in the beginning, it is realistic, but that is a great opportunity for some good writing, don't hold back.


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## Kyle R (Jan 9, 2019)

Janet chokes on her wine, then drags her wrist across her lips. "See? Right _there_! That Olly guy nailed it. _Don't hold back _in your writing. Why hold back? Holding back won't make the reader swoon. Holding back won't make those future scenes feel _stronger_. It'll just make the current scene feel _weaker_."

Charlie presses his lips into a line. "But he also said that it's natural for people to hold back early on in a relationship." He crosses his arms and grins. "So in a way, he's also agreeing with _me_. It makes sense to write early romantic tension in a light, tentative sort of way. Or early tension of _any_ kind." He taps his chin, then says, "Lesser intensity in the early parts of the story should make the more intense scenes, in the later stages, feel more powerful."

Janet refills her glass. "Who says you can't write early, tentative emotions in a heavy, passionate way? Who says scenes need to be weighed against one another?"

Charlie furrows his brow. "Well, now you're just muddying the argument. How many glasses have you had to drink?"

Janet recoils, clutching the wine glass to her chest. "A wine glass is an _experience_, Mr. Charlie, not a numerical value." She points a wavering finger at his chest and slurs, "Much like writing sshhould be."


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## Kyle R (Jan 9, 2019)

(Okay, I might be having too much fun with this meta-narrative. Perhaps I should stop before Janet succumbs to alcohol poisoning. )

But keep the discussion going, guys! Great points so far.


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## luckyscars (Jan 9, 2019)

One thing I have noticed is that the reader tends not to feel as close as the writer no matter how well-done - as a writer you will always be closer to the work than the reader. 

At best you can draw the reader into the moment, but there is always the barrier of second-handedness. The writer's vision is the flame, the reader the piece of meat dangling over. You can bring them close enough to cook but you can never make them as hot for the story as you.

With that in mind it simply doesn't make sense to say "hold back" UNLESS you are one hundred percent confident what you are offering them _now _is enough to maintain their interest. It's a risk and one you can only afford to take if you have the experience and the skill and the game plan. Otherwise it sounds an awful lot like a road to a cop out and creative laziness to me. 

But let's say you don't want to employ that excellent idea now for fear of it not receiving its full effect because it is, in your mind, that damn good - the absolute zenith of your story. What makes you so sure you can't go all out and still raise the bar higher? Why essentially kneecap your imagination by designating the climax early?

There might be reasons. I am not totally dismissing the idea of withholding a big moment for a later place in the work. Sometimes you may need to. Pacing is important. But I don't think setting limits is generally a good way to go. In all likelihood that "amazing love scene" you are saving up is only amazing _to you _and not something the average reader wants to labor through eighty pages to get to. Give it to them early and then think of how to make it better. Strive, achieve, and keep striving for more.


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## bdcharles (Jan 9, 2019)

Janet said:


> _Don't hold back _in your writing. Why hold back? Holding back won't make the reader swoon. Holding back won't make those future scenes feel _stronger_. It'll just make the current scene feel _weaker_.



Holding back doesn't equal weaker, Janet. Your approach is far too simplistic, and doesn't factor in a single nuance of human appreciation. I suspect, Janet, that your approach would work for the likes of you - linear, word-by-word readers for whom subtlety is a dirty word, a barely-understood demon that causes lesser lifeforms to tremble with dread. Well, that's ok, Janet. Not everyone can be an artist, not everyone has the brainpower to know greatness. Some people are just jobbing hacks plonking down words, so with that in mind, Janet, maybe you should leave the refinements to the Charlies of the world. Now go have fun with your boom-boom-chugga-chugga brightly-coloured "literature".



{{ooc: this is great. I can totally insult this person because they're not real, but simply a fabulous creation of Kyle's!!  }}


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## Jack of all trades (Jan 9, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> One thing I have noticed is that the reader tends not to feel as close as the writer no matter how well-done - as a writer you will always be closer to the work than the reader.
> 
> At best you can draw the reader into the moment, but there is always the barrier of second-handedness. The writer's vision is the flame, the reader the piece of meat dangling over. You can bring them close enough to cook but you can never make them as hot for the story as you.
> 
> ...



Characters better loved by fans than their authors : Sherlock Holmes, Hercules Poirot, the Hardy Boys, Harry Potter(?), just to name a few.


