What Makes A Good Scene?
Ok, so you've got your outline . . . or not. *grin* You're at the computer, ready to write. What do you need?
A SCENE!
Every book, every short story, every piece of fiction, comes down to scenes. It's the building block of the story. So what makes a good scene? What should you include or not include? Why is one scene better than another? Why is THAT book being published and not yours?
The answer to all of these questions is something that I personally did not realize (in the years teaching myself how to write) for a long time. It's not obvious until you know what it is, and than it's blatantly obvious and you wonder why the hell you never realized it in the first place.
But first (ha, ha! I'm a teaser and won't tell you the answer until after I lay down some foundation), a few completely basic things about scenes.
A scene is the basic building block of all stories (I'm skipping the "basic" building blocks of, you know, words and sentences and paragraphs . . . that's grammar; I want to talk about story). There are three things that could be included in a scene.
The first is the obvious: setting. This is the location of the scene--a room, a buildings, a meadow, a forest, etc. But setting is actually more than that as well. It also includes, especially for fantasy and science fiction, the worldbuilding. If you're world has dragons, the dragons are included as part of the setting. If you have a culture that prays to the god Og, that's part of the setting. So not only do you need a place, you should also include the particulars of your world.
The second is plot. Once you have setting, something needs to happen in that setting, some type of action. There's the obvious action of battle! or chase! and things like that. But action also includes "calm" things such as conversations, two characters simply talking, as well as a character's internal monologue, or someone doing research, etc.
And the third is character. Not a character and his or her description (that's more like setting), but a person's actual character, their personality. In most stories, the character needs to change, which means you need to establish that personality at the beginning, make subtle alterations in it during the course of the novel in the scenes, and then end the story with an obvious alteration in that character.
Those are the three basic components of a scene--setting, plot, and character. I plan on talking about each of those in depth in later posts. For now, I'll stick to how they relate to the scenes in your story. Every scene must have at least one of those three present. The key to a good scene is that it contains at least TWO of those three. A great scene includes all THREE.
Let's take a close look at that though. Because alot of you probably snorted in derision and said to yourself, "I have all three in ALL of my scenes!" But that's not true. Because when I say that you need at least two to have a good scene, I mean that you have to have something significant, something new from at least two of those three to make a good scene. Just because you say it's in a meadow doesn't mean you have setting. You have to include something significant about the world in order to be able to count setting as part of that scene. If you say that the meadow was the location of a tremendous battle that decided the fate of an entire nation a hundred years ago and now another battle on the same meadow and on the same scale is about to take place . . . ah, now you can say that the setting is significant.
So, in order for it to be a good scene, you need to introduce something new about the setting AND you need to advance the plot in a significant way. Or you need to advance the plot significantly, and alter the character of the person in the scene subtly. Or you need to alter the character in some way and introduce something new about the world at the same time.
But again, the best scenes do all three. THE BEST SCENES DO ALL THREE.
When I sit down to write, I always try to start by asking myself what I intend to accomplish in the current scene. Most of the time, this begins with plot. I want to advance the plot from this point to that point in the most exciting way possible. I'm sure almost everyone starts with this. However, if you want the scene to be a good scene, you should also ask yourself WHAT ELSE do you want the scene to do? What does this plot do to the character? If it's a battle, how does that battle affect the character? If it's a conversation, how do the characters feel about what's being said? Does it anger them? Make them think? Change them in some way?
Or the battle or conversation could be informative about the world instead, rather than advance the character. Does it tell us something new about the world? Does it reveal something about the cultures that are clashing? If it's a conversation, is something significant about the world revealed during the conversation? Even if it doesn't pertain to the real "point" of the conversation?
All of this goes through my mind before, during, and after writing a scene. Because in order for the scene to be "good", in order for it to be the most effective, it should advance at least two of those three components. A scene that only advances the plot is a weak scene. One that only deals with character is weak. If it only touches on worldbuilding, it's weak. You want to write the strongest scenes possible, so ask yourself WHAT ELSE can you do? If you can't cover more than one element in that scene, then you should ask yourself whether the scene is actually necessary. Perhaps the plot element, or worldbuilding element, or character development, can be moved to a different place, where it can be combined with one of the other components, and thus create a more effective scene. In the end, such a combination will tighten the story, will make it more compact, and it will make each individual scene more interesting and more effective for the reader.
So when you sit down to write today, ask yourself what you want to accomplish in the current scene. I think you'll discover that you can pack more into one scene than you thought possible, and that if you DO pack more into the scene, the scene will feel richer, more significant, and in the end the story will be richer and more significant as well. And ask yourself the same things when you read that next scene in whatever book you're reading. What did the writer accomplish is that scene? What two or three things did they pack into the scene to make it effective? I think you'll be surprised at how much is there, when you really take a close look.
