So I’ve been doing this writing thing for a while now. Eighteen years, more or less, once you factor in the time spent working on poetry, scripts, gaming stuff, an unfinished thesis, and stories as a collective whole.
I still go out and learn to do stuff.
And I still read stuff where I am thoroughly fucking schooled and have the way I think about writing turned on its head.
Case in point: this one-two combination from 2006 or so where Jim Butcher talks about Scenes (which is stuff I know) and Sequels to Scenes (which blew my writer-brain in no uncertain terms).
The sequel stuff feels like someone just sat down and wrote a short essay that basically says, “hey, you, short story writer, this is why you struggle with novels.”
Go forth and read it.
Ooo, this is great! I've never thought about how the Scene-Sequel thing breaks down, but now that I think about it in context of having recently read The Silver Spoon by John Galsworthy, I can *so* see it in action–even in a classic, society-strife novel!
Thanks for sharing!