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## luckyscars (Jan 9, 2019)

Jack of all trades said:


> Characters better loved by fans than their authors : Sherlock Holmes, Hercules Poirot, the Hardy Boys, Harry Potter(?), just to name a few.



Sorry but no idea what your point is. Even if you could quantify love (and you can't) being close to one's characters - in the sense of understanding them & their motives & the full weight of their actions as it relates to the story's intent - has nothing to do with any sort of affection.

Many of my characters are mentally disturbed in some way and I often find them and what they do ghastly. Yet as their creator I am nevertheless closer to them than some psychopath who might casually read the story and find them enjoyable. See what I mean?


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## Phil Istine (Jan 10, 2019)

In this instance, I feel that holding back early on would likely work better, but it can still sing with hints and allusions if well written.  Indeed, it is possible to strengthen the piece by what you _don't_ say, so long as the allusions work well.


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## Jack of all trades (Jan 10, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> Sorry but no idea what your point is. Even if you could quantify love (and you can't) being close to one's characters - in the sense of understanding them & their motives & the full weight of their actions as it relates to the story's intent - has nothing to do with any sort of affection.
> 
> Many of my characters are mentally disturbed in some way and I often find them and what they do ghastly. Yet as their creator I am nevertheless closer to them than some psychopath who might casually read the story and find them enjoyable. See what I mean?



My point, for anyone that truly missed it, is that it is possible for readers to enjoy and understand, or think they do, characters and stories more than the author/creator. It happens. Maybe it hasn't happened to you, and maybe it never will. Maybe you'll always be so enthralled by your creations that no one could love them more. But that doesn't make it universal for all authors.

I've been producing much output in the joint writing of screenplays over the last five, almost six, years, and I am less emotionally attached to new pieces than I used to be, and am surprised by how much I've forgotten in the older ones. My fictional worlds are ever increasing, and changing. I simply cannot be that attached to all that output.

I read, once, that humans have a limit of being able to be attached to only 250 people. After that, new attachments replace older ones. It was an article about expanding your business, and stressed the importance of selecting managers that build attachments to employees, rather than narcissists. 

Singers have favorite songs that are different than their fans' favorites.

My point, in case it is not clear, is that sweeping generalizations are always faulty. (Which is a sweeping generalization, so it's faulty. Meaning ...ah, well.)


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## Terry D (Jan 10, 2019)

If every scene is written to achieve the maximum amount of impact possible you run the risk of morphing drama into melodrama, characterization into caricature, passion into porn, and impactfulness into hyperbole. The reader will become jaded.


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## luckyscars (Jan 10, 2019)

Jack of all trades said:


> My point, for anyone that truly missed it, is that it is possible for readers to enjoy and understand, or think they do, characters and stories more than the author/creator. It happens. Maybe it hasn't happened to you, and maybe it never will. Maybe you'll always be so enthralled by your creations that no one could love them more. But that doesn't make it universal for all authors.
> 
> I've been producing much output in the joint writing of screenplays over the last five, almost six, years, and I am less emotionally attached to new pieces than I used to be, and am surprised by how much I've forgotten in the older ones. My fictional worlds are ever increasing, and changing. I simply cannot be that attached to all that output.
> 
> ...



It's just not the point I was making. 

Closeness has nothing to do with affection/love here. It simply means that what the writer thinks is being delivered when they write a half-baked or "toned down" scene is often going to read as even more undercooked through the simple mechanics of what is lost in translation. Just like it's usually not a good idea to mumble or fabricate weird accents when you play telephone and  it's usually not a good idea to hold back in scenes for the sake of it.

I know you think the idea of readers enjoying things more than their creators is a thing, and maybe if we are talking Harry Potter or Stephen King or whatever that might be true. I think, though, for the vast majority of authors simply keeping a reader invested enough to buy and give their story a whirl is a challenge. Readers read for entertainment. Therefore it is simply common sense to hold back scenes UNLESS you are completely sure you know what you are doing with it and have a good reason - such as avoiding the fatigue of a third death scene in quick succession as Terry alluded to.

Not sure what you're talking about with generalizations - I did not make any generalizations. I used the word "tends" to avoid that.


