Why Great Prose Still Falls Flat

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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.

The Real Cause Of Flat Scenes

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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

Free Guide For Better Scenes

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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 savannagilbo.com forward slash scene. Alright, now let's dive into the episode, starting with a quick definition of what a value shift actually

What A Value Shift Means

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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 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. They might go from feeling disconnected to someone to feeling more bonded or more connected, or they might go from feeling in control to feeling completely overwhelmed. Either way, no matter how you describe it, that movement from one thing to another is the value shift. And value shifts matter because stories are built on change. That is true at the big picture story level, and it's true at the level of every single scene in your book. If nothing changes in a scene, then functionally nothing has happened. And if nothing has happened, your reader might start to wonder why this scene is even in your book in the first place. Now, this doesn't mean that every scene needs to include a massive plot twist, a big death, a confession, or any kind of dramatic reveal or anything like that. Quiet scenes, conversation-heavy scenes, scenes that are a little bit more interior, all of these can absolutely work and have value shifts. So again, just to be clear, we're not talking only about big flashy scenes, we're talking about every single scene. And in every single scene, something meaningful needs to change from beginning to end. That could be your character's situation, their emotional state, their relationship with someone else, their understanding of something, their options change, or maybe the stakes change. Okay, so the point is not to make every scene have this giant loud arc of change. The point is to make every scene matter with a meaningful arc

Meaningful Change Depends On Genre

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of change. Now, speaking of having a meaningful arc of change, this is where a lot of writers get tripped up because a scene can technically include change and still not be doing any meaningful story work. So let me give you an example of what I mean by that. Let's say you're writing a romance and you have a scene where your protagonist meets her best friend for lunch. Technically, at the beginning of the scene, she comes into it hungry, right? They're going to eat lunch. Then you could say by the end of the scene she's full because they've now eaten a big lunch. So technically, something did change. She went from being hungry to being full. But here's where this idea of value shifts gets really interesting. Because unless that lunch changes something that matters to the big picture story, then the scene probably isn't pulling its weight the way that it's written. Because this lunch scene where she's meeting her best friend, if it's not affecting the relationship arc, if it's not changing the protagonist's romantic options, if it's not revealing anything important or increasing the stakes, then it's not really moving the central romance story forward or backward. So yes, there is a change, but the change isn't meaningful to that particular story. And this is where knowing your story genre can really help. Because your story genre tells you what kind of change that readers are ultimately tracking. In something like a romance, that change is really obvious, right? Readers are tracking whether or not your characters are going to get together and get there happily ever after or not. So they're tracking that movement toward or away from love. In a mystery story, readers are tracking the movement toward or away from finding out who done it or getting the truth, right? So every scene is moving them closer to or further from uncovering the bad guy and bringing them to justice. In something like an action story, readers are really invested in and tracking the character's movement toward safety or toward danger, because there are life and death stakes. So we want to know is the character going to survive this story or this plot or this antagonist, or are they going to die trying, right? So again, this is where knowing your genre can help. I'm going to link to an episode in the show notes that's all about genre. It's episode 191 and it's called fiction genres made easy, understanding the five dimensions of genre. So if you're not sure what your genre is, go take a listen to that episode or read the blog post that goes along with it and start by identifying your genre first. All right, so back to scenes and back to value shifts. When you're looking at any one of your scenes, you're not just looking for did something change. I actually want you to ask a better and more purposeful question that is, did something change in this scene that matters to the bigger story? Because that's the difference between a scene where something happens and a scene that actually moves the story forward.

