Think of your scene as a nesting doll

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The best scenes are stories within stories. It's what my editor Erik told me—and he's right, of course.

One way you can think of a scene is a series of blocks, leading to one another. Or falling dominoes.

Another way to think about your scenes is of nesting dolls. Yes, like Russian matryoshkas. 

You give the reader one layer, they think that’s the story, but then you take off that layer and show that underneath is yet another layer! And so on.

You can do it almost infinitely, as l...