Scene Transitions: Avoiding sameyness for scenes occurring in otherwise routine life?

[TheExperimentalist]

Just to be clear, the scenes themselves and the progression in the characters' relationships are far from samey, it's just the contexts in which the scenes begin or take place that happen over and over. Let's face it, life is full of repetitive stuff, and many of the most profound relationship moments happen in the midst of doing those mundane things that we've done a thousand times before and will do a thousand times more.

I'm having this issue with a few WIPs at the moment. It's happening largely with my T/I stories that take place mostly at home, with the characters developing feelings concurrently with living their usual, routine lives. However, I would imagine that it could happen with other genres as well. For instance, I could imagine an office romance involving a lot of "during the next weekly review, it wasn't just my eye she caught, but my leg under the table with her bare calf" or whatever.

Just to elaborate on what I mean, in one WIP, I have two characters who are working on a material project during the day, and relaxing on the couch with video games each evening. The story is something of a slow burn, taking place over the course of several weeks. There are a number of emotional progressions that occur due to working together, and several moments where they become physically closer and bolder as they cuddle together while gaming. These developments are interspersed with each other, jumping between important moments during the day, important moments during the night, and more generalized accounts of days passing here and there without new developments before the next important moment where they're either doing the project or on the couch.

In another case, I have a story where there are several points when the brother comes into the sister's room as she's doing homework, flops on her bed, and has some sort of emotional crisis or deep, meaningful conversation. Each of these moments are separated by many other scenes that take place elsewhere (or some that take place there, but with the sister alone, and yes, she's often still doing homework in those scenes as well).

There's only so many ways I can think of to say "that night, they were back in the living room playing games" or "the project continued the next morning with..." or "guess what? She was doing homework again, because homework never ends" before it starts sounding repetitive.

So how do you set up scenes that have all the same trappings as previous scenes without it feeling repetitive?

 

[EmilyMiller]

So how do you set up scenes that have all the same trappings as previous scenes without it feeling repetitive?

Speaking only personally. I introduce other characters (if it’s in the office, other colleagues; if it’s a home, a relative visits, or there is a friend’s birthday) or sub-plots which can progress quicker than the main narrative.

Or I force some change, like one person being out of town for a while, or at an off-site workshop. Something to make it just a little different.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

Make one take the other out somewhere. It can add a layer of thoughtfulness, if they pick something that the other person really appreciates. I know I like to sit my happy ass on the couch sometimes, but occasionally my wife will drag me out of the house by my hair and force me to dance with her a gunpoint. It always makes me feel better, because 1) she cares and 2) I'm doing something cool away from home. I've used that exact thing in my stories over and over and it's never felt stale.

 

[Rob_Royale]

that take place mostly at home, with the characters developing feelings concurrently with living their usual, routine lives.

In my opinion, this is the heart of the problem. If you don't vary the circumstances, the setting, the routines, then you enter the writing doldrums, and it gets stagnant. Set the story in the past, the future, in a Dumas Musketeer adventure, in a vampire apocalypse, in a frontier western town. And they aren't just family; they are entertainers whose lives are public, or they are traveling on a starship among a crew, or a family of con men and grifters, one step ahead of the law.

These are the things that make a story.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

In my opinion, this is the heart of the problem. If you don't vary the circumstances, the setting, the routines, then you enter the writing doldrums, and it gets stagnant. Set the story in the past, the future, in a Dumas Musketeer adventure, in a vampire apocalypse, in a frontier western town. And they aren't just family; they are entertainers whose lives are public, or they are traveling on a starship among a crew, or a family of con men and grifters, one step ahead of the law.

These are the things that make a story.

To be clear, there's a lot more to their lives and the story, but a lot of the scenes still end up happening during routine stuff. In the first story, the sister's a cosplayer, the brother crafts models (or in this case, cosplay props), and they're entering a contest together. A lot of the scenes are while they're working on the project, though. In the second story, there's several other subplots with the brother's ex-girlfriend, outings, classmates, the brother doing mechanical engineering... It's not about the characters being boring and not having a lot going on, it's just that the settings for some of the scenes that happen, because of the nature of their circumstances, are frequently similar. I'm not looking for how to add other settings, just how to write progressions within a set context in such a way that the context itself doesn't make the rest feel stale, if that makes any sense.

For these stories, I'm not really interested in writing adventures in random exotic or extraordinary settings, (though I do write some stuff like that as well). I'm far more interested in the emotions people in relatable settings could have that might believably lead them to engage in what we all know they'll end up engaging in at the end. And relatable settings unavoidably have certain things about them that are repetitive... I'm just trying to find a way to make the storytelling not be.