Three Questions To Test Any Scene

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Okay, so now that we know what a value shift is and why it matters, let's talk about how to check your scenes for value shifts. So let's say that you're looking at a scene and maybe it's a scene that feels flat, or maybe you're just going through your book and you're going to revise every single scene in your draft. Either way, there are three questions that I would recommend asking of your scenes. So number one is, does something change in this scene? So start with the simplest question. And I want you to just look at the beginning of the scene and at the end of the scene and ask whether anything meaningful has changed. So is your protagonist in a different situation? Do they have new information? Did they lose or gain an opportunity? Did a relationship shift? Did the danger increase? Did their confidence crumble or their understanding of the bigger problem? Maybe did that change? You know, just think about what's different from the beginning of the scene to the end of the scene. And if the answer is no, if the scene essentially ends in the same place that it started, then that's probably why it feels flat, because there's no arc of change. Okay, so start with question one. Does something change in the scene? And then question two is what changes? So once you're confident that something meaningful does change, I want you to try to name the shift as simply as possible. So did your character go from being safe to being in danger? Did they maybe go from trusting someone to being suspicious of someone? Did they enter the scene feeling hopeful and now they're exiting the scene feeling disappointed? Did they come in with confusion about something and now they're walking out with clarity? Did they feel indifferent to somebody and maybe now they're a little bit more attracted to them? Did they feel in control in the beginning of the scene and now they feel out of control? You know, things like that. So just try to describe what changed as simply as possible. And I really want you to hear me on this. This is really important. You do not need to get the wording perfect or search endlessly for the perfect word to describe your arc of change. This is where a lot of writers freeze and get stuck because they think there must be one correct way to name the value shift. And if they can't find the perfect words, they must be doing it wrong. But I really want you to hear me. The exact wording matters far less than identifying the movement, okay? So do not aim for the perfect word or the perfect way to describe the value shift. It really doesn't matter. I just want you to identify that there is an arc of change and also what changed. Okay, now a little caveat here because what I do want you to watch out for is whether the two sides of the shift are speaking to each other. So if your scene is built on an emotional shift, I want you to name the emotional movement on both sides of the change. So your character maybe went from feeling confident to feeling embarrassed, right? Those are on the same spectrum of values, meaning that they are both emotions. So, in other words, what I'm trying to say is try not to mix two different kinds of change into one value shift. So you wouldn't want to write something like, my character goes from feeling safe to feeling embarrassed, because one is about physical safety and the other is about emotion, right? They're not the same type of shift, and they're actually pointing to two different types of change within your scene, which is not a bad thing. But the reason I'm calling this out is because sometimes writers will say, okay, well, I have a value shift here. My character goes from feeling safe to feeling embarrassed. And then I look at their draft and I say, okay, I can clearly see that she moves from being relatively safe to more in danger by the end of the scene. That arc is really clear. But what maybe isn't as clear is that emotional change. So maybe it's true that the character ends the scene feeling embarrassed, but the opposite side of that emotion was never set up in the beginning of the scene. And so maybe that is why the scene reads flat because the character has essentially been embarrassed the entire scene, right? So I want you to keep an eye out for that in your draft as well. Okay, so again, you might have multiple shifts that are important. You might have one that's a little bit more external, one that's a little bit more internal, one that has to do with relationships, if relationships factor really importantly into your story and things like that. Okay, so again, we want to identify what changes. Do not try to get the wording perfect because that doesn't matter as much as just identifying what changes and making sure that you're tracking the same type of movement from beginning to end. So again, if you're tracking an emotional shift, you want to make sure that you can see both sides of that emotional shift in your scene. If you're writing something that's like physical danger and they go from safe to danger, you want to make sure you can see both sides of that shift in your scene. If you have a scene where your character is learning information, maybe they were unaware of it at the start and they're aware of it at the end, you just want to make sure again that you have both sides of that shift in your scene. So hopefully that makes sense. I'll say it one more time. You just want to track what changes and make sure that the change you're identifying happens on the same kind of spectrum. All right, so that's question two. And then question three is why does this change matter? And this is the most important one. So once you've named the shift or identified the shift in your scene, and again, maybe there's a few of them, that's okay. I want you to zoom out and ask, why does this scene or this arc of change within the scene matter to the larger story? So does it move your character closer to or further from their goal? Does it affect your story's major dramatic question? Is it helping to answer that for the reader? Does it change the stakes? Does it change the protagonist's options, a key relationship, the danger level, the internal pressure of the story, you know, things like that? And if you can confidently answer yes to this question, so yes, it matters, or here's why it matters to the bigger story, then your scene is likely in pretty good shape and it's clear that your scene has a job. Now, if you've identified that there is no arc of change, or that maybe there is an arc of change in your scene, but it's kind of weak, or maybe it doesn't add up to the bigger picture, then you know that that scene needs work, or maybe it needs to be trimmed. Okay, so it's not always like you have to cut a scene that doesn't quite work yet with a good arc of change. Sometimes you will for sure, but other times it's just okay, it's not currently working, so how can I make it work? And maybe that means refocusing and making sure that arc of change comes through really clearly. Other times that might mean combining it or kind of layering that scene's events with another scene, or again, it might just mean cutting it. So that's question three. Why does this arc of change matter to the bigger story?

