Make A Scene (2 page)

Though it's not wise to write
first
drafts with the super-ego breathing its foul, critical breath down your neck, your readers should be the most precious people imaginable after your characters. You see, most readers are not writers; they don't know how hard it is to write. They have very little patience or empathy for your struggles. They just want a good story, and they will put down one that doesn't hold their interest. It's up to you to ensure that they don't lose interest in
your
story.

You've felt the pulse-pounding drama of a good story, you've turned pages at a furious clip, caught up in a book so real you felt as though it was happening to you. What makes that story, book, or essay come to life? Strong, powerful scenes.

Writing is a wildly creative act, and therefore often seems to defy rules and formulas. Just when a rule seems agreed upon, some writer comes along to break it. While there
is
a formula to scene-writing, it's not straightforward. It's not like a paint-by-numbers kit, where you fill in the listed colors and voila, you have a perfect painting of dogs playing poker, in all the right proportions. The scene-writing formula is more like the messy spontaneity of cooking: You start with the ingredients the recipe calls for, but you work them in creatively, and variations on the main ingredients yield different, even surprising, results.

The only certain result you want is to snare the reader's attention with your very first sentence. Since writing competes with the fast-paced, seductive intensity of television and movies, your challenge is to write engaging scenes.

THE SCENE DEFINED

So what is a scene, exactly? Scenes are capsules in which compelling characters undertake significant actions in a vivid and memorable way that allows the events to feel as though they are happening in real time. When strung together, individual scenes add up to build plots and storylines.

The recipe for a scene includes the following basic ingredients:

• Characters who are complex and layered, and who undergo change throughout your narrative

• A point of view through which the scenes are seen

• Memorable and significant action that feels as if it is unfolding in real time

• Meaningful, revealing dialogue when appropriate

• New plot information that advances your story and deepens characters

• Conflict and drama that tests your characters and ultimately reveals their personalities

• A rich physical setting that calls on all the senses and enables the reader to see and enter into the world you've created

• A spare amount of narrative summary or exposition

Arguably, the one thing in that list that makes a scene a scene is action— events happening and people acting out behaviors in a simulation of real time—but well-balanced scenes include a little bit of everything. Mixing those ingredients together in varying amounts will yield drama, emotion, passion, power, and energy; in short, a page-turner. Some scenes need more physical action, while others may require a lot of dialogue. Some scenes will take place with barely a word spoken, or with very small actions. Other scenes may require vivid interaction with the setting. As you make your way through this book, you will get a better grasp of the power of the scene and how to use it to achieve your desired effects.

In part two we'll discuss all of the above ingredients, as well as these more complex scene considerations:

• Dramatic tension, which creates the potential for conflict in scenes

• Scene subtext, which deepens and enriches your scenes

• Scene intentions, which ensure characters' actions are purposeful

• Pacing and scene length, which influence the mood and tone of individual scenes

These latter ingredients deepen your scenes and help you take them beyond the perfunctory. Dramatic tension will make the reader worry about and care for your characters and keep her riveted to the page. Subtext can build imagery and emotion into the deeper layers of scenes so that your writing feels rich and complex. Scene intentions help to guide your characters and take them through changes in as dramatic a way as possible. By pacing your scenes well and choosing the proper length for each scene, you can control the kinds of emotional effects your scenes have, leaving the reader with the feeling of having taken a satisfying journey.

ANATOMY OF A SCENE

To help clarify how all of the elements just discussed function within a scene, here is a complex snippet of a scene from Joseph Conrad's richly layered short story "The Secret Sharer," which I have labeled to show its parts.

Before entering the cabin I stood still, listening in the lobby at the foot of the stairs.
[First-person point of view.]
A faint snore came through the closed door of the chief mate's room. The second mate's door was on the hook, but the darkness in there was absolutely soundless.
[Physical setting that invokes one of the senses: hearing.]
He, too, was young and could sleep like a stone. Remained the steward, but he was not likely to wake up before he was called. I got a sleeping suit out of my room and, coming back on deck, saw the naked man from the sea sitting on the main hatch, glimmering white in the darkness, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
[Action that provides a sense of real time.]
In a moment he had concealed his damp body in a sleeping suit of the same gray-stripe pattern as the one I was wearing and followed me like my double on the poop. Together we moved right aft, barefooted, silent.

"What is it?" I asked in a deadened voice, taking the lighted lamp out of the binnacle and raising it to his face.

"An ugly business."
[Dialogue.]

