In a few of my blog posts, I have talked about scenes, the little building blocks that make up your narrative and tie everything together in one cohesive package. Seems easy enough to figure out how to write a scene, right?
Well, maybe. I’d like to go over the basics of scene writing for this blog post. Writing a well crafted scene can make or break your story. In one of my many creative writing courses over the years, I got The Scene Book by Sandra Scofield. I can’t tell you at this point if it was in my undergrad or graduate level studies, but I do remember this book was extremely helpful when learning how to write well thought out scenes. I am using her book as a basis for this blog post and will be quoting her throughout.
Scofield says that “the scene is the most vivid and immediate part of the story, the place where the reader is the most emotionally involved, the part that leaves the reader with images and a memory of the action.” Scenes are the moments in your story where all the action happens, where the plot progresses. They’re not necessarily filled with descriptive narrative passages – those moments are usually used to tie together your scenes. Linking scenes together with your narrative is what drives your story and plot (remember when we talked about that?) forward.
Scenes need to be structured well. They need to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. You observe “scenes” multiple times in your daily life, like when you’re walking through a grocery store and witness an argument between a parent and child. That’s a scene. Scenes don’t always have to be moments of intense conflict or action. Scofield says “memorable scenes aren’t always made of big action, of course. Often they are those times when the story slows down and we experience the characters in intimate moments. Notice how much we can feel without being told exactly what the characters are feeling.”
Use scenes as not just a time to move your plot forward, but to also develop your characters. With the events that happen in your scenes, take that opportunity to have your characters react to what’s occurring. How they react is important – it either takes their development a step forward or a step back. If their development backslides, what happens next? That can be an additional scene. After a scene takes place, you can take the moments that occur in your narrative prose to reflect on what happened and really delve into your characters’ minds. This will help draw your reader in more as they become part of the process of your story.
As Scofield says, “scenes are those passages in narrative when we slow down and focus on an event in the story so that we are ‘in the moment’ with characters in action.” They can be quick pops of action, or longer, leisurely moments. As long as they have a single focus or idea, you’re on the right track. Make your scenes function in your narrative and not just be thrown in for the sake of word count. This can be done in a variety of ways: introducing new plot elements, revealing something about a character, setting up a situation that will be important later, etc.
To sum everything up, keep these things in mind when writing your scenes:
- Make sure your scene is structured well with a beginning, middle, and end.
- Have your scene centered around an event that progresses your plot forward.
- Your scenes don’t always have to be an action packed moment – have them function in a way that helps move the story along.
I hope the tips above help you when writing your scenes. Drop me a comment below and let me know what kinds of things you consider when drafting scenes in your own writing!