Shouts From Down Under

Lights, Camera...ACTION!!

Is your novel about as gripping as a doctor's waiting room? Do your reviewers have to set an alarm clock to wake them up every chapter?

This is a major worry I have with my chaotic efforts at novelism.

I want it explosive, instantly plunging the reader headlong down the stairs into total immersion, struggling but failing to resist the gravitational narrative.
The characters must almost shake the readers hand and say, G'day, I'm So and So and in a few sentences, definitely after a couple of paragraphs, I'll not be just a "character" or "person" anymore, mate, I'm YOU. You're ME!

Do you ever set yourself a quick test / brainstorm of nutting out a scene in a few seconds, even just in your imagination. A bit like the StoryMaster does with the Three Word excersize.

I can see it now...

Streets heavy with drifting smoke, thudding machine gun fire. Barricades blocking the intersections. Overturned cars.
There is screaming, mountainous mushroom clouds of tyre smoke, burning buildings. Soldiers are running, shouting and mounted police are everywhere.
The entire street is a boiling mass of people waving placcards, a half dozen cameramen are jostled at the sides and riot shields are advancing from a side alley.
A thumping chopper dominates the sky, megaphone thundering commands at the milling heads of the populace.

Well, that is a scene imagined in a few seconds, with no reason, no destination, but I do this often. Get some dialoge in there and make sure there is a good row, an argument and doors slamming. Someone angry, someone laughing and pointing, someone being a complete twat.

Ok, crank the handle, scene gone and this blog is over. Bang, a huge explosion and oblivion. This blog has blown up and become yesterdays in a few minutes

Sparky