Before I can tell you of how Mastering Your Scenes came to be I would have to talk about my current work in progress, Fulfilling a Vow: Searching for Answers. About 2014 an old friend reached out to me through Facebook. It had been around 16 years since I had seen him. I had joined the Army and left the United States in 1998 for Germany. I had forgotten that I had left him with a group of poems I had written and a 14-page short story.
So, what is so significant about that you may ask?
The significant thing is, after reading it again the strangest of ideas manifested. I flirted with the idea of taking those fourteen pages and turning them into a full-blown manuscript. I did not think it would be possible but decided to play around with the idea and see how it would take form.
After going through some self-loathing moments and struggling with my own self worth as a writer as I compared myself to my unrequited mentors at the time, I finally became comfortable with my own writing voice.
However, I found my newfound momentum blasted away like the air from the lungs of someone punched in the chest. I struggled to find a way to propel myself forward and thought I would yield to the dreaded…. Drum roll please…. Outline, outline, outline. Yeah, I have been a pantster by nature and the word O-u-t-l-i-n-e meant instant death.
Okay, just a teensy bit of exaggerating there. Fine, a lot of exaggeration. The point is that I gave the outline thing a whirl in a way that worked for me but I felt that something was missing. I knew that I was looking for a little bit more and something that made sense. I just wanted to be able to keep things moving in a way that gave more value to my story without fluffing things up.
It was at this point that I realized that understanding what went into a scene was the heart of my problem. I began to ask myself the question, “What actually goes into a single scene?” The more I pondered this, the more I began to think about shows and movies that I watched as well as books on scene writing that I read.
While I do not consider myself better than the great writers who break down scene writing, whom I do admire, I felt that they were still missing something vital. They did an excellent job talking about certain types of scenes but missed the basic elements of what goes into every scene in general.
In a nutshell, Mastering Your Scenes is about focusing on what goes into a scene period, regardless of the genre. In truth, I wrote Mastering Your Scenes so that I could complete my sci fi work in progress Fulfilling A Vow: Searching for Answers. Things went so well that the craziest thought came to mind, “I bet other writers could benefit from this too.” Therefore, I was bold enough to complete the book and self-publish it so that others could have the experience that I had.
On a funny note, I never anticipated finishing Mastering Your Scenes and launching it before I finished Fulfilling A Vow: Searching for Answers, considering I use a few scenes from it as examples, but I got so excited that I could not wait.
Last, I want to say that although I realized that others probably came to conclusions about scene writing that I did, I had never heard of any of these things explained that way that I had laid them out. I say this, because in some of the 3 star reviews for the book people rate it so just because they have heard the same things scattered abroad the internet. While I believe such was meant to be negative it was actually the opposite for me. I was like wow, in my ignorance I am actually saying things that people much greater than myself have said but I just so happen to have all of that wonderful knowledge nestled between two covers. The search for such knowledge can finally be found in one place.
Title: Mastering Your Scenes: Your Blueprint for Success
Author: J.A. Cox
Pages: 78
Genre: Nonfiction/Writing
Mastering Your Scenes was written with one main purpose, to help give authors and writers a creative boost in their scene writing and toss writers block into the oblivion of the abyss. In order to accomplish this each chapter is written in a workbook like format so that the steps provided can easily be implemented after they are explained. For each element of scene writing that is presented J.A. Cox explains the How, Why and When of its use along with his own description so that the information is easy to assimilate. He provides copious examples from his own writing of these elements in action as well as from shows and movies.
You will be given an anatomical look of what composes a scene and understand what goes into creating scenes that are engaging, seamless, and bristling with activity without any fluff. Mastering Your Scenes gives you the practical advice you need to keep your readers turning pages and falling in love with your characters. With the steps you will learn there will be no more question of if that scene fits or seems out of place.
“A slim, concise and well focused treatise on how to write and master scenes and how writers can become authors by mastering scene writing. The various elements of a scene are discussed with well known examples and the key facts of each element are presented in depth, with a well laid out structure. The focus on the when, why, how, and the practical application tie up the various aspects of an element neatly and are very well explained. The author’s observations based on experience in each area further adds to the utility of the treatise.”
– The International Review of Books
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J.A. Cox is a husband, father and disabled veteran. He is passionate about Jesus Christ and has a desire to allow God to use his writing to bring glory to his name and reach others for him. His other passions lie in: 1) Empowering people by teaching about things that he is knowledgeable in in a simple and fun as well as interesting manner. 2)Inspiring others that they may realize how the true potential to overcome their perceived dilemma lies right between their ears and how they allow it to manipulate what their eyes behold. 3) Helping people to realize that being healthy truly begins with realizing how important it is for them to be intimately acquainted with their own body in order for others to help them resolve its maladies that beset it. Along with those, he enjoys entertaining with fiction based on the concept that fact is stranger than fiction and then stretching it just a tad to create some memorable page turning moments that you will likely recall for some time to come.
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