Scenes

[Montinger]

Hi!
I have recently listened to writing podcasts and I am surprised at how much they talk about scenes and how important it is thar each scene has a purpose, that there are consequences, that there is a variety in the structure of the scenes.... I don't think about scenes at all when I write. And I don't get what a scene is. I though a scene was something physical, like, when the characters are at this place doing stuff, that is one scene. When they move on to somewhere else, that is another scene. But I hear people talk about scenes at much smaller parts of the story. Like, there would be severel scenes in the part that I think is a scene, according to them. And I don't get how I should decide where a scene srtart and end. What is a scene? I'm getting all existential here. Any input, you wise writers? How can I learn what a scene is, and decide whether I am good at scenes or not? What do I need to learn?

 

[pmmg]

A scene is a container in which a small portion of the story happens. Many scenes combined tell the story.

 

[skip.knox]

As with just about everything to do with writing (or art in general), you'll find different people have different definitions. I sympathize with your consternation, but don't fret too much. Here's what I did.

I read more. I found there were indeed differing opinions and tried to understand them without feeling I needed to adopt or adhere to them. Meanwhile, I kept writing.

Over time, I started to see patterns in my own work. What constituted a scene started to make sense to me. Better, I started to see why it might be useful to think in terms of scenes. Before that, I'd thought solely in terms of chapters. I had a fair amount of trouble untangling those two. The key understanding, though, was that none of this was absolute and universal. As long as thinking in terms of a scene was helping to improve my writing, I am for it. When it starts to be an impediment, I toss it out the window.

Anyways. Yes, a "change of scene" often can mean simply a new location. Another way to picture it is to think of stage plays. A scene might end when two characters finish their argument, one leaves, and maybe new characters come onto the stage. Yet another angle is to think about tone and pacing. Sure you can have someone crack a joke in the midst of a dramatic scene, but the scene itself is about the drama or the action or the comedy. That tone doesn't keep up for the whole novel, right?

There are other definitions. Roughly equaling the number of writers, plus an additional randomized number (because we change our minds often). There's nothing wrong with reading about these and assimilating them in whatever way makes sense to you.

Just don't let any of it interrupt your writing or, worse, bring your writing to a standstill under the mistaken impression that you have to sort out what "scene" means before you can write one. Just find ways to make it useful for yourself. I'll close with an example.

I don't think I read this anywhere, at least not in precisely these terms. But one of my self-mantras is "lean forward". That is, when coming to the end of a scene, don't bring the action or tone or mood or whatever to a dead stop. Always end leaning forward. The example I usually use is that I try not to end with the hero going to sleep at the end of the day. That ends the scene. I know it's the end of a scene because everyone goes to sleep! So, there's the scene's end (and, by implication, the next bit means the beginning of a scene), and I just need to find a better way to end it. IOW, understanding where my scenes end helps me improve the pacing.

 

[Penpilot]

I think they're probably talking about Scene Sequel format. It's not always a scene like you think of in a traditional sense, but it can be. Here's what it is in a nutshell.

There are two types of scenes, Scenes and Sequels. For clarity, let's call them Action Scenes and Reaction Scenes instead.

Action scenes have three components.

1 - A goal.
2 - An obstacle to that goal.
3 - An outcome. (Success, Failure, Success But..., Failure and...)

You will never have a flat out success until the end of the story. It's a flat failure, a success but there are consequences, or a failure and it gets worse)

A reaction scene is, as the name implies, a reaction to the outcome of the Action Scene. There are 4 components to it. Components 2 and 3 can be optional sometimes. I'll explain further down.

1 - Emotional Reaction to the Outcome
2 - Deliberating the logical choices of what to do next
3 - Deliberating the logical consequences of each of those choices
4 - Making a choice.

The choice becomes the goal of the next action scene. Components 2 and 3 can be optional because in some situations the choices are obvious or limited. For example, if you see a bear charging at you, you don't pause to think about what the logical choices are, you run or you fight. Either way, the reader will know why. There's no need for deliberation.

But in general, this is where your characters take a breath and deliberate and react to what happened in the Action Scene before, and they make a choice of what to do next. Take a look at this simple folktale, The Old Lady and the Pig, and take note of how it executes this simple pattern.