He had rather regular features; a good mouth; light eyes under somewhat heavy, dark eyebrows; a smooth square forehead; no growth on his cheeks; a small brown mustache, and a well-shaped round chin. His expression was concentrated, meditative, under the inspecting light of the lamp I held up to his face; such as a man thinking hard in solitude might wear.
[Detailed physical character description.]
My sleeping suit was just right for his size. A well-knit young fellow of twenty-five at most. He caught his lower lip with the edge of white, even teeth.

"Yes," I said, replacing the lamp in the binnacle. The warm heavy tropical night closed upon his head again.

"There's a ship over there," he murmured.

"Yes, I know.
The Sephora.
Did you know of us?"

"Hadn't the slightest idea. I am the mate of her—" He paused and corrected himself. "I should say I was."

"Aha! Something wrong?'

"Yes. Very wrong indeed. I've killed a man."
[Dramatic tension and plot information.]

"What do you mean? Just now?"

"No, on the passage. Weeks ago. Thirty-nine south. When I say a man — "

"Fit of temper," I suggested, confidently.

The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod imperceptibly above the ghostly gray of my sleeping suit. It was, in the night, as though I had been faced by my own reflection in the depths of a somber and immense mirror.
[Using physical setting to create the desired eerie mood.]

Think of the elements illustrated in the marked sections above as crucial ingredients that you want to employ in your own writing. Conrad's story is an example of how unique each scene will be, even when you're using the same essential ingredients. You might choose a different method of creating dramatic tension—like writing in the third-person point of view, opting for more or less dialogue (or none), or using very different actions to create a sense of real time—but you can see that Conrad did, in fact, use all the foundational ingredients of a scene, and held your attention. This is exactly what your scenes need to do for your readers.

THE OLE "SHOW, DON'T TELL" DILEMMA

What exactly does it mean to show and not tell? Should your characters be doing wild strip-teases or crying "Look, nothing up my sleeve," before pulling out a rabbit? Only if you want, but in this case
show
is a caveat that means "don't over-explain; trust your reader."

Telling, also referred to in this book as narrating or narrative summary, is a form of
explaining.
And while every narrative has some necessary summary, it must be used judiciously. Imagine yourself as the storyteller to a group of enthralled children gathered around and hanging on your every word. Say that right at the climax where Snow White bites into the poisoned apple (a juicy bit of action), you go off on a tangent like this: "Snow White thought about taking a bite of the apple, but she had been having trust issues since her stepmother had hired the woodcutter to kill her. Remembering her stepmother's betrayal sent her into a whirlwind of doubt. ..." Bored yet? You can bet those kids would be bouncing in their chairs asking, "But what happened to Snow White after she bit into the poisoned apple?!" Grown-up readers respond the same way to telling.

Think about it another way: Most people read with their physical eyes and a handy little part of the brain known as the visual cortex. The brain is, in fact, considered more important in the function of sight than the eyes, and in the act of reading, this is even more true. The brain helps the reader with the most important organ of reading, the inner eye, meaning the eye of the imagination (not some mystical link to spiritual realms). This eye is responsible for constructing in the mind the visual images that are rendered only in text on a page. You want the reader to see what you describe as vividly as you see your dreams at night; therefore, you must give the reader as much opportunity to do so as possible. You must be detailed and specific, and provide enough sensory clues to make the task of seeing easy.

Narrative summary, on the other hand, offers words only to the reader's inner ear, as if someone were standing off to the side whispering right to him. While the eye allows the reader to become emotionally involved, and activates the heart and the viscera, the inner ear seems to be linked more closely to the function of sound. Too much stimulation on the inner ear can temporarily lull your reader, or even put him to sleep. This is one of the reasons that narrative passages should be kept to a minimum.

Scenes use the ingredients mentioned earlier to construct a powerful, vivifying experience that mimics life for the reader. At its best, powerful scene-writing allows a reader to feel as if he has entered the narrative and is participating in it, rather than sitting passively by and receiving a lecture. You know you're in a scene when your own heart is pumping and you're white-knuckling the pages waiting to see what happens next. When you fall into the story and forget the world around you, the author has done a good job of immersing you in a scene.

Narrative summaries, when used in place of scene work or when used in excess, cause the reader to feel that the writing is boring, condescending, or lecturing—which will not win more readers. That said, narrative summaries, when used correctly, do have a place and a function in scenes, and we'll take a closer look at those functions throughout this book.

SCENE LENGTH

Before we wrap this chapter up, let's talk about another issue that's sure to rise up in your mind: scene length. One of the benefits of writing in scene form is that the ending of a scene provides a place for the reader to comfortably take a pause. You may wonder when to use a short scene versus a long scene. Once again, the decision rests with you, but we'll take a quick look at the benefits of using either kind.