Flipping

Quick recap: We’re following Lisa Cron’s book STORY GENIUS and applying it to a short story format. We’ve already written the scene in the Google Doc where Roti’s misbelief (read: lie) took root (here’s the link if you don’t have it yet), in this installment, we’re writing the second scene with the goal to ratchet Roti’s internal tension even tighter. My goal is to create a scenario in which his deep seated mistrust of Gai rakes against his own ambition.

All Talk

This first iteration of the scene seems great; the tension is ripe, the brevity moves it along nicely, and the stage is set for Roti to arrive and make the game changing decision. However, it’s flat. It doesn’t work. It lacks color. Why? Because:

• Not enough description. There aren’t any personal details to pull the reader into the scene.
• It’s a bunch of people standing around talking. Needs more action!
• No Roti. Our character is about to show up to something that happens to him rather than being in the middle of something he causes. The person we care the most about isn’t here so there must be other elements to compensate.

Do you agree with me? See something else I missed? Let me know in the comments!