"The Old Woman and Her Pig" and Other Chain-Folktales of Type 2030

Now, most stories aren't as simple as The Old Lady and the Pig. Most stories are a lot more complex. They can and will have multiple plots going at the same time. Each plot will have it's own sequence of Action-Reaction scene going. This is where things will get tricky.

When you think about a scene in a traditional sense, like say a Mom and Daughter walking through a mall shopping and talking, that traditional scene can be dealing with multiple plot lines, so it may have multiple Action-Reaction sequences progressing along at the same time, while other Action-Reaction sequences may be paused, because they're not being dealt with in this traditional scene.

Also, you may pause/interupt any of these Action-Reaction sequences whenever you like, at any point, to be continued later. For example, during the Mother-Daughter walk through the mall, in one Action-Reaction sequence, they both may have the goal of finding the perfect tablecloth for their dinning room, and in another Action-Reaction sequence, the Daughter is deliberating in a reaction scene about how to tell the Mom she's moving out, but she never finished the reaction scene because they run into her friends, and the friends drag her off to meet some guy she likes which is a different plot sequence, which is being picked up in the next traditional scene.

Any way, I hope that wasn't too confusing. If you want more info, just ask. If inclined, you can also check out this book from the Element's of Fiction Series, called Scene and Structure. It delves deep into this and gives better examples and explanations than I do. And like I mentioned above, you can google. There's tons of free info online.

Any way, hope this helps.

 

[Ned Marcus]

It's a micro story within the larger story. It has a turning point—something that moves the story forward.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

In principle, every chapter can be a scene. Some would claim they should be. Meh. I don't think in scene or scene-sequence. A good story isn't the product of Scene-Sequence; Scene-Sequence is the product of a good story. Understanding it can assist, but? Meh. Understand story, and most everything will fall into place in this respect.

The key to a good scene doesn't have to be over-thought. For a scene to be effective, something should change. The change can be positive or negative, and it can be emotional or physical. But the status of something must change; the what depends on the story. Threat level is common, whether it's an emotional threat or physical one. Lots of young writers will write chapters that aren't scenes because nothing changes. It's a bit like the Talking Heads, "Heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens" which is about as boring as one can get. IMO, the best chapters/scenes are where the emotional and physical state of the story both change.

I should add that I don't think about the "change" either; scenes/chapters pull a Nike and just do it. Sometimes, there can be 3-4 swings or mroe in a chapter (and some chapters I write might be 2-3 scenes, depending on how you look at it) but change is inherent enough in my writing that I don't bother thinking about it.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Considering scenes helped me close situations within chapters. I tended to have difficulty knowing when to jump to something else happening in the world; the concept of a scene helped me to understand "oh. I'm struggling to continue because this "scene" is over and I need to jump to a different situation relevant to the story. I've already done everything I need to do in this situation. And CUT."

 

[Finchbearer]

From a very non-expert voice here, as a reader, I suppose you could have one chapter containing one ‘scene’ where we are in the same place and the same event is happening the whole time, or you could have one chapter that contains a few varying ‘scenes’ where multiple things happen, and maybe they are also happening in different places or to different characters.

 

[Prince of Spires]

It's hard to give a precise definition of a scene because you can have a scene that covers multiple chapters or have multiple scenes in a single chapter, and it can be in 1 location or spread across multiple. An analogy is to compare them to atoms and molecules. A scene is like an atom, where your story is the molecule. Multiple scenes make up your story in the same way that multiple atoms make up a molecule.

In general, everything you write needs to have a purpose. A novel isn't like an RPG computer game where you can have a random side-quest that has nothing to do with the main story. Some of the great authors go so far as to say that each word they write is written with a specific purpose in mind, and that each sentence has to both advance the story and develop a character and build the world. I personally don't go that far, and especially as a beginning writer, don't try to do that first time round.

But each situation you write, each event, needs to have a reason for being in the story. You're either are advancing the story by getting the character closer to his goal or further away from it, you're showing us one of the characters or characters, some place that's important in the story, or developing the conflict (I'm probably missing a few reasons, but these should give some idea of what I mean). That is the main thing is that something is happening that is relevant to the story (or will be relevant once everything comes together), either to the main plot, or to a subplot.

