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Showing posts from February, 2018

Review of "Scenes and Sequels"

Mike Klaassen has written a book, Scenes and Sequels, that is fairly easy to understand and pretty useful for an aspiring writer. In it, he explains how to use scene and sequel to help craft a better novel. This information could be utilized before drafting or as an analysis tool once a first draft is complete. In addition to the exploration of the concepts of scene and sequel, Mr. Klaassen provides several concrete examples from novels with which most readers will be familiar. He also uses a fairy tale and passages from his own writing. These help effectively illustrate the structures he is discussing. As a writer myself, I can't over stress the need for writers to first be avid readers, and his analysis helps drive home that point. While reading this book, I was also reading Raymond Chandler’s The High Window. I found myself thinking of the novel's structure in terms of scene and sequel, and being able to see the structure in action gave me some insight into my own