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## Jack of all trades (Jan 10, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> It's just not the point I was making.
> 
> Closeness has nothing to do with affection/love here. It simply means that what the writer thinks is being delivered when they write a half-baked or "toned down" scene is often going to read as even more undercooked through the simple mechanics of what is lost in translation. Just like it's usually not a good idea to mumble or fabricate weird accents when you play telephone and  it's usually not a good idea to hold back in scenes for the sake of it.
> 
> ...



That seems a little different than what you originally wrote. Accepting that this was your intended meaning, pacing and avoiding melodrama are two good reasons to avoid pulling out all the stops. If you need to hit your reader over the head with a two-by-four to get your meaning across (the general "you" of course), then either quit writing or work on the subtle allusions.

I think Terry said it well, so I'm quoting him here : 



Terry D said:


> If every scene is written to achieve the maximum amount of impact possible you run the risk of morphing drama into melodrama, characterization into caricature, passion into porn, and impactfulness into hyperbole. The reader will become jaded.


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## Terry D (Jan 10, 2019)

The OP, as I read it (when I could stop mentally swapping out Kyle for Charlie and Sunny for Janet) was addressing the emotional stakes of the scene rather than the quality of the writing. Of course we should always be doing everything within our power as writers to execute the scene we conceive to the best of our abilities, but sometimes that means exerting the same amount of creative energy and craft to describe a romantic dinner, as we do when we write the scene where the protagonist jumps out of a helicopter into a burning building to save his wife. Everyone knows that we need to pull-out-all-the-stops during the writing of the rescue scene, but, when we choose to write the dinner scene, we should: 1) ensure that it is necessary to the story; and 2) since it is necessary to the story, we should put all of our skills to work to make it the best damned romantic dinner at Subway we can write. We just might not want to have ninjas dropping out of the ceiling onto the meatball sandwiches.


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## luckyscars (Jan 10, 2019)

Jack of all trades said:


> That seems a little different than what you originally wrote. Accepting that this was your intended meaning, pacing and avoiding melodrama are two good reasons to avoid pulling out all the stops. If you need to hit your reader over the head with a two-by-four to get your meaning across (the general "you" of course), then either quit writing or work on the subtle allusions.
> :



I'm not sure where you thought I was recommending hitting anybody over the head or being un-subtle. Competency is competency.

It almost seems like you are trying to construct an argument for the sake of it. I mentioned pacing in that same first post you referenced. I very clearly said that it is (one of many) potential factors why you might decide certain things at certain points. I also said there are exceptions to be made. You probably don't want to introduce a graphic sex scene in your first or second chapter, for example. 

The OP's question, as I understood it, was whether when there is an even choice to be made between a powerful moment and deliberately avoiding it/toning it down out of some notion of "Ooh that's good, I'll save THAT for later!" (as might a child put a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich in their pocket) which is the best way to go.

Allowing that there are various factors and possible exceptions (apparently I have to keep saying this?) I think holding back for no other reason than some notion that saving-the-sandwich-for-later = a better result probably is going to backfire a lot of the time. We all know what often happens is the kid forgets the sandwich is in their pocket until laundry... or the sandwich simply goes stale. We all know what usually happens when runners get complacent midway through the race.

But of course _some _runners are talented enough they can get away with doing just that and _some_ sports don't require constant exertion anyway (or much at all) to win, and _some _sandwiches do taste better with time. Even so I think for most ordinary people to succeed in most things most of the time involves relentless effort, taking every opportunity possible to maximize the entertainment in their story, in whatever way the author thinks best: If now seems a good time to have a gunfight have the friggin' gunfight.

Hopefully this is clear now.


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## bdcharles (Jan 10, 2019)

Terry D said:


> If every scene is written to achieve the maximum amount of impact possible you run the risk of morphing drama into melodrama, characterization into caricature, passion into porn, and impactfulness into hyperbole. The reader will become jaded.



Precisely this. But let's step away for a sec. Holding back - well, what does it mean? We haven't really defined it. Janet and Charlie, what d'you mean by it?


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## EmmaSohan (Jan 10, 2019)

Alice: "Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing."

Charlie looked up at her, annoyed.

Alice just plowed on. "There's _no _reason that first touch can't be powerful." She lightly placed her hand on Janet's shoulder; Janet took a quick breath. "You should have great scenes _long _before you even get to the first kiss."

Janet looked up at Alice. "That's what I was trying to say." Alice gently squeezed Jane's shoulder, and they held each other's gaze a second too long.


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## luckyscars (Jan 10, 2019)

I think its worth saying this also depends hugely on the length of the story. 

