: Re: How to write a good prison scene I'm attempting to write one or two chapters with one of my main characters in a jail cell. It's important to the character development that he is isolated

It's important to the character development that he is isolated for an extended period of time, antagonized by others and also made to feel powerless.

If your character is stuck in one spot, antagonized by his enemies, and isolated from his allies, that sounds like quite a bit to go on.

He can't get out. How does he know? He has to try. So he tries a number of ways to escape. They all fail. Or more dramatically, one has a delayed success (which is the way he gets out at the end of this section).
He's isolated from his allies. Next he tries to send a message. Each way is blocked, or doesn't work, or just isn't feasible.
He's antagonized by his enemies. There may not be other prisoners there, but there can sure be jailors, leaders of his enemies, professional torturers. People come and go to torment him, or to offer false hope (he tries to get a message out through a guard who seems sympathetic, and then two scenes later finds out that the guard destroyed the message). And why can't there be other prisoners? Other people who aren't his allies or enemies but other victims, who are also being tortured?
He feels powerless. See the false hope above, and also the inability to help the other prisoners.

Your concern is that you don't want to spend two continuous chapters in this guy's head. So don't. Do other things with him.

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: Re: How to write a good prison scene I'm attempting to write one or two chapters with one of my main characters in a jail cell. It's important to the character development that he is isolated

More posts by @Debbie451

: Your narrator compares herself to others. I met Sandy at the coffee shop. I towered over her by a full head. Cheap and simple: Your narrator looks at himself in a mirror. In the

: Chicago-style "additional resources" at end of chapter I'm writing a physics Ph.D. thesis in Chicago style and I'd like to include an "additional resources" section at the end of each chapter.

: Describing the differences between languages To help create descriptive differences in the way my characters talk I am looking for a list of how each language sounds. For example the German language

: This sounds like a blunt-instrument extreme variation of "Kill your darlings." The idea behind kill your darlings is that sometimes we as writers fall too much in love with our own voices.

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