Reference for writers: You can make a boring, run-of-the-mill scene amazing if you just take the time to expand your prose. Add description, add dialog, add emotion, all in just the right amounts - not too much, not too little - and BAM, you've got magic.
Let's start with this weak scene. Four people were running through an abandoned Little Debbie plant trying to escape the zombie apocalypse, and two are now unable to go on.
Glenn and Darren were too injured to be moved. We couldn’t do anything but leave them to the zombies. We ran through the door and locked it behind us. Their screams as the zombies began to attack them were muffled by the door as we ran down the hallway toward the exit.
Those four sentences go by so fast, the reader might just get further into the story and say, "Hey, wait, what happened to Glenn and Darren?" So now, let's make sure the reader can't miss what's going on. Let's make this scene as strong as we can by expanding the sucker out until it hurts with as much description, dialog, and emotion as we can use without tearing a hole in the fabric of spacetime (or causing readers to toss the book in disgust).
The bandage on Darren’s leg was now so soaked with blood that there was no sign it had ever been white. “I can’t do it,” he sobbed, dropping a semi-conscious Glenn from his shoulder and sliding down against the corridor wall. “My leg’s goin’. I can’t even feel the damn thing anymore.”
“No!” I growled. “I’m not losing anybody else to these freaking zombies. Get your ass up!”
Darren pushed down against the grimy concrete floor of the abandoned plant, straining to lift himself to his feet. With a frustrated roar, he collapsed back against the wall. “I can’t! Damn it!” Darren pounded his fist against the floor. “God damn it!”
Rose and I exchanged glances. Neither of us weighed half what either of the men did. There was no way we could carry them and escape, and Darren knew it. It would be impossible to save them.
The once-distant moans were now so close there was hardly any echo to them. “We gotta go,” sobbed Rose. “I can’t lose you, Darren. You gotta get up.”
Darren’s eyes glistened with tears. “Sorry, baby girl. You gotta go without me.”
Holding back a sob, Darren turned to me. “You tell ‘em,” he choked, “back at the camp, you tell ‘em Darren gave ‘em hell.”
“I will, Darren,” I whispered. “You bet I will.”
Darren pulled the Glock from his shoulder holster with a shaky hand and pointed it toward the end of the corridor just as the first zombie rounded a corner. "Run!" he shouted. "Run now!"
I grabbed Rose by the arm, pulling her down the hallway toward a set of flaking blue double doors. "No!" she screamed. "No! Darren!"
Above the sound of zombie snarls, I could hear Darren's Glock firing, each explosion echoing through the empty pastry factory. I hit the double doors running and threw a struggling Rose through, slamming them shut. I shoved the master key from the maintenance office into the lock and yanked it over, locking Darren, Glenn, and at least a hundred zombies on the other side.
Darren's Glock fell silent. I turned away from the door, not wanting to see the scene on the other side through the window slits. Rose's wracking sobs filled my ears."Don't fall apart on me, Rose," I ordered.
Rose nodded, sniffing. She was a good kid. She'd get over it, with time. I gripped her arm and began running toward the cracked sign marked EXIT, muffled screams chasing us down the hallway. "Don't think about it," I yelled. "Just run!"
The doors behind us began to shudder. The screams died in a barely-audible gurgling. And we burst through the outer doors and into the sunlight.
Now then... which story would you rather read? Both contained the same scene. But by expanding our scene, we gave our rewrite power. Gravitas. It made you feel something. And that's what great writing is all about.