Lunch Scene Rewrite That Works

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All right, now I want to walk you through a simple example so that you can kind of see how this works in real time. So let's go back to the scene I was talking about earlier where two characters are going to lunch. So in the first version, I talked about a character who meets her friend for lunch, they chat, they eat, they catch up, whatever. At the beginning, she's hungry, and by the end, she's full, right? Hungry to full is a real change. But if I'm writing romance, it doesn't matter to the bigger picture. It doesn't move the love story forward or backward, it doesn't complicate the protagonist's emotional journey, and it doesn't change what the reader is tracking or caring about. So the scene is going to feel flat or skippable. Okay, now imagine a revised version of this scene where it's the same setup. Protagonist meets her friend for lunch, but this time the friend brings along her cousin who is in town for the week. The protagonist is not looking for anything romantic, maybe she's even sworn off dating, maybe she's still a little hurt from a past relationship, and or maybe she's convinced she doesn't have time for love right now because she's pursuing her career. But over lunch, something unexpected happens because she and the cousin hit it off. Nothing huge, no dramatic confession, no fireworks, just a little flicker of curiosity or attraction that she didn't expect to feel. All right, so now this scene starts with a sense of indifference or kind of just not even knowing this cousin exists, right? And it ends with a sense of intrigue or attraction or however you want to describe that, right? And this type of shift actually matters because it nudges that romantic question. It brings the characters together, it affects the emotional state, her options in regards to love, and possibly the direction of the love story. All right, so same basic setup, same lunch, but now the scene has a job and it matters to the bigger story. And this is the power of identifying the value shift in your scenes. It can really help you see the difference between a scene where activity just happens and a scene where meaningful story change happens. And it's a very useful tool when you're editing, whether you're editing your whole book or just a particular scene that feels

When Scenes Feel Thin Or Repetitive

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flat. All right, now let's talk about what to do if you have a scene that you have identified a value shift in that scene, but it still feels thin. Because sometimes this happens. Sometimes a scene does have a value shift, but it feels thin or repetitive or maybe one-dimensional. Now, when this happens, the problem might not be that nothing is changing in your scene, because again, you have identified that there is a value shift, but something still feels off. In this situation, the problem might be that the same kind of change keeps happening over and over and over again. Okay, so let me give you an example. Let's say you're writing an action story and you have seven scenes in a row where the primary shift is some version of your protagonist going from safety to danger. Technically, all of those scenes have movement. The protagonist is repeatedly put in danger, things are happening, the plot is moving, and you've successfully identified a value shift that is genre appropriate in each one of those seven scenes. But if that is the only kind of change you're spotlighting over those seven scenes, the reading experience can start to feel really tedious and the scenes are going to start blurring together because they're all kind of pulling at that same lever. So if you found yourself in a situation like I just described, what I want you to do is look under the surface of what's happening and see if you can kind of highlight something else that's going on in that scene. Because most strong scenes have one primary shift on the surface, so something that you can kind of see very obviously, and then at least one supporting shift underneath the surface. So something changes externally, again, like maybe your character goes from being safe to being in danger by the end of the scene, but you can also play on other shifts as well. So something changing emotionally, internally, or maybe in a relationship or whatever it is, right? So you have all of these different levers that you can play with. And I want to quickly talk through an example from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone because there is a really good example of this when a troll gets let loose in the castle, and Harry and Ron realize that Hermione doesn't know there's a troll in the castle. So she was missing from dinner, they realize she's locked herself in the girl's bathroom, and the troll is headed that way, and they have to go rescue her. Okay, so on the surface, that scene moves them from being safe to being in danger, right? Because they are technically safe in the great hall while eating dinner, and then they put themselves in danger to go rescue Hermione. So they leave the safety of the Great Hall, they go after Hermione and put themselves directly in harm's way. And that's the external shift of the scene, and it definitely matters. But the scene doesn't only matter because of that interaction saving Hermione from the troll. It also changes the relationship between the three kids. Because before this moment, Harry and Ron are not friends with Hermione. They actually find her pretty annoying and kind of like a know-it-all. But after they save her from the troll and they all kind of defeat the troll together, and Hermione lies to protect Harry and Ron, their relationship shifts and they become friends. So there is a relationship shift underneath the surface of saving Hermione from the troll. And that supporting relationship shift matters because the friendship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione is essential to the rest of the story and Harry's ability to defeat Voldemort. All right, so the key takeaway here is that if you have a scene in your draft where technically change is present, but it still feels thin, I want you to look at what kind of change you're spotlighting in that moment. And if the shift or arc of change is only external or if it's too similar to the scenes around it, then you might need to create more meaningful movement underneath the surface.

