The Scene Summary Project: Avoiding Writing, More Productively

Recently, I've found myself unexpectedly godawful ignorant when it comes to some writing niceties, such as:

1. Story structure
2. Describing things 
3. Suspenseful plotting 
4. Everything else

It was unexpected because I've read a billion science-fiction and fantasy novels ... though it turns out, in retrospect, I hadn't "read" them so much as skimmed them.

I'd like to make up for lost time, though. AND SO . . . IT BEGINS.

Yes, that's right, I'll be fighting crime in spandex, with bright red gloves and boots. Also, I'll be rereading three books this year, with the goal of analyzing the living shit out of them. No skimming allowed!  

THE BOOKS:
The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie

Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey

Out of Sight or Killshot, by Elmore Leonard

All of these books have in common one thing: they absolutely kick ass, and I don't recall skimming a whit during them. They all have intriguing and/or fun characters and plots, and are interesting from beginning to end. (Or so I recall ...)

My primary goal is to break down each book scene-by-scene, to see how the authors Do Stuff. According to Mr. Bickham, in your well-written genre fiction you should see a well-defined scene question:

1. A statement of (definite, clear-cut, specific) goal
2. Introduction and development of conflict
3. Failure of the character to reach his goal; a tactical disaster (either “No!” or “No, and furthermore!” or “Yes, but!”) 

For reasons of conflict, you never want to end a scene with a good ole fashioned "Yes," unless it's the climax, and even then there's no guarantee.


That's my main goal, and I'll be doing that for each scene. For some others -- especially at the beginning -- I'll be paying attention to much more: 

1. The introduction of the overarching character arc (what I think Dramatica calls a "throughline")
2. Scene vs sequel breakdown, sequel being described as, after some conflict, 
• Emotion
• Thought
• Decision
• Action (leads to next scene)
3. Where there is conflict, is it between two characters, or more? (I've heard that the former is generally 'better'.)
4. What do their speech tags look like -- how often do they use "said" versus beats versus nothing versus other crap? I like the style of each of these authors -- what, precisely, *is* that style?
5. How do they establish point-of-view? Are they consistent? How do they handle actors making judgments about what others' are doing, based on others' actions? 
6. How often do they allude to senses other than sight? 
7. How do they describe the stuff that I can't (if they do at all) -- some schmoe walks into a room -- do they jump right to dialogue, describe the room in a sentence, or ...? 

I'm sure there's elements I'm missing, but this should be a good start. The goal, remember, is to avoid writing myself ... er, I mean, a crash-course in what I should have learned over the last X decades. I think that I'm gathering enough that I should discover a great deal about what makes each author's works hum ... but we shall see.

I'm as confused as you are.