Stuck on a scene and can't seem to move forward

What if you don't show what happens the first time around? Just cut to the scenes where they're watching the tape, and THEN they see what happened?

It's a matter of focusing the scene--if your MC is your POV character, concentrate on his expectations, fears to what's happening as it's happening as he watches them, not the tape. If it's not your MC, then you've got all that curiousity and discussion as they watch the tape.

Scenes are more than events. Focus in on the emotions and the more human factors and you should be good.

Good luck.

If the events of this scene affect the wife so deeply, you might want to consider putting her into the scene itself. Watching something first-hand always has more impact than watching something on tape. If bad (and I assume loud) things are happening in the garage, it is not that hard to believe that the wife might be around and investigate. Better yet, she may only see part of the event and misunderstand or misinterpret what happened. But the reader saw the whole thing and you avoid any repetition.

Also, help me with my ignorance. What does "SIL" stand for?

Maybe you can gloss over the first time. As in, you describe the confusion and actions of the POV character in such a way that the reader doesn't get a clear image of what is going on - you might even add some suspense that way. Then, when watching the tape, what actually happened is made clear and you can show the characters' reactions. I'm not saying you should cut out the first scene or anything, just that maybe your POV character doesn't know all that's going on, he's confused, maybe hurt, maybe doesn't pay attention or whatever. Would that work with your scene?

Otherwise I don't know what you could do without glossing over the tape scene. If you do choose to rely on POV to tell both scenes differently, make sure it doesn't seem to the reader that he's watching the same scenes twice. Make sure they're two different angles on the scene - that's why I suggested the POV character not knowing the details. That way the reader will wonder what exactly happened and will find that out in the tape scene. But if you can't do that, it could still work by getting in the head of your character.

Can you make SIL the POV character in the first scene? Being possessed she won't know what's gotten into her - and neither will the reader.

Of course, if your POV character is Greg throughout the book it wouldn't help.

During the tape viewing, you could simply highlight a few of the more emotionally charged parts of the scene and then emphasize their reactions.

Their jaws dropped as the ghost burst forth from the machine, but wifey couldn't hide a giggle when SIL broke into the dance that made her look like a drunken monkey. When they came to the scene of the [whatever], though, they turned angry faces on him.

Wow, that sounds like a heckuva scene. I wouldn't cut that down at all for the sake of letting the characters watch it on tape.

Let me take another shot here.

Maybe the conflict is about watching the tape, not what is on the tape. It seems to me that after that experience the wife and SIL would not have any interest in watching the tape. They were assaulted by freaking ghosts! They aren't going to want to relive that. They're going to be on a rampage to get rid of that machine. Burn it, take hammers to it, put it in a trash compactor, whatever -- just destroy it forever.

But the MC, scientist or inventor that he is, wants to take a clinical look at the tape and see what went wrong. He is thinking more about the experiment than the important people in his life. The wife and SIL don't need to watch the tape to get that. So they get mad and leave.

Then, if understanding the tape is important, the MC can watch it alone later and you can focus on him becoming more obsessed with his project. Now you don't have describe anything on the tape except the things that the MC and reader missed the first time. Then, as DeleyanLee said, you're focusing on the MC's state of mind instead of the tape.

Again, just my two cents.

Underthecity,

I see you're in the revision stage so you must already have written it and you're trying to put yourself in the reader's shoes for the subsequent viewing.

The reader already knows what's on the tape. Did you consider how dialogue could play a part here - between the two characters as they watch. Without your spelling out the activities on screen in any repetitive detail, wouldn't the reader know what sections the two of them are watching by the comments and reactions of the wife and SIL?

Just a thought.

Having read the whole thread here I would think that I as a reader would want to read the scene as it happens, and then when its recounted I'd just want to "see" the expressions on the face of the wife and SIL. Their actions. Perhaps know the discomfort that Greg is having. I don't need ANOTHER play by play, but I'd certainly want to know the mood. I'm sure that the tape viewing would seem like it is taking longer than it actually is because of Greg's discomfort.

Anyhow, my 2cents.
Damn this sounds like a great book.
tina

It sounds like you've got two or three scenes to deal with, not just one. In theory, a scene has unity of person, place and time, so if you've got things happening in two locations, plus a time transition, you've got multiple scenes.

The reason that's important is that when you're stuck on a scene, it can be helpful to look at the scene's structure. Scenes, like stories as a whole, need to have conflict. In each scene, there's a pov character (protagonist for that scene, if not the whole book), an antagonist (for the scene, which may be different from the over-all antagonist), and a struggle of some sort between them. So, if you look at each scene and identify the pov character, what he/she wants, who's opposing him/her, what each one is DOING, and how their struggle escalates, you may be able to figure out what's missing.

For instance:
Scene 1: Wife (she's the pov character in this scene, in this example) and the SIL, in the kitchen; the wife's goal is to do ... what? The antagonist is the ghost, and there's an interaction between wife and ghost, which causes the wife to tell the SIL to run out to the garage and get husband. End scene.
Scene 2: Husband is the pov character, and his goal is to continue testing the machine, but the SIL (acting as the antagonist here, b/c she's opposing the pov character's goal) is shouting at him to stop and come help his wife. He turns it off and goes running into the kitchen. End scene (or continue as he rescues wife, who doesn't know exactly what happens, which foreshadows what SIL is going to say).
Scene 3: Not sure whose pov, but let's say it's the husband's, and his goal is to do something with the machine, but instead he finds SIL in trouble, amnesiac, so he runs the tape to find out what happened. Except there's no escalating tension in doing it that way. The pov might be better from the SIL, who's denying anything happened, so her goal is to go back to whatever she and the wife were doing in the kitchen, but the wife and the hubby insist something's wrong (the argument = struggle = conflict), and the husband insists on watching the tape, and the SIL keeps trying to stop the tape (escalating tension as she's forced to acknowledge what happened).