If we are talking short stories, of two to five thousand words, there is probably not going to be much room for holding back regardless. Certainly I never managed to be that economical with restricted word count...

Novels are obviously more flexible in teasing up big moments but it probably needs said the conventions of the specific medium will govern the structure of work as much as author preferences.



Terry D said:


> If every scene is written to achieve the maximum amount of impact possible you run the risk of morphing drama into melodrama, characterization into caricature, passion into porn, and impactfulness into hyperbole. The reader will become jaded.



So what do you mean by "impact" here?

I only ask because it seems like in this discussion there is a lot of conflating "impact" with "action".

Writing should always be at maximum impact, in the sense that writing should always retain maximum ability to trigger a reader's emotions. Whether its a fight scene or an awkward dinner doesn't matter - each scene should be written as powerfully as possible.  If not, what is the point in including it? 

Isn't it more accurate to say too much of the _same thing_ is what leaves readers jaded? I certainly don't think its intensity itself that's the problem. 

A movie like Saving Private Ryan lurches from violent carnage to tearjerk with very few scenes that hold back, yet it does not become hyperbolic nor melodramatic. There are differences to be sure - a tank battle is different than two guys grappling with bayonets, different again to the image of an old man in front of a grave - and something to give those scenes context, but pretty much every scene is juiced for all the emotion that it has. 

That, for me, is storytelling at its best. On the other hand, I could easily become jaded if the entire movie was set on Omaha Beach - of nothing but men getting shredded over and over. Not because its intense, but simply because it is repetitive.

So isn't the key to avoiding the pitfalls you describe not so much about the writer placing restrictions on _impact _but rather about being creative as to how to draw emotion into the scene? To constantly add variety and avoid predictability. And of course ensuring narrative consistency/coherency at all times.


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## bdcharles (Jan 11, 2019)

EmmaSohan said:


> Alice: "Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing."
> 
> Charlie looked up at her, annoyed.
> 
> ...






Charlie leaned in, and the women could tell they were in for a serious bout of mansplain.

"I think what you meant to say," he informed them, in the tones of one who knows precisely what he is doing and is not afraid to let the world know it, "is that I, as a man, was right all along. Isn't that it?"

But they ignored him. Lines of energy pulsed between their eyes, twin pairs of cloudless curves that glitched and shimmered as if remembering a sorrow long put aside. Something was happening, something so ancient and powerful that there was no longer a word for it. It was as though they had entered a subtle netherspace of revelation where each other's most precious things were laid out, without judgment or reserve, a place in which they could talk without speaking, where their very boundaries seemed to dissolve and reform a hundred different ways with every exquisitely-passing painful second.

Charlie's mansplainy-ass hair stood on end.  




Seriously, though; "A subtle netherspace of revelation". C'mon. No? Oh, okay then


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## Terry D (Jan 11, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> So what do you mean by "impact" here?
> 
> I only ask because it seems like in this discussion there is a lot of conflating "impact" with "action".
> 
> ...



The impact I am talking about is the emotional payoff for the scene. No book has high emotional stakes in every scene written. I've seen new authors try to do that and it just doesn't work. You mention _Saving Private Ryan_ -- not a book, but we can run with it for discussion's sake -- that movie is nearly 3 hours long, and I'd be surprised if even 45 minutes of it have any sort of fighting at all, so 'action' isn't the impact I'm talking about. I've also been clear that we should always craft every scene to the very best of our ability, which includes drawing readers in since that is, after all, the writer's job. No, what I'm saying is that not every scene needs to be better than the last, more emotional than the last -- which is what I interpreted 'Janet's'  position to be. Many of our scenes have very little emotional pay-off. Some are written (NOTE: Again, when I say "written" I mean crafted and executed to the best of the writer's ability) to develop characters, some to establish setting, or theme, others to create tone, and some to establish backstory. 

Repeated actions aren't the only type of repetition which can become boring. I think everyone following this thread knows that good books require a certain rhythm to be established in the narrative. As in a symphony, that rhythm ebbs and flows, rises and falls, and works its magic through each instrument. Every crescendo needs its intermezzo. All the music needs to be written and played well, but a string of uninterrupted crescendos, each more dramatic than the last, is just noise.


