What is Meant by Writing in Scenes

A checklist to follow as you are writing:

• Construct your scenes with action and reaction.
• Move from Point A to Point B to Point C.
• Create obstacles.
• Avoid dead ends.
• Eliminate gimmicks.
• Raise the stakes.

The largest entity of the story is the scene. The basic purpose of the scene is simple: to move the reader from one point in the plot to the next. Think of the scene in your book as stepping stones that steer you down the path of your plot. Each stone is separate from the other, yet each is connected to the other. When the stones are linked together, they not only form a large whole, they lead the reader from the beginning, through the middle, to the end of your fictional journey. Each sequel grows out of the previous scene. Reactions to events come in four basic flavors.

• Emotion
• Thought
• Decision
• Action

One thing leads to another that leads to another. Just as a book has a beginning, middle and end, so does each scene. Although simple character books might only have one scene per chapter, in more complicated stories, chapters have a series of scenes, each one linked to the next. Instead of a conclusion, the scene mires the hero deeper in his dilemma, forcing the reader to move on to the following scene to find out what happens next. The hero should always emerge from the end of the scene in deeper trouble than when he began. A Scenic Overview

• The opening of the first scene of the book sets the stage for your story.
• To begin a new scene, you either pick up where you left off in the last scene, shift to a new situation or move to the subplot.
• In the middle of your scene, the conflict continues to play out or the complication increases. This escalating action is presented either in flashback or chronological order.
• The end of the scene worsens the situation of the hero and points to further action, propelling the reader forward into the next scene.

The Ten Commandments of Scene Sense

1. Honor the law of cause and effect. You cannot present a situation that drops a hint about a possible future action without following up on it. If you create a cause, you must have an effect. Every action must have a reaction.

Readers, including children, or astute. Kids will remember you implied that Mathew’s mother will freak out if she finds out about the secret treasuer cave. Teens want to get that Eric’s father is a detective in the drug division of the LAPD, especially if the main characters are smoking dope. Each of these statements, no matter how casual, demand a follow-up. To ignore them is to break your agreement with the reader.

2. Create Credible Motivation. In fiction, characters do not function in a vacuum. They don’t suddenly do something that hasn’t been foreshadowed over which the reader hasn’t been prepared. Sara can’t cheat on her test at school without the author creating motivation for this behavior. Maybe Sara is dyslexic, and nobody knows it. Maybe she can study for the test because she had a fight with her best friend. Maybe she discovered her father cheated on his income taxes, so she thinks it’s okay for her to cheat, too. Whatever the reason or reasons for her behavior, sooner or later, Sara’s motivations for her actions must be warranted.

As you write, ask yourself if your character’s actions are credible. Given her background, personality and inclinations, is this action or thought or decision believable? If it is not, either remove the action or rewrite previous scenes to set up this scene.

3. Avoid that Ends. When you write your scene, remember that you must move from point A to point B. You cannot begin to appoint a finish in the same place at the end of the scene. If the action hasn’t moved forward, the scene doesn’t belong in the book.

There are two basic ways to avoid a dead-end.

• The point of future action. If you begin a scene with the hero coming upon a treasure, you can’t end the scene with the hero looking through the treasure chest unless, of course, the hero opens the chest to find the ten million dollar diamond that everyone knows was stolen from the mansion on the hill. Some forward action must be Otherwise, the story remains static.

Is the hero going to tell his parents what he found? Is he going to remain silent or try to find out who the treasure belongs to? Is he going to keep the treasure a secret so he can share it with his best friend? Or is he going to call the police? There are lots of possibilities, even the heroes confusion about what to do can be one of them. The rule here is to make certain you implied future action before the scene ends.

• Avoid resolution. The flip side of this point is to avoid ending your scene with resolution and conclusion. If the hero goes to the police, collect the reward and ties up the mystery all in one scene, there’s nowhere left to go with the story.

4. Maintain Credibility. One of the great struggles writers face in developing believable stories is creating plots that grow out over a reasonable premise and characters that behave in credible ways.

You cannot introduce a surprise, last minute “fix” for your story. You must have a credible reason for something to occur, and you must set that reason up in advance. If you want this boy to play so the hero, you’ve got to establish the fact that he has spent the last seven years earning a black belt in karate on mastering advanced techniques in jujitsu. The action in a scene must be a credible consequence of previous occurrences, not the result of the character doing something no sane person would ever do or of a last-minute fix or add on to the plot.

5. Keep your Eye on the Goal. As you write, ask yourself if you are moving steadily toward the end of the scene, the end of the chapter and the end of the story. If you follow too many plots or subplots threads that move in too many directions, you dilute the narrative momentum.

6. Continue to Remind the Reader of the Central Conflict. Conflict lives in the heart and soul of the plot. If the reader forgets what is driving the hero, she won’t care enough about him to finish the book.

Instead of playing it safe, consider the storytelling lesson classic comic books offer us. Year in and year out, Lex Luther lurks in Superman’s background, and the Joker haunts Batman psyche. Neither the reader knows the fictional hero is ever allowed to forget that a confrontation with the nemesis is waiting just around the next corner. This critical push pull relationship between hero and villain is what drives the stories and maintains the reader’s interest.

7. Conjure up Interesting Obstacles. If the conflict is the engine that drives the plot, obstacles are the motors that fuel the conflict. The hero struggles to overcome the obstacles you set before them so enlist the emotional investment of the reader. Without the reader cheering for the success of the hero, the story falls flat and becomes a bland reading experience.

8. Use the Two Steps Forward, One Step Back Rule. Just because the hero makes discernible progress towards his goal in one scene, don’t allow him to move forward unimpeded in the following scene. Overcoming one obstacle after another without a setback makes for dull reading.

9. Simplify your Scene. Do not use one more person in your scene than is absolutely necessary.

When you overcomplicate a scene, the reader is forced to spend unnecessary effort trying to figure out what is happening and why, which character is which, who is doing what to whom, what the purpose of the scene is, and how the story is unfolding.

10. Increased Attention by Raising the Stakes. A playwright ratchets up the tension in a scene when she has two actors confront each other.

If your character is moving toward the goal and every obstacle he overcomes is on the same level of difficulty, the story becomes less interesting. Think of your obstacles as Olympic events. The first obstacle the hero confronts must meet a rating of say “three” on the predetermined level of difficulty. But by the end of the climax, the hero should have vaulted over an obstacle that’s a solid and impressive “Ten!”