How to Make Sure Even Your "Slow" Scenes Keep Your Readers Hooked

Four questions to make every scene of your novel un-put-down-able.

Some of your scenes are really exciting. They’re the big ones, the reasons why your readers picked up your book: the first kiss, the epic battle, the discovery of the body.

And some of your scenes . . . well, they’re the stuff that happens in between the exciting scenes.

In those scenes, the story slows down. Sometimes it slows down a lot. To glacial pace. To “eh, maybe I’ll finish reading this later” pace.

How do you keep your readers hooked? How do you keep them turning pages even during the scenes that are action-light and exposition-heavy?

In this episode, I’ll walk you through four questions to make sure even your “slow” scenes are un-put-down-able.

You’ll learn:

• How to evaluate whether a “slow” scene is even necessary—or if you can cut it entirely
• The 4-step process to edit your “slow” scenes to keep your readers hooked
• 2 things every “slow” scene needs
• And more!

Your story is worth reading from cover to cover. Here’s how to make sure you don’t lose your readers during a dull moment midway through.

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Get the Scene Analysis Worksheet: alicesudlow.com/sceneworksheet
• See whether I’m the right editor for you: alicesudlow.com/contact
• Ep. 27: Value Shifts: How to Craft Compelling Change in Every Story
• Ep. 11: How to Edit a Scene of a Novel, Part 1
• Ep. 42: The 6 Essential Elements of Every Novel, Act, and Scene