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## luckyscars (Jan 11, 2019)

Terry D said:


> The impact I am talking about is the emotional payoff for the scene. No book has high emotional stakes in every scene written. I've seen new authors try to do that and it just doesn't work. You mention _Saving Private Ryan_ -- not a book, but we can run with it for discussion's sake -- that movie is nearly 3 hours long, and I'd be surprised if even 45 minutes of it have any sort of fighting at all, so 'action' isn't the impact I'm talking about. I've also been clear that we should always craft every scene to the very best of our ability, which includes drawing readers in since that is, after all, the writer's job. No, what I'm saying is that not every scene needs to be better than the last, more emotional than the last -- which is what I interpreted 'Janet's'  position to be. Many of our scenes have very little emotional pay-off. Some are written (NOTE: Again, when I say "written" I mean crafted and executed to the best of the writer's ability) to develop characters, some to establish setting, or theme, others to create tone, and some to establish backstory.
> 
> Repeated actions aren't the only type of repetition which can become boring. I think everyone following this thread knows that good books require a certain rhythm to be established in the narrative. As in a symphony, that rhythm ebbs and flows, rises and falls, and works its magic through each instrument. Every crescendo needs its intermezzo. All the music needs to be written and played well, but a string of uninterrupted crescendos, each more dramatic than the last, is just noise.



Just so its clear, I used a movie example deliberately, as I think all too often these discussions revolve around novels when the area of this forum is "writing discussion" and nothing in the OP seemed dedicated specifically to novels.

I would be interested to know how you "draw readers into a scene" without using emotional triggers? It is hard to do, I find, to stimulate interest without appealing to the emotional state of the reader. But that may be just me.

You mention setting the scene as a function of a type of scene that does not necessarily employ an emotional payoff. There is a scene in Saving Private Ryan which is just the squad walking over the hill as the sun emerges. It sets the scene, that seems its primary purpose, yet I deem it to be emotionally significant: Not intense, not thrilling, there's no fighting and it is not even a particularly important moment as far as plot...but still moving. It portrays isolation, an appeal to the notion of "the few, the happy few, the band of brothers", the sun's emergence taking on the Spielbergian symbolism of "bright in dark". These are emotional payoffs, not informational ones, yet the purpose of the scene is ostensibly "showing setting". Why not write the "intermezzo" scenes like that?

Granted it could definitely be debated as to whether there are relative differences in impact/emotion, whether such scenes are less emotionally triggering than, say, a gunfight on Omaha Beach. That seems reasonable. It also seems far too idiosyncratic to be resolvable. Veterans tended to faint during Omaha beach, but not everybody did - Personally I skip that part if I ever watch the movie, I find carnage boring after about a minute, and I remember even watching it in the theater finding it boring after I got over the initial shock of visceral imagery. Different people cry at different places in different books, right?

Your interpretation of my point about impact in SPR as relating to fighting leads me to believe your view of what constitutes "emotional payoff" and mine are probably different and that's okay. My only point is I think its probably less perplexing in practice to think of about varying or withholding emotional payoff and more helpful to focus on variety for the sake of variety, pushing the imaginative qualities of what can be done within a scene without stretching credibility. If you never write the same (or similar) scene twice in the same (or similar) way, appealing to the same (or similar) set of emotions using the same (or similar) set of tools your reader will probably not become jaded, surely? As far as emotional weight, I think pretty much every scene can have that if the writer is competent enough to work it in - certainly I have always tried - and if it can't its probably not a scene that should be in the book.


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## Terry D (Jan 11, 2019)

But every scene doesn't carry the same emotional weight, and it shouldn't. This shit really isn't difficult until people start nit-picking semantics.


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## luckyscars (Jan 11, 2019)

Terry D said:


> But every scene doesn't carry the same emotional weight, and it shouldn't. This shit really isn't difficult until people start nit-picking semantics.



This shit isn't difficult until people start hallucinating disagreement. 

We probably agree on most of this but if you find it too frustrating to tolerate discussion of I suggest we agree to disagree.

Based on your comments I already recognized the impossibility of achieving an equal emotional weight: "Granted it could definitely be debated as to whether there are relative differences in impact/emotion, whether such scenes are less emotionally triggering than, say, a gunfight on Omaha Beach. That seems reasonable. *It also seems far too idiosyncratic to be resolvable*."

What I said is every scene should receive equal treatment in how it is approached as far as how impressive. That's a totally different thing. Nobody is suggesting making every scene a cliffhanger or an orgy. 

