Improve Your Novel Scenes with Physical Beats and Interiority

I was reading a client manuscript yesterday, one that is pretty over-the-top great, but in certain scenes there was something missing. The dialogue was sharp, but that was all there was. Just dialogue. Talking heads. What was missing was one or both of two things: physical beats and interiority. We use these in writing scenes to avoid the dreaded talking heads.

My first attempt at generating an AI image. It took many attempts but I kind of like this one.

And they are easy to add in, even if you’re on a second or third draft (hopefully, a pretty solid draft) and have identified the problem. But first, let’s talk about why it’s so important. Two reasons: rooting in scene and interiority. Anybody who’s worked with me has seen these comments or variations thereof on their manuscript. Let’s look at them, one by one.

Rooting in Scene

This is a way of orienting the reader in the scene, grounding them. If you’ve ever read a passage where two characters appear to be floating in space as they talk you know what I mean. You have no sense of where they are, what they are doing, or what is happening as they chat. It is rare for people (real humans) to sit and do nothing but talk. They sip wine or tea, they get up and move a load of laundry to the dryer, they soothe a sad child, they drum fingers on a table, or get up and pace. Anything but just sitting still talking.

A scene like this can feel very abstract, with no stability for the characters. So, for starters, please let us know where we are at the beginning of a scene. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve written where are we? in comments as I read a manuscript. When I read and have no idea where the characters are located, I’m wondering the whole time. Which means I am not paying attention to your writing or getting absorbed in the story. And if I’m not absorbed in the story, I’m likely to quit reading.