Transcript

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your readers didn't come to your novel to get some exposition or world building or character introductions. Your reader has picked up your novel so they could read an exciting plot. Your readers picked up your novel because they expected something to happen in it. Sure they need the world building and the exposition and the character introductions in order to understand and appreciate the things that happen. But they only care about those things in so far as they fuel more things happening. They're not here to read an encyclopedia of the world that you've built. They're here to experience a really great story. Welcome to your next draft. Some scenes in your book are very exciting. They're action packed. They have high stakes, a lot of movements, a lot of character action and choices, and they cause big changes. Propelling your story forward. They might be the boss fight with the big, bad, in an action story. They might be the first kiss in a romance story. They might be the discovery of the body in a murder mystery story. They're the big scenes, the reasons why we came to the story in the first place, the scenes that we're expecting, and we're most excited to read. But there are a lot of scenes in your book that aren't those scenes. They're quieter. The stakes are lower, less is happening. And if we're honest, they're not exactly the reason why we picked up the book. They're still important though, because we need interstitial material to carry us from one big scene to the next. We can't have a book that's only the meet cute and the first kiss and the breakup and the proof of love all one after the other. We need some time and space in between those things in order to have a full story. And that means that your book will likely have some scenes that are fast and exciting and some that are less fast and less exciting. And it might even have some scenes that are dare I say it. Slow. But they can't be too slow because you still need to hook your readers. You still need to keep them interested and turning the pages. Otherwise you'll risk losing your readers because the story slowed down too much. The tension dropped away and your readers got bored and put the book down. And you don't want that. So that's what I'm going to talk about in today's episode. I'm going to share with you four questions to use, to make sure that even your slowest scenes, keep your readers turning the pages. You can use these questions for pretty much any scene in your book, but I especially recommend that you walk through these four questions for any scene where you've gotten feedback that the story is slow or where you read it. And think, I don't know if the scene is really pulling its weight in the story. If there's any place in your story where the momentum drops here are the four questions I recommend That you use to edit it. And make it interesting and exciting in its own. Right. The first question to ask is. Why is this scene here? What is the scene contributing to the story? When you wrote the scene, you've wrote it for a reason. And in order to edit the scene intelligence lead, we need to know what that reason was. Is the scene sharing some exposition that we need in order to understand the story. Is it establishing character, helping us get to know your protagonist or other side characters better. Is it connected to a subplot? As it connected to a main plot. Is it introducing a new character or a clue or some vital information? Is it sharing some world-building. What is it that this scene is contributing to the story? If we cut this scene. Why would it be a loss? What would the reader miss? If this scene didn't exist? In other words. Why is the scene in the book? Big pro tip here. If you literally cannot come up with a single answer to this question, if you can't think of any reason at all, why this scene is important. Your best bet is probably to cut the scene. Every scene in your book has a purpose. Every scene has a reason why it has earned its place in your story. And if you come across a scene where you can think of literally no reason why it needs to be in your story. It probably doesn't need to be in your story. Just go ahead and cut it. Assuming that you do have a reason or several reasons why the scene exists. Move forward to question two. Is this scene, the right scene to accomplish those goals. In question one, we figured out what the scene is aiming to accomplish. In question two, we're asking. Is this the right scene to accomplish those things. In other words, why this scene. Clearly this scene is slow. It's not inherently exciting. Do you actually meet to accomplish those goals in this scene? Or could you take the important pieces of the scene? The character introductions, the exposition, the world building. What have you. And move those into other scenes and then cut this scene entirely. To answer this question. You'll need to take a hard look at the structure of your entire story. Look at your scene list, zoom out and consider your entire plot from start to finish. Does this exact scene absolutely need to be in that structure. Or could you cut this scene? Shuffle essential material to some other scenes and make your story structure even stronger while saving yourself a bit of word count. Essentially. In question one, we asked what it is that the scene is meant to contribute at all. If there's nothing, it needs to contribute. You don't need the scene. And in the second question we're asking whether this scene is needed in order to make that contribution. If you need that thing to be contributed to the story, but this scene isn't needed to do it. Grab the important information, move it somewhere else. And then cut the scene. If you decide that yes, this scene is the right scene to do this job, which means you're definitely keeping it. Now we get to move on to question three. What is the conflict in this scene? Uh, since we're keeping this scene, our task now is to make it interesting. And the way to make it interesting is by building up the conflict in the scene. To do this. You're going to need a few things. First. You're going to need a value shift. That's the thing that changes in the scene. Honestly, the reason why the scene feels slow is probably because not much changes in the scene. We get a lot of information, but nothing really happens. Nothing is different. Externally, nothing has changed in the characters environment or advanced the plot. And nothing is different internally. Your protagonist's emotions and thoughts are pretty much the same at the end as they are at the beginning of the scene. Stories are about change. Change is what moves your plot forward. So to build up the change in your scene, make sure that your scene has a value shifts. I won't do a deep dive of value shifts here, but if this term is new to you, go check out episode 27 of the podcast. It's called value shifts, how to craft compelling change in every story, go to Alice said though.com/ 27 to find it or find the link in the show notes. The second thing you're going to need is the six elements of story. This is the way that change happens in the scene. The way that the value shifts. The six elements are. First. The inciting incident. Second progressive complications. Third, the turning point. Fourth the crisis. Fifth. The climax and six. The resolution. Together those six elements form one complete story arc. And that is the key to engaging your readers through all of your scenes, including your slow scenes. You need that story arc to give your scene momentum. Something has to change in some way that impacts the plot. If you've made it all the way to question three, we know that the things in your scene are important. There's some critical exposition or world building or character introduction, somewhere in there. That's happening. But your readers didn't come to your novel to get some exposition or world building or character introductions. Your reader has picked up your novel so they could read an exciting plot. Your readers picked up your novel because they expected something to happen in it. Sure they need the world building and the exposition and the character introductions in order to understand and appreciate the things that happen. But they only care about those things in so far as they fuel more things