Unlocking the Mind’s Cinema: How Stories Play Like Movies Inside Your Brain
A Word About Narrative Summary
Once in a while, you do need a few sentences of “glue” between scenes to move things forward by minutes or months or millennia. Those sentences are called “narrative summary” and every novel needs them, once in a while. But narrative summary is not a movie in your reader’s brain. It’s voiceover or it’s a jump-cut between scenes.
When you’re editing your novel, you’ll always find some narrative summary. Just ask yourself if you need it. Could you write the novel without it? If you took it out, or shortened it, or rewrote it as immediate scene, would the novel be stronger?
