S. E. Tykka is a Finnish-American fantasy author writing about power, identity, and belonging. Her debut, Blade and Lyre, is available now.
I work on my scenes in various ways, but one I’ve found useful is to do it in sequences. I start by sketching a chapter summary (four to five sentences that capture the key scenes) and then expand on it.
To demonstrate what I mean, I’ll walk through my approach with my current work-in-progress (Bard and Warlord, the upcoming sequel to my duology).
My main genre is fantasy rather than horror, but I want to ground my stories in reality. Yes, my character might play a magical lyre and her music might achieve the unbelievable, but I’m adamant that ‘fantastical’ needs to be balanced with realism. The better I ground my characters through the senses, the stronger the immersion, which helps with atmosphere and tension.
How it all begins
Here’s my first summary sentence from Chapter 28 (for plot-reveal reasons, I’ll withhold the rest):
At dawn, as the men are reorienting themselves, Trisha rests.
It’s not much, but it gives me the foundation: morning, Trisha alone, while her companions (the men) are getting ready.
My first draft is word vomit. If I start thinking too much about the prose, I lock up, so I force myself to ignore the pace and the prettiness and just jot down the details. I also write in deep third and my MC is a musician; this gives me a perspective through which to filter her surroundings.
Environmental framing
When I started writing the chapter, I decided to change “Trisha rests” to something more active: show Trisha inspecting the village. This allowed me to rely on environmental framing—a method I often use between time jumps. I can start building atmosphere immediately and show that the story has moved forward without telling it.
Draft 1
Dawn’s arrival brought no relief.
The same wind still blew, cold and bitter.
The land remained silent, dead, the pebbles beneath Trisha’s foot grating against dry ground, but even they were off-key. As though all music had been sucked out of the land.
But the worst were the empty houses, their cold hearths, the signs pointing to something that once had been alive. Where there had once been more.
Too long had passed for anything significant to remain. Just echoes of people who once inhabited these lands. Like a song that had silenced too soon.
My confession: I enjoy editing.
It’s delightful to experiment with different approaches, discover what works and what to change as I slowly work toward a more concrete image.
I edit in waves through the scenes to sand off the rough edges, then go around for another pass, adding sensory elements and switching sentence placement. Once I get into the groove, I feel like Superman with X-ray vision, ruthlessly deleting sentences until I’m content with my emotional resonance. (And yes, it may take multiple passes...)
What guides my editing: compression and specificity.
I tightened and reduced auditory descriptions (compression) while highlighting those a musician would focus on (specificity). I tried to come up with tonally displeasing sounds to show that something is “not quite right” (specificity). Describing twice how something has passed away— abandoned houses and silenced song—felt too on-the-nose, so I chose a description that showed it rather than told it (both compression and specificity). In addition, “silenced songs” sounded particularly purple.
I also steal from my abandoned ideas. In the previous chapter, I had already described the village, but because it was a fast-paced scene, the descriptions about the eerie ghost town felt out of place. But they fitted this scene.
Here’s my nearly finished scene:
Dawn’s arrival brought no relief. The same cold wind still blew, bringing salt and sand with it. Its whisper was the only other sound, along with Trisha’s breathing and the pebbles beneath her feet. But even their grinding against the dry ground was off-key, like a knife’s scrape on porcelain.
The empty houses with crumbling walls and their long-cold hearths surrounded her—a testament to something that once was full of life. All that remained were muted echoes: an eroded tin cup, rusted through. A collapsed well in the hamlet’s square, around which the caved-in roofs stood with their dead gardens of lichen and weeds.
Final pass
Even if I move forward, I often come back to assess earlier scenes because I’m blind to my own text. With more time in between, it’s easier to be less partial. Usually, nothing seems glaringly wrong, just slightly off, like a lagging pace or clunky phrases.
The final edits are minor structural and wording adjustments, such as removing unnecessary adjectives and refining cadence and flow.
Considering the time I scrub my writing, it’s no wonder that it takes me well over a year to finish a manuscript.
Finished Scene from Chapter 28
Dawn’s arrival brought no relief. The cold wind carried ice and sand, its whisper mingling with Trisha’s breathing and the crunch beneath her feet. Even the grinding of pebbles against the dry ground was off-key, like a knife scraping against porcelain.
All that remained around her were muted echoes of what had once been alive: a tin cup, rusted through; a collapsed well in the hamlet’s square; and caved-in homes with their gardens of lichen and weeds.
Trisha rolled her neck. The hum of her magic burned in her bones, a restless power wanting release. Quickly, she snuffed it out. Not because of Blainor’s warning. Those houses with empty windows watched, waiting. Beneath her, the land lay still.
She turned around. They couldn’t leave Minnerath behind soon enough.
Conclusions
You can’t edit a blank page is a cliché because it’s true—your first sentence doesn’t need to be good. It only needs to exist. Tension, atmosphere, and pacing are achieved through different methods. I’ve highlighted some I’m fond of: environmental framing, deep-third perspective, compression, and specificity.
I’m hopeful that something here will help you on your writing path!
Thank you for reading!
If you found this article useful, feel free to share it or leave a comment: let us know how you edit your scenes and what kind of tricks you use in your own writing.