Reading Response for "Understanding Scenes of Writing"

The whole description of life and social interactions being "scenes" was a little unnecessary, I think, but I suppose it worked fine as a context to describe the different ways in which we evaluate and react to our surroundings. The "scenes" description felt unnecessary only because scenes themselves are meant to emulate life, whether in a movie or a canvas, and if you then use that emulation as a substitute for the real thing, you're redundantly describing reality with its imitation. In other words, if you're trying to describe a setting, describe the setting, not the thing that's already trying to describe the setting (the scene). People aren't acting in scenes during social interaction (most of the time), they are choosing how to act and speak based upon what is around them: this is not acting, it's a reflection of the self. The "acting" description, like the "scenes" description, is redundant. Actors imitate their character, not the other way around--go to the source.

Of course, given that "Understanding Scenes of Writing" is relating reality to scenes in writing, the description isn't out of place. It just bothered me a bit. The actual meat of the reading was detailed and helpful, but even there I hate to break down something like a scene into miniature rhetorical choices like the reading does. The chemistry within a scene between its characters and actions loses too much meaning when you break it down. I find myself wondering why people do this because people naturally react to these situations appropriately without examining them in detail. We know simply from basic observation why a scene demands a certain response. People live reality, reacting without breaking the "scene" down, so if you're writing (trying to emulate reality), I see no reason to do so either. No doubt, a writer is not going to be able to emulate reality perfectly at first, but neither do we fully understand how to act when we are children. The fact is we learn through experience and rarely require a detailed break-down to do so. I think the process of understanding different scenes and how they should play out in order to be convincing within writing should be learned from experience, not a complicated break-down.