happening. They're not here to read an encyclopedia of the world that you've built. They're here to experience a really great story. And a great story is made of characters, doing things and making decisions. So that is what we need in the scene. We need your characters to do things and make decisions. And that's what the six elements of story are all about. Like with value shifts, I'm not going to do a deep dive of the six elements here, but the good news is I have tons of episodes on the six elements and how to use them in your scenes. Go to our sobo.com/ 42 for an in-depth explanation of all six elements and go to so.com/eleven for the editing process that I use to make sure that all six elements are working in every scene. And links for both of those episodes are also in the show notes. So they're easy to find. I also have a worksheet you can use to make this editing process even easier. It's called the scene analysis worksheet and it covers all six elements of story, the value shift, and a few other scene editing essentials. You can get that worksheet by going to Alice sobo.com/scene worksheet. The key though, is this. You must have conflict in your scenes. Something must happen. Something must change. Your protagonists must do something. That is what we came here to read without it we'll be disappointed, but when you give us that conflict, that interesting action and movement, you can pair it with all the necessary exposition in world building and we'll enjoy it all the way. Which brings me to the fourth and final question. Does your reader need all of this information right now? This question is challenging because yes, the implication behind it is that there might be some words to cut. And at least for me personally, I find adding material so much easier than cutting material. But remember. The scene is slow. That's why we're talking about it. And one of the tools in our editing arsenal is to cut the slowest bits. There are two things that I recommend you cut. First. Cut information that the reader does not need. You know, a lot about your story and your characters and your world. That's fantastic. You're probably continually discovering and developing more and more about your story as you go. Maybe you could fill an encyclopedia with everything, you know, Your readers though. They don't need to know all that. The only things they need to know are the things that will help them understand the story. If they don't need it in order to understand what's going on. Cut it. Ultimately, you are probably going to know way more about your story and your world than your reader ever will. And that's okay. It is okay to know a bunch of information that doesn't make it into the book. If you really want to share it all with readers, you can turn it into bonus content, extra short stories that readers can download for free on your website And entire Wiki with every detail about your world that you can imagine. But resist the temptation to share it all with us in this book. Give us only the information that we absolutely need in order to understand what's going on. And second. Cut information that the reader does not need right now. The best part about backstory about all of this exposition and information you have in your arsenal is that it doesn't have to be boring if you share it with your readers in just the right way at just the right time. It can be absolutely riveting. Here's my favorite thing to do with backstory and all of this background information that you don't want to data dump on your reader. With hold it. Until the reader really wants to know it. And then share a juicy revelation that moves the plot forward. You could share everything, you know, about your story and its world on page one. You have the ability to do that? But if you did that, your readers really would not care. None of the backstory or exposition or world building or any of it would be interesting to them. They would just be bored by all of the information coming at them because they're here for the story, the things the characters are doing And why those things matter. If you hold back, though, if you give them just enough information to understand what's going on right now, but you withhold information for an exciting revelation at a critical moment. Then when you finally share it, your readers will be on the edge of their seats. There'll be thinking, finally, this is what I was wondering about all along. It's no longer adult. It's really, really exciting. And it keeps your readers turning pages. So review all of the information that you're sharing in your slow scenes, especially slow scenes that are early in your story and ask yourself. Do your readers need to know this information right now? Or is there a later point where you can share it as a revelation that moves the plot forward? And where you find those potential revelations, cut them out of the scene and reserve them for the more opportune moments later on. And there you have it. For questions to help you turn even your slowest scenes into scenes that your readers can't put down. These questions are especially useful for scenes that are largely transition material. They get us from one big scene to another big scene and they convey a lot of important information. But they don't have a lot going on themselves. Here are those four questions again? One, why is this scene here? What is the scene contributing to the story? Too. Is this scene, the right scene to accomplish those goals. Three. What is the conflict in this scene? And for does your reader need all of this information right now? Take those questions and give them a go in your next edit of a slow scene. And don't forget to grab the scene analysis worksheet to guide you as you edit. Get the worksheet@oursetthough.com slash scene worksheet, or find that link in the show notes. I'd love to hear how it turns out for you. Once you use these to revise, do the scenes feel better to you when you read them through? Do you get better feedback from critique partners or beta readers? That'll be your real test. Uh, to see whether your readers do in fact, turn the pages of your scenes. I think with these questions in hand, when you heighten that conflict and ruthlessly trim that information. You're going to create something your readers can't put down. There's one more thing I want to mention before I go. This kind of thing can be really hard to do on your own. It can be tough to spot, which scenes are slow when you're super close to your writing. And everything is interesting to you. It can be hard to figure out why you thought the scene was important to include in the first place and what it's really meant to contribute to your story. It can be tricky to determine whether this is really the scene that you need in order to contribute those things, to your story. Or whether a different scene would serve your story better. It can be hard to find the conflict in your scene and figure out how to enhance it or figure out how to create the right conflict. If there is no conflict yet. And it can be so, so difficult to tell what information is essential right here right now. What information you can save for later. And what information you can cut. I know this is difficult. Because I walk clients through this process. In fact, the entire process in this episode is pulled Straight from the work I'm doing with clients in their manuscripts right now. Just last week, a writer and I spotted a slow scene and went through this exact process to liven it up. And that means I see firsthand how hard this is to do on your own. If you go through this process and it works, that's fantastic. I hope that you do it and I hope it boosts your scenes. But if you've listened to all this and you felt daunted. Or you're thinking, Nan, I wish I had someone to bounce ideas off of While I work through all this and make sure that I'm on the right track. That's totally normal. And that is precisely why editors exist. If you'd like my support to walk you through this process for your slow scenes, Feel free to check out my website and services to see if I'm the right editor for you. And then had to, Alice said though.com/contact to reach out. I would be delighted to help you make all your slow scenes page Turners that are indispensable to your story. And I'm so excited for all the Put downable stories you create. Happy editing.