For something to have a reason for being in the story, something needs to change. If before and after something happened, everything is the same, then you could take it out of the story without changing the story. Note that something changing doesn't always have to be earth shattering and major. It could simply be that your protagonist discovers a small clue. Or maybe they try something and it fails. Or you're showing an interaction between 2 characters that makes them like or dislike eachother just a little bit more.

With this in mind, think of scenes as what you would tell someone if you gave them a detailed description of your story. You could start with:
- Bilbo passes his magical ring to his nephew and disappears from the shire
- Gandalf discovers that the ring is the one ring and plans with Frodo how to get it to Rivendell
- Frodo leaves his home and travels through the Shire, gets pursued by the ringwraits
and so on...

These are all events in the story, scenes if you will (Frodo travelling across the Shire technically is multiple scenes I think). Note that for each of these, the boring parts where nothing changes, are taken out. So you don't see Gandalf riding across Middle Earth as he searches for clues. We simply skip the intervening 17 years, because nothing happens there. We don't see each step Frodo takes across the Shire, we only see the bits that matter. Which is the first encounter with the Ringwraith (the encounter with the main badguys of the first part of the book), the run in with the elves (which plays a small but crucial role because they offer aid and the warn Gandal's friends, which is mentioned later), and so on.

 

[Devor]

I visualize a scene a little differently in my story. I have two MCs and the POV swaps between them at a scene break. The two MCs are usually far apart, but sometimes they're together and the next "scene" follows the action immediately where the last one left off. Since I have to define scene at the POV swap, sometimes there are scenes that could also be seen as a string of smaller scenes, like the character has to meet with different people in different places, but it's still one scene. There's usually two or three scenes in a chapter, but it varies.

With that out of the way.... For me, I need to make sure a new scene does the following:

1) The opening paragraphs need to builds the setting, the mood, the tone, and so on, for the POV character. Even if the last scene was at a breakneck pace, and this new scene is immediately following it, we need to stop, slow down, establish where this character is first.

So, right away I have a rhythm to my story. Every new scene is a complete shift from the scene before it. Since a scene already opens a little slow, this is often, but not always, where we get some reflection and reaction time, character thoughts that question where things stand or come to sort of forward direction. To use the same term others mentioned in this thread, many of my scenes open with a "sequel."

2) Each scene needs a core event, the interesting and important thing for which the scene exists. That's usually some decision or discovery that happens through the action and dialogue. The bulk of the scene is about doing this purpose justice, by building up to it and having the characters and readers properly feel it.

Each scene is a little box, like a present. It's got its slow-open wrapping. And it's got to have a little surprise inside. No surprise, no scene. No empty boxes. No chunks of coal.

3) Each scene has a close. This is one of those things that feels impossible to explain. It's like a little cliffhanger? A curiosity? A tease? Yet it also has to feel satisfying as a close to the scene. Sometimes it's also a sequel, where the character reflects and decides something, because there won't be room for that in their following scene (i.e., character has to decide what they're doing next, because the next scene opens with them starting to do it). But the most important part is that the close has to make you want to keep reading, while still feeling satisfied, if that makes any sense.

Again, I find that hard to explain.

4) The scene needs to tie to a chapter purpose. This is a bit of a challenge for me because the characters are often apart, doing very different things. But it still needs to feel like there's a reason we're seeing these scenes together. When I was writing fanfiction, I learned that readers really loved it when my characters reacted very differently to the same event. So that contrast between how the characters see the world has become a thing I really like to play with within a chapter. Often times the two characters are reflecting on each other (they are both antagonists and love interests), so the chapter purpose might be showing how the two of them process their last encounter, or how they both come to a decision which maybe creates conflict with the other character's decision. In one case, a character figures out something about the other one, and we jump to a scene by the other character which confirms it to the reader.

5) What else do I do in a scene? Usually I like to play around and try something new. I like to experiment. That's more of a personal thing than a scene requirement though, and I did more of it in the fanfiction than my WIP. For example, in my fanfiction I have an unfinished scene from a 2nd person POV, where the narrative becomes the villain's voice talking to a possessed character. That's kind of a bigger example. A smaller one might be working to demonstrate a sprite's internal "pranking impulse" during a scene where outwardly the character is behaving. So it may not be every scene, but still, I try to challenge myself to play around with the narrative. I think it's fun.