*****************
Joshua Palmatier
http://www.sff.net/people/jpalmatier
Ok, so you've got your outline . . . or not. *grin* You're at the computer, ready to write. What do you need?
A SCENE!
Every book, every short story, every piece of fiction, comes down to scenes. It's the building block of the story. So what makes a good scene? What should you include or not include? Why is one scene better than another? Why is THAT book being published and not yours?
The answer to all of these questions is something that I personally did not realize (in the years teaching myself how to write) for a long time. It's not obvious until you know what it is, and than it's blatantly obvious and you wonder why the hell you never realized it in the first place.
But first (ha, ha! I'm a teaser and won't tell you the answer until after I lay down some foundation), a few completely basic things about scenes.
A scene is the basic building block of all stories (I'm skipping the "basic" building blocks of, you know, words and sentences and paragraphs . . . that's grammar; I want to talk about story). There are three things that could be included in a scene.
The first is the obvious: setting. This is the location of the scene--a room, a buildings, a meadow, a forest, etc. But setting is actually more than that as well. It also includes, especially for fantasy and science fiction, the worldbuilding. If you're world has dragons, the dragons are included as part of the setting. If you have a culture that prays to the god Og, that's part of the setting. So not only do you need a place, you should also include the particulars of your world.
The second is plot. Once you have setting, something needs to happen in that setting, some type of action. There's the obvious action of battle! or chase! and things like that. But action also includes "calm" things such as conversations, two characters simply talking, as well as a character's internal monologue, or someone doing research, etc.
And the third is character. Not a character and his or her description (that's more like setting), but a person's actual character, their personality. In most stories, the character needs to change, which means you need to establish that personality at the beginning, make subtle alterations in it during the course of the novel in the scenes, and then end the story with an obvious alteration in that character.
Those are the three basic components of a scene--setting, plot, and character. I plan on talking about each of those in depth in later posts. For now, I'll stick to how they relate to the scenes in your story. Every scene must have at least one of those three present. The key to a good scene is that it contains at least TWO of those three. A great scene includes all THREE.
Let's take a close look at that though. Because alot of you probably snorted in derision and said to yourself, "I have all three in ALL of my scenes!" But that's not true. Because when I say that you need at least two to have a good scene, I mean that you have to have something significant, something new from at least two of those three to make a good scene. Just because you say it's in a meadow doesn't mean you have setting. You have to include something significant about the world in order to be able to count setting as part of that scene. If you say that the meadow was the location of a tremendous battle that decided the fate of an entire nation a hundred years ago and now another battle on the same meadow and on the same scale is about to take place . . . ah, now you can say that the setting is significant.
So, in order for it to be a good scene, you need to introduce something new about the setting AND you need to advance the plot in a significant way. Or you need to advance the plot significantly, and alter the character of the person in the scene subtly. Or you need to alter the character in some way and introduce something new about the world at the same time.
But again, the best scenes do all three. THE BEST SCENES DO ALL THREE.
When I sit down to write, I always try to start by asking myself what I intend to accomplish in the current scene. Most of the time, this begins with plot. I want to advance the plot from this point to that point in the most exciting way possible. I'm sure almost everyone starts with this. However, if you want the scene to be a good scene, you should also ask yourself WHAT ELSE do you want the scene to do? What does this plot do to the character? If it's a battle, how does that battle affect the character? If it's a conversation, how do the characters feel about what's being said? Does it anger them? Make them think? Change them in some way?
Or the battle or conversation could be informative about the world instead, rather than advance the character. Does it tell us something new about the world? Does it reveal something about the cultures that are clashing? If it's a conversation, is something significant about the world revealed during the conversation? Even if it doesn't pertain to the real "point" of the conversation?
All of this goes through my mind before, during, and after writing a scene. Because in order for the scene to be "good", in order for it to be the most effective, it should advance at least two of those three components. A scene that only advances the plot is a weak scene. One that only deals with character is weak. If it only touches on worldbuilding, it's weak. You want to write the strongest scenes possible, so ask yourself WHAT ELSE can you do? If you can't cover more than one element in that scene, then you should ask yourself whether the scene is actually necessary. Perhaps the plot element, or worldbuilding element, or character development, can be moved to a different place, where it can be combined with one of the other components, and thus create a more effective scene. In the end, such a combination will tighten the story, will make it more compact, and it will make each individual scene more interesting and more effective for the reader.
So when you sit down to write today, ask yourself what you want to accomplish in the current scene. I think you'll discover that you can pack more into one scene than you thought possible, and that if you DO pack more into the scene, the scene will feel richer, more significant, and in the end the story will be richer and more significant as well. And ask yourself the same things when you read that next scene in whatever book you're reading. What did the writer accomplish is that scene? What two or three things did they pack into the scene to make it effective? I think you'll be surprised at how much is there, when you really take a close look.
*****************
Joshua Palmatier
http://www.sff.net/people/jpalmatier