Recap And Next Steps

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All right, now let me do a quick recap of the key points because I know we just went through a lot. I think this is one of those episodes where you might want to listen to it a few times, maybe take some notes. But let me go through the key points quickly and then I have a few more things I want to talk about before we wrap up. So key point number one, we talked about what a value shift is, and this is essentially just a way of describing the change that happens from the beginning of your scene to the end of your scene. And ideally, every scene in your story would have an arc of meaningful change. So meaningful change just means it touches on the big picture of your story and moves it forward. Key point number two is that my favorite exercise for finding value shifts in your scenes is to ask one, does something change in this scene? Two, what exactly changes? And again, remember you want to make sure the two sides of that shift or that arc of change are speaking to each other. So if you're naming an emotional shift, you want to look for the emotions on both sides. If you're naming something that's more like physical danger, you want to make sure the movement on each side is tied to physical danger. And then number three, why does this change matter to the bigger story? And remember, if you can clearly answer these questions and if you can prove that your scene matters to the bigger story, then your scene is probably in pretty good shape. If you can't clearly answer these questions, then you know exactly what to work on in revision. And then lastly, key point number three is if you can identify an arc of change and or a value shift, and maybe it just feels a little flat or it feels too similar to the surrounding scenes, then just see if you can either identify or add another type of value shift in the scene to kind of mix things up a little bit. Or if you already have multiple value shifts or multiple things that change in the scene, see if you can spotlight one of those so that your scene feels different to what's around it. All right, now hopefully you can see what makes value shifts and understanding value shifts such a powerful tool for revision. It can really help you take that vague, frustrating feeling of, oh, my scene just isn't working and turn it into a specific, answerable question. Is there an arc of change? If so, what has changed and why does that change matter? And once you can answer that question again, whether positively or negatively, you are not guessing anymore. You are revising with a purpose and with a direction to head in. Now, to wrap this up, here's what I want you to do with what you've learned in today's episode. Spotting a value shift in one scene is something that you can absolutely learn to do on your own, and I really hope you give it a try this week. But if you want to go deeper into learning how to write a scene that works, then I want you to go download my free guide that walks you through how to write strong scenes. It explains the five elements that every scene needs in order to work and to create that value shift that we talked about today. And it shows you all five of those things plus the value shift in action by breaking down the opening scene of the Hunger Games so you can see exactly how a published author pulls it off. So head over to savanna gilbo.com forward slash scene to get your free copy of my writing scenes that work guide. One more time, that's savanna gilbo.com forward slash scene, and we will drop that link for you in the show notes as well. All right, so that's it for today's episode. As always, thank you so much for tuning in. I hope your writing is going well, and I will talk to you next week.