: Re: How do you assess the value of an individual scene? Authors need to understand which scenes in their stories to cut in order to help the reader enjoy the story best. Knowing what works for

@Steve161

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You can indeed distil a story only to the scenes essential to plot progression. This is the trend of modern-day literature, perhaps influenced by the way movies are made. However, one of the differences between a movie and a book is that you are not expected to experience a whole book, start to finish, in one go. It ths has no time constraint. It can be as long as you please, offering you moments of contemplation, deviating into reflection or philosophy, and so on.

Furthermore, since a book is a media of words, not images, what in a film might be established by way of a glance and a gesture, might need a dedicated scene in a book. A scene which would appear not to progress the plot in any way, but only let us "feel" the character and the world a bit more.

Here are some examples, from literature classics.

What purpose does Tom Bombadil serve in the overarching narrative of the Lord of the Rings? He doesn't progress the Ring-destruction and Sauron-fighting in any way. Yet Tolkien devotes a wholechapter to the Hobbits sitting in his house and doing nothing.
Why do we need to know the background, character and past deeds of Bishop Myriel, prior to his charitable act towards Jean Valjean in Les Misérables? It is only his act of kindness that is relevant, not the several chapters of his life.
What does the reader gain from the excerpts from Yuri's diary in Dr. Zhivago, in which he discusses passages from Yevgeni Onegin? What does that advance?

The answer, I think, goes beyond "flavour", "comic relief", etc. A book isn't just about following the plot from point A to point B. Point A and point B needn't even be important. It's about the road(s) we, as readers, travel between those two points; the sights we see, the thoughts we think, the emotions we experience. The question you should be asking isn't whether a particular scene advances the plot, but whether it offers the reader something, anything, that he would not otherwise see. (As well as whether the overall story moves at the speed you want it to. If it doesn't, you might want to move a scene elsewhere in the story.) Imagine yourself on a hike: a detour to see a rare flower in bloom would not bring you any closer to the mountain peak you're trying to reach, but you wouldn't want to miss those flowers, would you?

Furthering this idea, if you look at the literature of Malot, Hugo, Tolstoy, Pasternak, and more, there is the plot, and then there are many many scenes that do not directly promote the plot, but work as tiny jigsaw pieces, that together form the world and the characters and the journey you are undertaking with them. Any one of those scenes seems to be nothing. Together they form a whole. The story is in fact, not only about the characters, but about their larger circumstance. (Hugo and Tolstoy further digress into lengthy philosophical discussions of that circumstance, what the world is and what it should be. Because it isn't about the plot.)

And then there are the literary works where there isn't even a plot, really - only the sights along the way. What is the "plot" of the Divine Comedy? Or of Don Quixote? The "plot" is only a framing device, for the little scenes, the little stories along the way.

Which is to say, no, don't feel compelled to remove a scene because it doesn't move your main plot forward. Rather than asking what the scene doesn't do, ask what it does. Does it evoke something you want evoked? Does it insert an idea into your work that you want there? Does it add depth, or breadth to the story you're telling? Or does it do nothing at all, except slowing everything down?

If you are still unsure about a particular scene, you can try reading the chapter with and without it, see what reads better.

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