Write in Scenes and Let the Good Times Roll

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A short story is basically made up of exposition and scenes.  Exposition explains and speeds up time.  Exposition summarizes.  The scene is presentational and slows down time.  When a writer slows down time the good times can roll.  There are good reasons why in the scene the good times can roll.

Exposition is absolutely necessary in a piece of flash fiction, a short story or a novel.  Exposition allows the author to convey to the reader important information that would take too many words if the same information was conveyed in scene; but once exposition has done its job it’s time to get to the dramatic action.  It is once the dramatic action begins that the story really takes off.  Why is this?

A scene is made up of the inter-action of the characters.  It is full of conflict.  Dialogue is also action and the dialogue is usually full of tension and revelation if not outright conflict.  The action takes place in literary real time in front of the reader’s eyes.  And the scene says to the reader, what is happening now is important.

Without the scene a flash fiction story or a longer story or even a novel would be one long explanation that covered too much inter-scene information too fast.  A story of exposition by its nature would skim over the story.  It would be more of an outline than a real story.

As soon as a scene begins, the writer is saying to the reader, now pay attention because something significant is going on here.  If the scene takes place in a novel it will be linked to other scenes that are important signposts in the resolution of the story.  If the scene takes place in a very short story like a piece of flash fiction it may be the only scene in the story and therefor nearly the entire story.

Either way, when a scene begins we are talking rock and roll!