Beginning writers are often told to “show not tell.” This means they should expand summaries of events into fully worked-out scenes with enough sensory detail to give readers the feeling that they are experiencing the events first-hand.
This is may be good advice for beginners, whose stories often are just a long series of summaries. But it leaves the impression that summaries are always bad, scenes are always good. In fact summaries are very useful dramatic tools. Also, every scene contains small summaries. And every summary has scene-like characteristics. A short discussion of how to use scenes and summaries and how the two intertwine has now been added to the Shapechanger Tales web site.
