Making a Scene

Last week, we talked about the overall structure of the novel. This week I want to focus on the core element of every story, the scene.

Some writers create a list of every scene that will appear in their novel before they start writing. Although I don’t do that, I can understand the benefits of the approach. One being that if you find it difficult to write your story in a linear manner, you can write whatever scenes most appeal to you at that moment. You can also move scenes around in order to increase the pace or the tension. Yes, you can do that in writing a linear approach, too, but keeping a list of the scenes can be helpful when it comes to looking at the structure.

What is a scene?

A scene is a component of a larger work, a novel or a play, for instance. While it is essential to the whole, it can also stand on its own.

What are the essential elements of a scene?The settingThe character / charactersThe objective ConflictSuccess or failure

I would add that the scene should also contain a point of view and a plot. I’m sure that comes as no surprise, however, it’s important to make a distinction between the plot-driven scene, and the exposition-heavy elements that add to the reader’s understanding irrespective of the plot. For instance, perhaps while he is planning his hike, Mark does some research and learns a lot about the moors. The flora and fauna, weather patters, and how many people get lost there every year. These are merely facts, but knowing them will add to the tension if Mark later gets lost on the moor.

You already know whose story you’re writing, at least, I hope you do. If this is Mark’s story, we can probably infer that he will survive his ordeal on the moor. Unless like Hitchcock you plan to kill off your main character half-way through the story (as in Psycho), the main character’s survival is usually a foregone conclusion. However, you may have selected a different main character, perhaps it’s Mark’s brother, or it’s a policeman who is investigating Mark’s disappearance. You can certainly open the story with Mark having some compelling, but unspecified reason for venturing out on the moor. He disappears in the mist so the reader doesn’t know what has happened to him, until someone starts investigating.

No matter whose story it is, you have to give us a point of view. Is can be omniscient third person, or limited first person, or whatever suits the story.

The Setting: Time and Place

As with the novel, the individual scene needs a sense of location and time. If you ever read a script you will see that each scene includes things like: “Joe’s apartment. 2023. Noon. Enter Joe and Mike.”

The setting means the place, but broad and specific. By that I mean it can include the country, as well as the specific environment where the scene occurs. For instance, a hotel room in the bad part of Liverpool; Mark’s penthouse on Park Avenue, New York; or something like, ‘the middle of the Yorkshire moors.’

In addition, you should convey some sense of the time of year. You can reflect this in nature — from a distance, the New York streets look like they’ve been doused with Cornflakes thanks to all those fallen leaves. Or a character’s reference — it would be Christmas in two weeks. Or connect the time of year with some other specific event, He glanced at the watch Paul had given him for his birthday. Amazingly, it still ran three whole weeks later. Paul was so cheap and he was always looking for a ‘bargain.’ Plus, he always took advantage of the fact that Mark’s birthday was on New Year’s Day. For as long as he could remember, Mark always got a one-for-two sort of present from his stingy brother.

It helps, too, to note the time of day. Depending on the scenario and the goal, it gives the reader an idea of how pressing the situation may be to the character. For instance, Dave needs to get money into the bank by 5pm or his bid on the house of his dreams will be neglected. Or his electric payment won’t go through and the power will be shut off, and his wife will accuse him of being a loser and walk out on him.

By making an event time-specific, you increase the tension in the scene.

As an example, let’s imagine a scene in which a man is hiking across the moors. He’s hoping to get to an inn before nightfall. Right now it’s mid-afternoon, but the weather is turning. A light rain is falling, the temperature has dropped, and he can see fog coming in.

For a minute Mark thought his watch was running fast. It would be just like his crummy brother to give him a cheap knock-off for his combined birthday and Christmas, though, as Mark had pointed out many times, a New Year’s Day birthday wasn’t the same thing. But after examining the watch for a minute and comparing the time with his phone, he saw the thing was working fine, and after three whole months, too. Still, 4pm. How on earth did it get so late? He’d expected to find an inn by three, at the latest. Not for the first time he had doubts about the compass Paul had given him the year before. It looked suspiciously like a cheap prize in a Christmas cracker, but he, Mark, had said nothing, wanting to keep the peace.

He shook his head as if he could banish all thoughts of his brother by the exertion. All he needed right now was to get lost in the middle of the moor. People died here, he knew. Went for a hike, just like him, and were never seen again. And as if some bloody-minded stage-hand were trying to add to his misery, it started to rain. That thin, misty type of wetness that soaks a man as surely as a deluge. It would be dark soon and, oh great, was that a mist rolling in?