 

[anthrodisiac]

The obvious answer is to move where the scenes take place or make significant changes to each time.

The obvious-ish answer is to vary how you lead in to those scenes with your transitional phrasing.

The less obvious answer is to emotionally charge the context so that even if the events are the same, the emotionality is wildly different and there are subtle nuances in how they interact that indicate a change in relationship and tone.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I don't see the problem at all.

Don't write the boring parts. Once you've described the place they play video games, you can concentrate the rest of the story on the dynamic, interesting relationship, through dialog and physical action (this being Lit, physical action that might involve touching sensitive parts). Why repeat the stuff that's repetitive? Gloss over it, or just imply it.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

The obvious answer is to move where the scenes take place or make significant changes to each time.

The obvious-ish answer is to vary how you lead in to those scenes with your transitional phrasing.

The less obvious answer is to emotionally charge the context so that even if the events are the same, the emotionality is wildly different and there are subtle nuances in how they interact that indicate a change in relationship and tone.

#1 doesn't work. Or rather, I'm already doing that, but it only works to an extent. I already have a fair amount of scenes that happen in other places as well, but when the characters' lives kind of center around a specific place, they're going to be in that place fairly frequently, and I need some way to keep that place interesting to read about.

#2 is literally what my post is asking how to do. I want specific techniques for how to set up a common location or setting so that I don't have to present it over and over but the reader still knows where they are. I guess I struggle in general with scene transitions and how much to tell vs. show about where they are and how they got there in relation to the previous scene.

#3 is something I already have going on, the emotional context has always significantly progressed from one time to the next. The issue is just how to convey to a reader "we're here again" without it feeling like "well, we're here again".

 

[TheExperimentalist]

I don't see the problem at all.

Don't write the boring parts. Once you've described the place they play video games, you can concentrate the rest of the story on the dynamic, interesting relationship, through dialog and physical action (this being Lit, physical action that might involve touching sensitive parts). Why repeat the stuff that's repetitive? Gloss over it, or just imply it.

I'm not talking about going into detail. More just techniques to imply "they're back in X location doing Y thing" without having to spell out even that much each time.

 

[anthrodisiac]

#1 doesn't work. Or rather, I'm already doing that, but it only works to an extent. I already have a fair amount of scenes that happen in other places as well, but when the characters' lives kind of center around a specific place, they're going to be in that place fairly frequently, and I need some way to keep that place interesting to read about.

#2 is literally what my post is asking how to do. I want specific techniques for how to set up a common location or setting so that I don't have to present it over and over but the reader still knows where they are. I guess I struggle in general with scene transitions and how much to tell vs. show about where they are and how they got there in relation to the previous scene.

#3 is something I already have going on, the emotional context has always significantly progressed from one time to the next. The issue is just how to convey to a reader "we're here again" without it feeling like "well, we're here again"

If you're mostly interested in 2, then start the scene at different points in the scene. Makes no sense? Give it a second.

Scene 1: Start with him walking into her room, taking stock of her doing homework, noticing her a bit before engaging.
Scene 2: Start with him at the door, unsure if he should bug her because of the feelings he's having, then go in.
Scene 3: Start with him already halfway in conversation with her.

Same scene, but the frame where you're starting it from is different. It allows you to write the same scene while engaging with enough difference in how the scene begins to make it feel fresh and not "Oh, he's walking in" five times.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

"Move over, Slim. Can't crush you in Death Race 4000 if I can't get near the console." Janice was carrying the usual bowl of chips.

"Wait 'til I hit a save point, OK? This is the furthest I've ever gotten in Hometown Horrors."

"Slimbo, you just play that for the zombie hookers."

 

[anthrodisiac]

I'm not talking about going into detail. More just techniques to imply "they're back in X location doing Y thing" without having to spell out even that much each time.

So like "They're back cuddling on the couch" spelled out each time?

You don't have to spell it out each time. Great chance for show to take precedence over tell. @TheWritingGroup gave a good example, so now I don't have to!

If you want to mix things up, you can have each scene focus on a different element, some different physical characteristic of the space, like you're looking at the scene from a different angle each time. You can also focus on how the MC (or both if you're doing multiple POVs) is feeling, keeping the physical description light. His thoughts, his emotions.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

If you're mostly interested in 2, then start the scene at different points in the scene. Makes no sense? Give it a second.

Scene 1: Start with him walking into her room, taking stock of her doing homework, noticing her a bit before engaging.
Scene 2: Start with him at the door, unsure if he should bug her because of the feelings he's having, then go in.
Scene 3: Start with him already halfway in conversation with her.

