Add Tension to Your Scenes

Another day, another embarrassing moment.

I had an interview yesterday, which I was extremely excited about. I'd prepped like crazy — everything from pulling work samples together for a week to flossing twice on the drive in.

When I got home, I was feeling exhausted but pleasantly positive about the experience — that's until my husband pointed out I had my shirt on inside out.

Multitasking Scenes

Since I can't go back to the interview with my shirt on right side out, I've tried to see what I can salvage from the experience.

If I look at it as a scene versus another embarrassing experience, I did learn something about adding tension.

Ideally scenes should have more than one thing going on at a time, and they should leave the audience wanting more.

In the Diane Interview scene, there was multiple layers:

Layer #1

• Character stresses and preps for the interview

• Character interviews with potential bosses

• Character feels confident as interview concludes

Layer #2

• The audience sees the shirt inside out

• The people conducting the interview see tag on the shirt

We leave the scene not only wondering if the character will get the job (the primary reason for the scene), but by adding tension (the inside out shirt), we:

• learn more about the character and her dress habits

• wonder if she will ever notice if her shirt's inside out

• wonder what the reaction will be if she does notice, and

• wonder if this is going to forfeit her the job

Good Interview

So, I guess it was a good interview in that I learned how to beef up my scenes.

But I also learned that I'm going to have SOME LOOK ME OVER before the next interview.

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