Inter-cutting in Writing

[Sai_dias_29]

I would post this on the editors forum, but I want perspective from writers on this. Is doing an Inter-cut scene possible, in writing? Like how some movie scenes are inter-cut between two different scenes.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I would say it is doable, but much harder to pull off compared to a movie. Each time you switch to a scene, the movie shows you everything and it's easy to keep the dynamics, yet when you are writing you need to describe the new scene and in doing it you can lose a lot of dynamics.

 

[Sai_dias_29]

I would say it is doable, but much harder to pull off compared to a movie. Each time you switch to a scene, the movie shows you everything and it's easy to keep the dynamics, yet when you are writing you need to describe the new scene and in doing it you can lose a lot of dynamics.

I figured as much. I've been wondering how would it work, because inter-cut scenes would work amazingly in time-travel related stories.

 

[XerXesXu]

I would post this on the editors forum, but I want perspective from writers on this. Is doing an Inter-cut scene possible, in writing? Like how some movie scenes are inter-cut between two different scenes.

I‘ve done it. I used the commentary on a live event, being broadcast on television and being watched simultaneously in various locations, to establish continuity. I indicated a change of place and time zone simply by heading each scene with the place and local time.

 

[SamScribble]

Yes. It's possible. The 'trick' is to ensure that each scene is shown through the eyes of just one clearly-identified character.

 

[NotWise]

I did it in "Finding the Fourth Girl." That was in third person, so seeing it through the eyes of one character wasn't a thing. I used a scene break ("* * *" in my case) to offset each of the three cut-in scenes. The readers haven't complained.

 

[KeithD]

I‘ve done it. I used the commentary on a live event, being broadcast on television and being watched simultaneously in various locations, to establish continuity. I indicated a change of place and time zone simply by heading each scene with the place and local time.

I've done something similar to this a few times in sex scenes where they're doing it to a porn video and it's revealed that one of the video stars is doing it in real time while watching themselves having done it in the video.

 

[Sai_dias_29]

I‘ve done it. I used the commentary on a live event, being broadcast on television and being watched simultaneously in various locations, to establish continuity. I indicated a change of place and time zone simply by heading each scene with the place and local time.

Can I know what story it was?

 

[Sai_dias_29]

I've done something similar to this a few times in sex scenes where they're doing it to a porn video, and it's revealed that one of the video stars is doing it in real time while watching themselves having done it in the video.

What was the story's name?

 

[XerXesXu]

Can I know what story it was?

It's not Lit material. I keep my pen names separate.

 

[yukonnights]

* Scene One: Durango Colorado 1973 - The Sting of Rejection - The Hope of Our Beginning
* Scene Two: Our Journey Begins - Into The Mountains, Taking A Chance On Each Other

And so on .... I've done story breaks as above in a number of stories. It works in getting you out of one setting to the next without a lot of extra story text. Something like this can be crafted to the author's taste.

 

[KeithD]

What was the story's name?

If you can’t read Gay Male, you’ll just have to take these as examples:

The first time I used the motif at Literotica was in a chapter in a GM vampire serial posted under my alt account of sr71plt. In a segment called “Gaity Theater Revival” (Vampire LaCour's 2nd Coming Ch. 08 - Gay Male - Literotica.com), a porn actor goes to a gay theater and pickup venue in New Orleans and is taken there by a vampire while a porn film he was in is showing on the screen. The move toward climax on the screen is coordinated with the move to being drained in the theater.

The motif plays a part in a GM Christmas story of last year, “Stranger at the Door” (Page 2 - Stranger at the Door - Gay Male - Literotica.com). In this story, a stranger shows up at a young hiding-out male prostitute’s ski resort house door in the snow claiming to have had a car accident and worms his way into the house and puts the moves on the protagonist. Progressively, it becomes known that the stranger knows who the protagonist is and what he would do and isn’t there by accident, and one of the clues to that is that the stranger picks out a porn film the protagonist was in for them to have sex to.

More recently, I used the motif in a Lit. summer contest story, “One-Summer Stand” (One-Summer Stand - Transgender & Crossdressers - Literotica.com) in which a former porn star, now stage show designer, goes to Savannah, Georgia, on a sabbatical and, while there, gets introduced to male-to-female transgenders, taking one home, where they have sex with one of his own movies showing on the screen.

My current Winter Holidays contest entry, “Daddy Issues” (Daddy Issues - Gay Male - Literotica.com), folds a similar motif into the theme by having the protag who is stuck on daddy issues move into a relationship with someone his own age with a record going in the background of a quartet his father sang in. So, even when he’s pulling away from needing a daddy, a connection to his real daddy who is part of his daddy issues problem is playing in the background.

I think I've used the motif more than that, but others don't spring readily to mind.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I put a break in between scenes. Like this.
------------------------------------
Then I usually follow it with dialog.
"Whoa! Wrong hole!" Cindy exclaimed abruptly.
This brings the reader back to where ever Cindy was before someone tried a backdoor entry.

In the case of trying to interject say ... a memory. I'd end a scene with,
Cindy remembered the last time that fucker said, "Trust me, you'll like this."
-------------------------------------
"Hey there, shweet thang."
Joe Bob rolled up on his tractor, in his best bib overalls with a six pack of PBR. Cindy knew he had romance on his mind.

Is this the type of inter-cut you're referring to?

 

[CuttingEdge]

I have done it as well, but it is not easy. In my case it was a real novel and not erotica, but I had three inter-cuts to make just because i needed to wrap up a lot of loose ends, and wanted to do it quickly for the reader.

As another person on here did; I did it through a news anchor talking on a running television set that the characters could see. It worked well enough, and no readers have complained. I did spend a lot of time writing that chapter however to ensure it was correct.

It's not easy to pull off, but doable.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I've done it, sometimes more smoothly than others. That word "Meanwhile," has done some heavy lifting!

One story wasn't as tidy as I liked, but I felt the content of the different sections was the important bit, so I published once it was functional. It went, roughly:
What I (Laura) didn't know, was that Richie had been talking to Andy.
Asterisk to mark a section break - something I try to use very sparingly.
Andy? Rich asked. (so readers know who's talking to whom) You'd like to fuck Laura, wouldn't you?
Well, duh.
(Outline of plans for a very m-f-m threesome, though Andy thinks Richie is mad)
Asterisk again.
Back to Laura and Richie, going to bed, hearing Andy, Richie invites him in, with reader knowing what the men know and that she doesn't know their plans...
(Educating Laura Ch.3)