This is a quick first draft piece, written to make that point that you can encapsulate the time and place, as well as the man’s predicament, and his goal: to reach an inn by nightfall — indeed, with the fog coming in that might be even more urgent a need. We don’t need to spell out the consequences for failure, it’s already implied in the comment that people had died on the moor.

Character / Characters

There is just the one character in this scene. We’ll call him Mark. As this is a scene in a longer work, we might already know why he’s walking on the moor. Maybe he’s trying to lose weight, or he’s trying to win a bet. Perhaps there’s a beautiful woman who lives in a nearby town, and he’s hoping to meet her by ‘casually’ showing up as a hiker. Or perhaps he’s hoping to get to some remote village where an old friend of his mother’s lives. A friend who might know something about his mother’s disappearance. It’s your story, so you can decide why Mark is there. By the way, you don’t have to tell your readers everything up front. A little mystery in any sort of novel is a plus. You can show Mark on this long walk without explaining what he’s up to, and reveal that information later, perhaps in another scene.

The Objective

It’s fine if you decide to hold back Mark’s reason for walking across this lonely moor on is own, and reveal it later. One caveat, though: If you decide to play coy with the reader, the reveal must be worth something when it comes. If you give us a lot of drama about how Mark is enduring these hardships but imply he has a good reason for it, we won’t be impressed if it turns out that he’s hoping to win a fiver from a mate. Then again, he could still be trying to win a bet because if he does his brother (let’s say) has agreed to donate bone marrow to Mark’s sick daughter.

If the motivation is minor — losing weight, as I said before — then you can reveal it up front. But you need to show the reader that he has a good reason for wanting to do so. Perhaps he’s in danger of a heart attack if he doesn’t drop a few pounds. Or perhaps he’s been struggling with depression and he thinks improving his health and fitness will raise his spirits. Whatever the reason may be, we need to be clear about the consequences of failure.

Conflict

The first thing that comes to most of our minds when we think of conflict is fist-fights, brawls, wars, and other types of violence. Those are certainly forms of conflict, but there are others. In the following examples I’ve written ‘man’ but, of course, that includes women, too. For instance:

Marital disputesStrong-willed childrenNasty neighboursMan against animals (naughty dog, savage wolf, a flea infestation. You get the idea.)Man against the environment. Mark alone on the moor with a fog coming in. Man on a desert island. Man alone in the ocean trying to reach land. Or David Bowie’s Major Tom ‘floating round a tin can’ in space. Man against machines, for instance a broken washing machine. A printer that constantly jams. A computer that seems to have a mind of its own.Man against god. This can be a character railing against the believers of a different religion or cult; blaming the Almighty for the death of his child; or feeling ‘called’ to something like the priesthood and not wanting to do it.

Outcome

As with the elements of the structure, the outcome of the issue can be one of the following:

Complete success. Mark finds the inn just in time, and meets the girl, loses the weight, wins the bet, etc.

Partial success. He gets to the inn but doesn’t meet the girl, or finds that she’s married; he loses weight, but his health is no better; he wins the bet, but his brother reneges.

Complete failure: He doesn’t get to the inn and has to spend the night on the moor. He ends up going home, cold, wet, and hungry, and hasn’t come close to meeting his objectives.

Indeterminate: The scene ends with Mark walking into the fog. The next scene shows us two of Mark’s friends discussing his disappearance.

Rising and Falling Action

Just like the structure of the novel, the scene needs the rising falling action. There’s the status quo: Mark on the moor. Perhaps you could begin on the train before he gets there. If so, you could have a local warn him that it will be foggy later. Then the rising action when he realises it’s getting dark and he’s no closer to his destination. The climax might be him losing his compass, realising he’s lost, or he admits defeat and decides to go back to the railway. This is the decline from the climax as he essentially returns to the start. These are just some top-of-my-head ideas. Perhaps he finds a body on the moor. Or he hears a wolf in the distance. Or, perhaps he meets a couple of dangerous looking men. It’s your tale, take it where you wish. Just remember that by the end of the scene, the character should be either closer to his primary goal, or further away from it.

That’s it for this week, my friends. Next week, we’ll look at exposition and pacing. I hope you’ll join me.