Same scene, but the frame where you're starting it from is different. It allows you to write the same scene while engaging with enough difference in how the scene begins to make it feel fresh and not "Oh, he's walking in" five times.

So like "They're back cuddling on the couch" spelled out each time?

You don't have to spell it out each time. Great chance for show to take precedence over tell. @TheWritingGroup gave a good example, so now I don't have to!

If you want to mix things up, you can have each scene focus on a different element, some different physical characteristic of the space, like you're looking at the scene from a different angle each time. You can also focus on how the MC (or both if you're doing multiple POVs) is feeling, keeping the physical description light. His thoughts, his emotions.

Thanks. These are the kinds of answers I'm looking for. Especially the idea to start the scene at different points helps a lot. (POV in the story with the homework is actually close third on her, so the examples you gave wouldn't work exactly, but I can definitely extrapolate to stuff that might.)

"Move over, Slim. Can't crush you in Death Race 4000 if I can't get near the console." Janice was carrying the usual bowl of chips.

"Wait 'til I hit a save point, OK? This is the furthest I've ever gotten in Hometown Horrors."

"Slimbo, you just play that for the zombie hookers."

They're playing the same game each night, for reasons explained in the story, but I get what you're going for. Thanks!

 

[StillStunned]

I like to lean into the repetition. By establishing the similarities, you reinforce in your reader's mind that they've moved to a new phase where the tension will go up a notch and the story will move closer to its resolution.

 

[TheLobster]

Since @anthrodisiac has done a pretty good job describing the specific scene transition techniques, I'm not gonna reiterate them here. I'll just mention the old advice about ending scenes earlier and starting them later than you think you need to, because I think it applies double when the scenes appear, at least at the first glance, to be somewhat repetitive and same'y. Also echoing the @StillStunned's recommendation above, that repetition can be a tool as well, and that similar scenes need progressively less and less exposition if they take place in the same setting.

In other words, cut the dull bits out. After all, a certain Elizabethan playwright said that drama is just life without those bits.

There's another thing I wanted to mention, though, which can help tremendously in dealing with the seeming repetition, and that's the overall narrative voice the story is told in. You haven't said how the story is being told: is it 1P? 3P? From whose perspective? Personally I found that you can get the reader through the most mundane serving platter of nearly identical slices of life if you garnish them with a good helping of affable, or hateable, or ironic, or sarcastic, or simply in any way distinct and unique narrative voice. Your PoV character should have enough personality to fill in and crowd out the so-called boring parts of the story, to the point that they aren't really boring anymore because his or her voice has colored them back into immersive vividness.

I'm not gonna pretend I'm an expert on this, but I have a 30k story where the first half boils down to the main character spending his time spying on his hot neighbor, jerking off and playing video games — and it's one of my best received stories overall. The MC is intentionally presented as a lazy slacker, but I have semi-accidentally written him in such a way that he's quite self-aware about it and as a result relates his tale in this kind of blaise and sardonic way that doesn't make the repetitive bits drag on too much. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I think infusing your story with a memorable narrative voice can rarely go wrong, because even if the readers end up hating the MC, at least they mull over their hate while they trudge through the dull parts

 

[pink_silk_glove]

#2 is literally what my post is asking how to do. I want specific techniques for how to set up a common location or setting so that I don't have to present it over and over but the reader still knows where they are

Just jump in rather than setting up. If gaming on the couhc in the evening is already firmly established, then you don't have to start the third gaming scene by saying, "They were back on the couch playing video games." You can just jump in and say something like, "They finally beat the boss at the end of level 7." If you link it that way to the previous couch scene, the reader will instantly be taken back to the couch in front of the screen.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I did a lot of casual references to going shopping, to school or to work, doing housework, yardwork, cooking etc. Never in detail, just mentioning them as fillers, scene changes.

 

[BeechLeaf]

The device that occurs to me is to look at different things in the room, not previously detailed. She's doing homework so he examines her bookshelf, which brings back memories (Anne of Green Gables, or whatever). Then she's doing homework so he picks up Geoff* the stuffed giraffe, and makes him talk in a funny voice, which she laughs at. Then she's doing homework so he strokes the blue and green aquatic bedspread and the pink lace on the pillow. Some of this can change from day to day: new library books, a change of bedspread.

* Only you can't call him Geoff, that's my Laura's giraffe's name.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

The device that occurs to me is to look at different things in the room, not previously detailed.

