A reporting scene is when someone comes running in to tell your protagonist that The Boy asked The Other Girl to the prom. As an example.
Every time I read one, I want to call the writer on the actual phone, to hear their voice, so I can ask them why they didn’t SHOW this event instead. It’s immediate, it’s visceral, it’s a huge plot-moving moment in the emotional and story arcs…so why is it coming out of the mouth of a secondary character?
If you write a lot of reporting scenes, that is, scenes of action off screen reported to the protagonist, you are probably not comfortable with the face-to-face conflict that makes those big scenes work. You are probably not aware that you’re avoiding conflict by bringing it to your protag second-hand.
Take a look at your script for scenes of reporting, and see what happens when you rewrite so that we can see them unfold in action. It’s good.