Or, you could skip the first of the three scenes, start with hubby turning on the machine, SIL comes screaming for help, and so on. During the third example scene, Wife can explain she'd been attacked in the exact same way, as part of the argument for the SIL to watch the tape.

Anyway, just a suggestion. But look for the structure in what you have in each scene: a pov character with a goal that will be thwarted, with a struggle going on. (It can be a verbal struggle, not necessarily a physical one.) Simply watching a video, even if the material on the tape is violent, lacks any tension, unless someone is trying to stop the video. You want that struggle -- someone trying to play the video and someone trying to stop the playing, or something along those lines -- which will, in turn, provide a context/structure to inspire and support the emotions, and which will also make it more interesting for the reader than the more passive version of a character's dawning realization of the truth while sitting and watching the video passively.

It's all about conflict, and checking for structure can help to identify a lack of conflict.

JD

And JanDarby, what you're suggesting is that one of the characters should not want to watch the tape.

Click to expand...

That was just an example to bring in conflict, b/c that's probably why you're struggling over the video scene: there's no conflict (b/c the characters are NOT struggling with anyone in the here and now).

What you've got basically is:

Protagonist's goal: to see the tape
Antagonist's goal -- there is no antagonist, since all the other characters agree with protagonist's goal, so there's no conflict.

What you need in the scene is:

Protagonist's goal: something that is opposed by someone else
Antagonist's goal: the opposite of protagonist's goal.

ANother possibility, so they're not fighting over the tape, would be for the husband or wife to have the goal of convincing the SIL she was attacked, and her being in denial. They all agree on watching the tape, but for different reasons. Then you'd have:

Protagonist's goal: to prove SIL was attacked
Antagonist (SIL in this scene): to prove she wasn't attacked
So, they play the video, and comment on it, with the SIL in denial until she ultimately has to accept the facts.

But I don't know if that's where you're headed, so forget my examples and look at what you're trying to do with the scene and consider where the conflict could be. You, the author, have certain facts you need to reveal: 1) wife's attack, 2) husband's causing the attack on the wife by turning on the machine, 3) the SIL's attack and 4) the husband's past attack. (Note that what you are trying to accomplish and what the POV character is trying to accomplish are two separate things, and you need to make sure to distinguish between them and then resolve both what you want done and the character's goal.)

The things you as the author are trying to establish are all "incidents" and plot points, but they're not scenes. They're things you want the reader to know, and you're a good enough writer to know you can't just tell the reader: "the husband turned on the machine and the wife was attacked by a demon, causing the SIL to come running out of the house ..." etc. You're going to show all of that. Which is good.

Now you need to go one step deeper and show the facts that you need the reader to know, but in a context that the reader will want to know them, and that means that the pov character also has a goal for the scene, and there's a struggle going on, and the reader is thinking (on a subconscious level if not a conscious level: "Will the protagonist accomplish his/her goal for this scene?" or, more specifically, "Will the wife escape the ghost?" or "will the husband figure out where the ghost is" or "will the SIL acknowledge her attack?").

It's not enough to just show the incident; it needs to be presented in the context of a struggle between characters. Otherwise, it's just random stuff happening, rather than plot; they're incidents (things the author cares about), rather than scenes (struggles between characters).

Think about the incident of watching the video and imagine it playing out on a stage: You've got a bunch of people looking at a video. The actors' faces are going to reflect their emotions -- perhaps guilt by the husband, horror by the wife, denial by the SIL. But that's all that's happening. A bunch of people sitting around and watching something horrible that's done and can't be changed. They're not arguing about it, they're just sitting and watching it. Not terribly riveting stuff to watch, when there's nothing the characters can do about what's happened. And now, switch to your written version, and add in the fact that the events have already been shown in real time in the previous scene. Why would the audience/reader want to sit through it? YOU want them to care about the characters' response to it, but the way to do that is to establish a scene question -- will the protagonist do X or not -- and then the reader will care enough to keep reading, so you can reveal the facts and emotions you want revealed.

You've got to give the readers a reason to keep turning the pages. If the protagonist's goal at the beginning of the scene is to look at a video and find out what happens, and everyone in the room is happy to do that, there's no reason for a reader to worry about whether the video is going to be played. It is.

You can't assume they'll care, just because you do, just because you, the author, knows that what's happening is important. (That's a different, implied version of telling instead of showing: "keep reading, and you'll be glad you did," versus simply giving them a reason to keep reading.)

The reader only cares if you give them a reason. And that means conflict. In every scene. Figure out, not just what you want to accomplish as the author, but also what the protagonist in the scene wants to accomplish. The reader doesn't care what you as the author want, but (we hope) does care about what the protagonist wants to accomplish, as long as there's some question about whether the protagonist will actually accomplish his goal.

JD