This is the good stuff! Thank you for not only answering my question but also going way above and beyond! After watching this video, I think I've narrowed down the big problem with my writing - I'm not setting the scene. I summarize too much, and my writing comes across as if I'm describing my experience rather than setting the scene and allowing the reader to experience it instead. This is definitely one of those videos I'm going to have to watch multiple times to really get the information to sink in. Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to make a video about my question - I really appreciate how you explore subjects in detail, it's much more interesting than the more common, 5 minute "bite-sized" videos made by other youtubers. Your videos always seem to be the perfect length, always engaging and never overwhelming. Oh, and congrats on hitting 20k subs!!!
The gremlin contrarian in my brain kept bugging me throughout the entire video, 'um but actually, on multiple occasions I've had way more meaningful and impactful experiences from video essays when they summarize X book than X book itself.' Obviously, though, this is because the gremlin in my brain is irrational and disagreeable. This is only true because the 'summaries' I found impactful(which were already in the minority) were themselves creating scenes. You win, Andrew. You win. Great vid though
The use of summery was something I discovered when I read Paul Auster. It was so liberating to not have to read whole dialogues every time people talked. Like watching a skillfully edited movie. No filler, only the good stuff.
I'm really trying to write a very captivating story for my personal statement, but I'm really struggling to convey meaning as well my passion for it. Your videos help me in these hard times, thank you !
Nicely presented! I was expecting a discussion of scene and sequel (action and reaction beats), but this was just as enjoyable. Perhaps the external/internal dichotomy can be the topic for a future video?
Great video and summary (no pun intended lol) of these concepts. I'd be curious about tips for transitioning between scene and summary. It's something I've always struggled with- to be able to switch from a tone of description and "showing" to a tone of "telling" and back again. It often feels clunky when switching into summary mode.
That's an interesting question. My first thought is that some good transition words and phrases could help in that case. It's something that gets taught a lot in academic writing contexts as a way to show how ideas and sections are related to each other in order to avoid clunky changes of topic, and the same principle could work in creative writing too
No wonder why they made stories of its shell holding the world, It wasn’t slow, but gentle. Sunlight makes it look like a mossy stone, Eating a lot of leafy greens, and a bug It ate the leaves with the bug still on it There’s four of them, this one likes greens than melons “Theyre like dirt but with feet” i heard from a kid Noisy kids, though i do see that Ones that ate the melon are now leaving -I think it just noticed that it ate a bug
So I wrote a scene, but the framing device was a handwritten journal entry. My writer's group commented that they couldn't suspend their disbelief that the girl who wrote the journal entry would remember details as vividly as I portrayed them, and suggested that I summarize the scene instead. I suppose it would be strange for someone to write a journal entry in as much detail as I did, but I'm concerned that if I take the advice of my writer's group, the result will be unengaging. Thoughts?
That's interesting--I suppose it depends a lot on context. If it really is portrayed as a journal entry, it might genuinely be harder to accept a girl writing like a novelist in her journal (unless this is part of her character). In that case, part of the scene-setting, so to speak, would be giving us actual access to what she wrote--much like dialogue, it would be an authentic experience of how that character uses language. We wouldn't be with her in the moment of her memory--but with her in the moment of writing her journal
@leosearle the comedian Bill Hader had a great suggestion about feedback - he said that negative feedback is usually 100% correct, that when somebody had something negative to say about his work, they were usually right. He went on to say that while they were correct in pointing out the flaws in his work, they were usually wrong about their ideas on improving his writing. In a nutshell, feedback is good to discover the errors and limitations in your work, but not very good in giving you ideas on how to fix and improve it.
I think that this helps me formulate my problem with certain role-players online (think collaborative writers), who fail to write their contributions in-scene and instead write it in summary; explaining their characters contributions to the story in a short form of objective statements. Lots of role-players refuse to play with people who don't meet their standards, but they also struggle to formulate what those standards are. So usually, they state it in things like "a minimum of two paragraph". But paragraphs aren't what draw me in. It's the relevance of each beat of description.
