What a Scene Isn’t.
This excerpt is from James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure:
[Start of quote —] Summarizing is when the author tells us what has happened “off scene.” Think of this as the stuff that is not unfolding for the reader in linear time, beat by beat.
A scene is like this:
John took a step toward her.
“Stop,” she said. She picked up a hammer.
Laughing, John shook his head. “That’s pitiful.”
Summarizing would look like this:
He tried to attack her, but she had picked up a hammer. When he laughed about it, she actually used it on him. His headache lasted five weeks.
You use summarizing primarily as a short cut, to get you from scene to scene as quickly as possible. In the following summary, we are in linear time but we’re skipping the beats that would make a scene.
Holding his head, John drove to the hospital. Traffic was terrible. It took him two hours to get there.
Then you get back into a scene:
”Hoo boy, what happened to you?” the nurse said.
“I attacked a hammer with my head,” John said.
— [End of quote]
This topic feels really relevant to me today as I’ve been working on a manuscript assessment for an author who summarizes some plot elements that might shine brighter beat by beat.
How do you decide what gets “airtime” in a scene and what gets summarized? When do you speed up and when do you take your time?
Head to the comments. 
Share your reflections. 
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