Narration Processes: The Setting
Drafting / / July 04, 2021
The beginning of the scene, the second scene and the end can be of quality, treated separately; but the work will not be finished until the rough edges, arising from the combination of the different parts that make it up, have been smoothed out. No rough patches. You must go from one situation to another, in space or time, logically and aesthetically, without noticing the transition.
This problem is perhaps the most complex and difficult of all literary problems. The geniuses of the art of writing solve it naturally. But, unfortunately, no rules can be given about it; Suffice it to say that the personal impulse must be followed and not complicated by polishing our narration by means of darning that can use up the work rather than reinforce it. If we find jumps, let's restart what we wrote, and, possibly, in one attempt it will come out without abrupt cuts.
An example of a well-accomplished scene setting, Dostoevsky shows us in The Idiot:
"People spoke in horror of the number of books the three girls had read. They were in no rush to marry and appeared only very moderately in the social circle to which they belonged. This was most remarkable of all, the purposes, inclinations, character, and desires of his father being conspicuous, as they were.
It was about eleven o'clock, when the prince pressed the bell on the general's door. He lived, on the first floor of his house, a relatively modest apartment for his position in the world. "(Cf. Complementary bibliography, N? 19)
Dostoevsky links, with absolute gentleness, the criticisms made of the sisters and the visit of the prince.