I did that too. Mom, now a 40something MILF was a professional dancer and had a trophy room. Lots of pictures, certificates and trophies, but it was a all years ago and is a bit bittersweet to her, so she keeps the door closed. Only after the 20something guys start to notice her again does she go in there and look at it all for inspiration to get back in shape.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Just to be clear, the scenes themselves and the progression in the characters' relationships are far from samey, it's just the contexts in which the scenes begin or take place that happen over and over. Let's face it, life is full of repetitive stuff, and many of the most profound relationship moments happen in the midst of doing those mundane things that we've done a thousand times before and will do a thousand times more.

I'm having this issue with a few WIPs at the moment. It's happening largely with my T/I stories that take place mostly at home, with the characters developing feelings concurrently with living their usual, routine lives. However, I would imagine that it could happen with other genres as well. For instance, I could imagine an office romance involving a lot of "during the next weekly review, it wasn't just my eye she caught, but my leg under the table with her bare calf" or whatever.

Just to elaborate on what I mean, in one WIP, I have two characters who are working on a material project during the day, and relaxing on the couch with video games each evening. The story is something of a slow burn, taking place over the course of several weeks. There are a number of emotional progressions that occur due to working together, and several moments where they become physically closer and bolder as they cuddle together while gaming. These developments are interspersed with each other, jumping between important moments during the day, important moments during the night, and more generalized accounts of days passing here and there without new developments before the next important moment where they're either doing the project or on the couch.

In another case, I have a story where there are several points when the brother comes into the sister's room as she's doing homework, flops on her bed, and has some sort of emotional crisis or deep, meaningful conversation. Each of these moments are separated by many other scenes that take place elsewhere (or some that take place there, but with the sister alone, and yes, she's often still doing homework in those scenes as well).

There's only so many ways I can think of to say "that night, they were back in the living room playing games" or "the project continued the next morning with..." or "guess what? She was doing homework again, because homework never ends" before it starts sounding repetitive.

So how do you set up scenes that have all the same trappings as previous scenes without it feeling repetitive?

The same general scenes and routines aren't the issue, IMO. The issue will be showing the "progress" in vivid and escalating fashion.

This is what makes each scene not so routine. The details on the settings become less important and need less description. The moods, emotions, and physical reactions must become more important and the crux of the scenes.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

What are we gonna do in this scene?

Same thing we do in every scene. Find a way to get everybody naked and screwing.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

What are we gonna do in this scene?

Same thing we do in every scene. Find a way to get everybody naked and screwing.

Hmm ... you just made me realize, I don't think I've written a clothed-sex scene for this site. A couple of guys with pants around their ankles, maybe.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Hmm ... you just made me realize, I don't think I've written a clothed-sex scene for this site. A couple of guys with pants around their ankles, maybe.

And a lady with her dressed pushed up.

 

[NotWise]

You've had plenty of suggestions. I'll tell you a few things I've done with the problem.

If the scene truly is repetitive, then minimize the overhead in transition. The readers already know the setting.

Emphasize details of the scene: there's a vase of flowers, some one cleaned, some one didn't clean, something's going on outside, and so on.

Start each scene in an emotionally different place. Use it as a way to build tension and advance the story. The start of each scene can become a milestone to the climax.

Break it up. Let time pass and/or have them meet in other contexts between the repetitive scenes.

 

[crookedletter]

Just to elaborate on what I mean, in one WIP, I have two characters who are working on a material project during the day, and relaxing on the couch with video games each evening. The story is something of a slow burn, taking place over the course of several weeks. There are a number of emotional progressions that occur due to working together, and several moments where they become physically closer and bolder as they cuddle together while gaming. These developments are interspersed with each other, jumping between important moments during the day, important moments during the night, and more generalized accounts of days passing here and there without new developments before the next important moment where they're either doing the project or on the couch.

I know this paragraph is not part of your fiction, but I would take this as a model. Look what you did here: you sum things up, you discuss the forward motion of time, things happening in general, the specificity of a few spare moments within a larger framework of general progression.

You can play around with time in stories like this. It doesn't have to all be this happened then this happened then this happened. You don't have to describe every transition. If they're playing video games together every evening, say that, and if there are moments of significance you're allowed to describe only those:

Tuesday he noticed she had moved a little from her usual spot; she sat a little closer to him.

Friday she noticed him watching her more than he watched his game. She didn't return his look, just kept her eyes on what she was doing while her awareness was on him.

By Sunday they both found...

etc. etc. etc.

Once you establish that setting the reader is familiar with it and doesn't need it reintroduced. The reader will understand without being told that in between these moments they sleep and go to work and use the bathroom etc. and their routine is to find themselves back on the couch. If those moments between aren't interesting to you, then just cut them out.

You don't need to say "Meanwhile, back at the ranch..." Just show your characters at the ranch and the reader can make that leap.