I am saying you should not go into a scene with the view of repressing the emotional experience of your reader simply because you are unable to find a way to execute in a way they have not already experienced (or that you envision them later experiencing). A good writer _should _be able to deliver a consistently enriching emotional experience with pacing without needing to consciously hold back on what they feel to be impactful.


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## Jack of all trades (Jan 11, 2019)

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the *reader's* emotional experience be repressed.

This is similar to suspense versus shock. Both elicit an emotional response, although the emotions differ. A good writer chooses which emotion to tap. Anticipation is just as valid as any other emotion. And going for anticipation is not the same as repression. The same is true for building suspense.


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## Bayview (Jan 12, 2019)

I agree with Emma that each scene should represent the state of the characters to maximum effect, but hopefully your characters aren't always at maximum emotion.

Like, if we're sticking with romance examples (my specialty...)

Scene A might have the characters meet for the first time, and to take a romance cliche, maybe they have reasons to hate each other. So then the hate should be written with absolutely as much effectiveness as the author can manage. The reader should FEEL the animosity.

Scene B might introduce an element of doubt. Maybe the other character isn't as bad as originally thought. This doubt is also an intense emotion for the character, but it's in a different direction than the emotion in Scene A, so the writer can convey it with maximum power without worrying about burning out the reader.

Scene C has the first spark of attraction (well, really, that was probably in Scene A, but it was repressed, then, giving more power to the animosity). Most of us know that electric excitement of the first flirting, the way that everything becomes more vivid, etc... and the author should portray that as accurately and intensely as possible. Again, it's a _different _emotion, so I don't think burnout is likely.

Scene D involves a seeming betrayal, and the character is thrown into despair, which the author portrays vividly.

Scene E is the final resolution where the characters are elated to find they haven't betrayed each other, are truly meant for each, blah blah blah... and the author portrays this with intensity.


So I agree with the idea that we should build to a climax in a story, but it should be a climax of having finally found the _right_ emotion. All the other emotions should have been portrayed vividly, but in a way that was accurate for that point in the novel.

In the original example, I'd say the problem is that the author has made things too easy for the characters. They shouldn't be ABLE to have their fantastic loving moment that early in the book, because they haven't gone through enough trials to deserve it, yet.


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 13, 2019)

Bayview said:


> because they haven't gone through enough trials to deserve it, yet.


I really feel it is bad enough only getting what you deserve when you deserve it in real life, and at least romantic fiction should escape that. Take them up to the peak, drop them to the nadir, and then rescue them to normality. The reader can be satisfied they have attained the perfect state without having to go through all that, life is good.

Slightly tongue in cheek, but there are as many different ways to write a story as there are authors, any of them can work in the right hands.


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## Dluuni (Jan 28, 2019)

Don't pull punches, even in steam. In romance, there are two different types of attraction within a category, and several categories - sexual, romantic, aesthetic, etc. You can punch primary all you want, because secondary always starts at zero and a romance should be tracking secondary. Primary is flash in the pan.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 28, 2019)

I don't feel like we have sufficient data to render a worthwhile opinion.
All we know is that you are writing the first of multiple love scenes.
We do not how much of the story arc this occupies, or if it is central to the story.
Does the story already have other highlights, and does is one good sex scene enough?

When I write a scene, I have specific goals in mind: to introduce a new plot or character, or develop a character, or reveal hidden background, or set the plate for the next scene...  So the question really is: What are you trying to accomplish with this first love scene? Write that.


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## Kyle R (Jan 28, 2019)

Ralph Rotten said:


> I don't feel like we have sufficient data to render a worthwhile opinion.
> All we know is that you are writing the first of multiple love scenes.
> We do not how much of the story arc this occupies, or if it is central to the story.
> Does the story already have other highlights, and does is one good sex scene enough?



I agree, the OP leaves things a bit uncertain.

Just to clarify: this wasn't an actual conversation or writing dilemma. More of a hypothetical debate, for discussion's sake.

(A _let's throw some wood in the oven and see what burns!_ kind of a thread.) :encouragement:


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 29, 2019)

Me personally, I'm old fashioned, so my first love scene would be building the love interest, sex later.
But if it was a lust story then I'd let 'em hit it in the first scene.
Good girls don't put out on the first date.
So for me I'd make LOVE a 2-parter.


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