How long do you spend writing a scene

GoldenCojones

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So I've been writing the same party scene for about two weeks now. It's not the whole story, it is just one scene where there is a party going on. I know I'm a slow assed writer but when I finished writing tonight and still hadn't finished the damned scene I got to wondering. How long do other writers on Lit take to write a scene?

So what's your story.

In my defense this party scene is now well over 10 Word pages long and I keep going back and reworking sections to make it all make sense.
 
You answered your own question, I think. It depends on how long the scene goes. But to tell you the truth, I can write a novel in two weeks.
 
I have just finished writing a scene. It's 127 words long. It took me a little over five minutes. I too am a slow writer. :)
 
Depends on the complexity and number of characters and length of scene and if the Muse is being a dick or not.

Sounds like your scene is big so it makes sense it takes more time.

I sometimes write and rewrite and then write a completely different scene. Othertimes it just flows out. Hours or weeks.
 
Don't feel bad about it, I've spent the last ten weeks writing my first story and It's still not done. I just past 10000 words tonight. Maybe another 4 or 5 weeks and I'll have it done lol.
 
Sometimes a year, sometimes five minutes. How do you define 'scene'?
 
So many variables. I have finished some scenes in 10 minutes or less. Of course they were only a paragraph long, maybe 5-6 sentences.

Then there are the scenes that run for 5 - 6 pages. Hour or so of writing. Then another 5 - 10 minutes of editing.

I usually have the scenes, chapters and so forth worked out in my head before I even get to typing them up, so getting them on paper as it were is a short term thing. All the thinking about them, might take a couple nights as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep.
 
Scene

I to to figure out who is in the scene and use the format I have for the story. For example one of my stories everyone has a discipline scene followed by a sensual scene and then a sex scene.( spaced well apart of course.)
Then I close my eyes and think who would say what to who and how that character would respond.

Then you can clean it up and flesh it out from there. It will at least make a framework to get your brain thinking about it.the party
In addition, you may want to make a scene right before the party. If your party is a toga party you can go into the preparations and how naughty all the ladies made
their costumes. Then you can explain all the debauchery there is at the party to add some details

Have a rainbow party with the Host or have the Host have a "First Night" with the slut of his or her choosing.

If you are really stuck use pen and paper to write ideas down. I find I never know where the story is headed. Don't worry if the story is not going they way you thought it would, give it a chance. You can always go back.

I one time wrote a character almost all the way out of my story then sprang the surprise with 4 pages to go..
 
Yesterday I read a scene that took a whole chapter. The cops found a body buried beneath a concrete floor. Scenes use as much space as they need.
 
Sometimes I write scenes quickly, sometimes painfully slowly. Its somewhat dependent on my mood but more often it has to do with the scene itself. I tend to have a point (the same point) in every story i get completely stuck on.
 
Sometimes a year, sometimes five minutes. How do you define 'scene'?
I define "Scene" basically as one continuous self-contained block in a story without any major breaks in time or shifts in location or cast. Sometimes a story is only a single scene. The story I'm currently writing is becoming very large and has many scenes.

Thanks to everyone who responded. This was just an idle wonder. I knew from the start there would be a large variety of answers, and you guys never disappoint :)
 
A scene is a unit of story that takes place at a specific location and time. If one of these changes, you have a new scene.
 
So I've been writing the same party scene for about two weeks now. It's not the whole story, it is just one scene where there is a party going on. I know I'm a slow assed writer but when I finished writing tonight and still hadn't finished the damned scene I got to wondering. How long do other writers on Lit take to write a scene?

So what's your story.

In my defense this party scene is now well over 10 Word pages long and I keep going back and reworking sections to make it all make sense.

My recent story, "Avril's Fool," was started on January 19 and submitted on March 8th. For grins and giggles, I did the math for how much time I put into those 27K worth of imperfect words. It's reasonable to believe I put 70 hours worth of work into it for an average of 6.4 words per minute.

I often find myself chasing a dead-end when I'm writing. Sometimes it helps to accept whatever you've written so far and forge ahead until you get to the end. One you see the entire story, you can go back and edit.
 
Recently I spent over 20 hours on a scene that was maybe 8 short paragraphs. I wrote it fast enough, but I decided something was wrong. I diddled it. Still wrong. The main character wasn't acting right. I diddled, diddled... and the story wouldn't make progress until I fixed this scene. I diddled more...

Finally I recognised what was going on, and cut the scene entirely. The rest of the story went smoothly after that.

I can't call it a rule of thumb, but I'm learning that when a scene is going slowly, the problem is less likely to be the writing than the concept itself.

But for the OP's party scene, I can see why that would go slow. Parties are busy places, lots of interactions, and a character's attention might flit all over the place. It's a lot of description.
 
How long is string?

I recently got bogged down in a piece, i wanted to describe all the interactions of numerous parties. It ran on so much i lost interest in it. Added paragraph at a time over a few days.

After leaving it sit for a day or two, and moving ahead in the story, I came back to it and it was all superfluous to the plot. I hacked out more than five pages of intricate dribble that did nothing but sidetrack attention.

It was only there because I was enjoying the distraction.
 
How long is string?

I recently got bogged down in a piece, i wanted to describe all the interactions of numerous parties. It ran on so much i lost interest in it. Added paragraph at a time over a few days.

After leaving it sit for a day or two, and moving ahead in the story, I came back to it and it was all superfluous to the plot. I hacked out more than five pages of intricate dribble that did nothing but sidetrack attention.

It was only there because I was enjoying the distraction.

I can easily see that happening. This party in my story is actually one of the plot apexes where the main protagonist is forced to look at what she is doing, much her chagrin. It is where the second main shift occurs in her thinking, even if her actions are a little slow to follow, as happens with people from time to time. However, there is probably a LOT of action that could be decluttered from it to make it go faster. I'll have to go back and look at that once I've finally finished writing it.

Ah, well, back to grindstone :)
 
I am very leery of getting bogged down with one scene. Some people feel the need to get it right before they can move on, but I need to get the bones down then go back and edit the hell out of it. I think you do whatever works for you. Different writing processes work for different people.
 
I don't have a definitive answer, because it varies wildly. But I do have an observation or two about party scenes.

I loooove party scenes! They're complicated and multi-threaded, you can squeeze in amazing amounts of very hot sex and get a YUUUUGE amount of plot work done, and readers adore them. In a multi-chapter work, a chapter with a party in it is generally one of my most read and highest rated.

So I believe the answer, for a party scene especially, is however long it takes to get it right.

Because party scenes are totally worth it.
 
Scenes are usually easy to write. It's the transition between scenes that causes me trouble, but right now something different is happening.

I'm faced with a scene that is very tensely emotional. I wrote it originally with the guy blasting through the emotional aspects and making things happen. I couldn't write on after that point because there were too many things not resolved and because of the change of seasons and demands at work. Now -- more than a month later -- I'm stuck in time, trying to bring both of the main characters into sync and to resolve the story.

The scene will get written eventually but it's time to move on to something else.
 
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Kathy

Doesn't take me long. All of the stories I've published on literotica are about me. I wrote in diaries when I was a teen and later in a computer diary. I have always been pretty desciptive in my diaries. So it's just a matter of writing it into a story. It's that darn grammer especially that ( , ) comma that drives me crazy. LOL
 
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