#252. Value Shifts: How to Tell if a Scene Is Working (or Falling Flat)
episode
Fiction Writing Made Easy with Savannah Gilbo | How to Write a Novel & Writing Advice
24 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why does a scene feel flat even when the prose seems fine?
Writing a novel can feel frustrating when you keep getting stuck in the same patterns, whether that's struggling to find time, rewriting the same chapters, or getting overwhelmed by too much advice. To help you out, I created a free guide called Five Writing Roadblocks Keeping You Stuck and How to Break Through. This guide will help you identify what's really slowing you down and find a clearer path forward. You can grab that for free at savannagilbo.com forward. slash roadblocks. One more time that's savanna gilbo.com forward slash roadblocks. We will also put that link for you in the show notes. Now let's get into the episode. You finish a draft, you're reading it back, and you hit a scene that just feels flat.
Now maybe the dialogue's fine, the line by line writing might even sound pretty good, but for some reason it doesn't have the same pull as all the other scenes around it, and you can't figure out why. So you do what most writers do and you start tinkering. You sharpen the dialogue, you trim a paragraph, and you try to make the prose punchier, but the scene just still feels flat. Well, in this episode, I'm gonna show you why that happens, why flat scenes are almost never a prose problem, and give you a single question you can ask that tells you whether a scene is actually doing its job or whether it's just taking up space. Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo and I'm here to help you write a story that works.
I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming. So each week I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable, and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started. I was talking to a writer recently who was feeling super frustrated with the scene in her manuscript that she'd written and rewritten multiple times. She knew exactly what needed to happen in that scene, and she'd been told by her critique partners that her line-by-line writing was lovely. But she couldn't figure out why this particular scene was giving her so much trouble on the page, and she couldn't quite figure out why the way she'd written it didn't match what she saw in her head.
But when I read Through her scene, I knew exactly what the problem was, and I knew what she could do to start troubleshooting it. So I told her, I said, the problem isn't actually your writing because her scene was technically well written at the line-by-line level. The real problem was that the scene had no value shift. So, in other words, nothing meaningful changed in that scene, and it felt really lackluster compared to the scenes around it. And so today I want to walk you through how to spot this in your own draft and what to do if and when you spot a flat scene in your draft. But before we dive into that, let me quickly tell you about a free resource I have that will help you write better scenes.
It's a free multi-page guide that will teach you the structure behind strong scenes. And you can grab a copy for free at savanagilbo.com forward slash scene. Alright, now let's dive into the episode, starting with a quick definition of what a value shift actually is. And a value shift is really just a way to describe the change that happens from the beginning of a scene to the end of a scene. So, in other words, the scene starts in one way and it ends in another, and the value shift is just a quick way of describing that change. So, let me give you an example. You might have a scene where a character moves
What exactly is a “value shift” and why is it essential for every scene?
From being relatively safe to being endangered by the antagonist. You might have a scene where a character moves from feeling hopeful to feeling disappointed. Or maybe they go from trusting somebody to being suspicious of that person. Maybe they start a scene confused and by the end they have learned some key knowledge, so now they're informed of something.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why does a scene feel flat even when the prose seems fine?
0:00–3:20
2
What exactly is a “value shift” and why is it essential for every scene?
3:20–6:28
3
How can a scene have change but still not move the story forward?
6:28–9:07
4
What are the three diagnostic questions to uncover a scene’s value shift?
9:07–11:42
5
Why does the “hungry‑to‑full” lunch scene fail in a romance story?
11:42–14:24
6
How can you strengthen a thin scene by adding supporting value shifts?
14:24–17:06
7
What does the Harry‑Potter troll rescue scene teach about layered value shifts?
17:06–20:38
8
How can you apply the value‑shift checklist to revise or cut weak scenes?
20:38–24:09
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Fiction Writing Made Easy with Savannah Gilbo | How to Write a Novel & Writing Advice
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#260. Student Spotlight: From Stuck at 25k Words to a Finished Draft With Lindsay Sfara
#259. How to Finish a Novel With Kids at Home & Limited Writing Time
#258. 5 Myths Keeping You From Finishing Your First Draft
#257. Stuck in Chapter One or the Messy Middle? What Your Stuck Point Reveals
#256. Why “Just Start Writing” Can Be Terrible Advice for New Writers