Make A Scene (5 page)

Emotional withholding comes in many forms: A father withholds his approval of his son, no matter what the son does to win him over; a woman withholds her love for her abusive husband, and he abuses her more in the hopes of securing it.

One of literature's most powerful illustrations of emotional withholding is found in the novel
Lolita,
by Vladimir Nabokov. Even after protagonist Humbert Humbert, who has a predilection for nubile young girls, possesses young Lolita by becoming her legal guardian after the death of her mother, Lolita gives him her body but withholds the one thing he truly wants: her love and respect. The entire novel is a series of intense, often difficult, scenes that show Humbert's desperate attempt to finagle the perfect circumstances for Lolita to love him. The act of withholding, which Nabokov employs in one form or another in nearly every scene of the book, makes it possible for the reader to tolerate and even empathize with Humbert and nearly forget what he is: a pedophile.

Here Humbert writes of a time when he merely wanted to hold her, to be loved by Lolita, and of her ultimate denial:

Sometimes ... I would shed all my pedagogic restraint, dismiss all our quarrels, forget all my masculine pride—and literally crawl on my knees to your chair, my Lolita! You would give me one look—a gray furry question mark of a look: "Oh no, not again" (incredulity, exasperation); for you never deigned to believe that I could, without any specific designs, ever crave to bury my face in your plaid skirt, my darling! ... "Pulease, leave me alone; will you," you would say .

Emotional withholding is a great way to elicit sympathy, empathy, and concern for otherwise unlikable characters, as well as to build concern and drama around sympathetic characters.

Withholding information is the most common type of withholding you'll find in scenes. Many things can be withheld: the whereabouts of a kidnap victim; the location of a stolen treasure; the address of the apartment where a Jewish person is hiding from the Nazis. Withheld information usually sets up a power struggle, as the person who has the information holds power over the person who wants it. (That is, unless you decide to bring in a torturer, which shifts the power back again.) Every scene should contain some plot information that is withheld, or else you might conclude your narrative too early on and fall into the bad habit of repeating information the reader already knows.

Withholding objects is also an option. You might remember a game from childhood known as monkey in the middle, in which two children toss an object back and forth over the head of a third child, who tries desperately to grab for it. While it looks like a game, it's also a form of torture for the third child.

A person witnessing this scene would want to intervene on behalf of the poor child and grab the coveted item out from the hands of those tossing it.

You can play a form of monkey in the middle with your characters if there is an important object that your character wants, but that he must not gain too soon. This is a great technique when two characters want the same object, whether they are fighting for their lives over a gun on the floor, plotting to steal a precious piece of jewelry, or seeking a locked-up teddy bear that represents comfort. The longer you withhold the object from the person or people who want it, especially during the middle of the scene, the more tension you can build.

The Element Danger

A fantastic way to up the ante in the middle of the scene is to put your protagonist or someone he loves in danger. This can be physical danger—the maiden tied to the railroad tracks—like in Annie Proulx's novel
The Shipping News.
The main character, Quoyle, is a doormat of a man who has terrible self-esteem and who can't swim. His inability to swim is a metaphor for how he navigates the world. When he sees a body bobbing in the harbor, he takes it upon himself to rescue it, capsizing his boat in the process and nearly drowning himself. While clinging to a floating ice chest, Quoyle's life flashes before his eyes, and for the first time, the reader sees that he wants to become a stronger man.

Putting your character in danger is one of the most immediate ways to capture the reader. How your character reacts to danger also reveals something about his true nature. Perhaps your timid character suddenly shows some bravery, or, conversely, a macho character turns out to be quite terrified when his life is at stake.

Then there is emotional danger, such as an encounter with a psychotic person, blackmail that threatens a character's livelihood, or mental abuse such as in this bit of a scene from Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
A Thousand Acres.
Here, an abusive father suddenly rages at one of his grown daughters, Ginny, whom he considers disloyal:

He leaned his face toward mine. "You don't have to drive me around any more or cook the goddamned breakfast or clean the goddamned house." His voice modulated into a scream. "Or tell me what I can do and what I can't do. I know all about you, you slut! You've been creeping here and there all your life, making up to this one and that one. But you're not really a woman are you? I don't know what you are."

Those offensive and abusive words are strong enough in their own right, but with the characters' history added into the mix—this man abused his daughters when they were young—they are all the more horrifying. It's a painful but brilliant stroke of emotional danger that keeps the reader riveted.

Don't be afraid to invoke emotional danger in your character's lives; they can take it, and it actually builds both reader empathy and dramatic tension.

In truth, the essence of
any
conflict involves a little danger. While in life people tend to avoid arguments and conflict, in fiction, conflict is a great drama-builder. I recommend that in every story or novel your characters get into at least one heated argument—this is a great way to create a sense of emotional danger without having to give your characters bleak childhoods and painful tragedies.

The Unexpected Revelation

Scene middles are a great place for a character to learn that he was adopted, that his wife has cheated on him with his best friend, or that he has been wrongly accused of a crime. Revelations can come via letters found in a dead relative's old chest of drawers, from another character's mouth, from an overheard conversation, or even through a device such as dreams. However they manifest, revelations are transformative pieces of plot information that drive your narrative forward and offer huge potential for drama in the scenes where they are revealed.

The power of a revelation is immense. Who can forget the moment in
Star Wars
when Luke hears those terrible words from Darth Vader—"I am your father"—and how they change everything he knows and believes; or the moment when the title character in Charlotte Bronte's novel
Jane Eyre
learns the terrible truth about the secret past of Mr. Rochester, a truth that forces them to cancel their planned wedding. These revelations come with devastating emphasis.

Revelations can also provide relief and comfort, returning fortune and identity and offering a character a chance where before there was none—like Cinderella learning she has a fairy godmother, or Pip discovering the identity of his wealthy benefactor in Charles Dickens's
Great Expectations
—and if you have tested your characters already, withholding from them and putting them in danger, then you might find it useful to provide a revelation that changes their fate in an instant.

Are you more inclined to remember the moment you first fell in love, or the moment when your lover broke your heart and walked out your door for the last time? Most of us tend to remember what happened most recently, and what had the greater emotional impact on us. Scene endings can carry dynamic emotional weight when done right, and can leave the reader wanting more. Endings are by their nature conclusive; sometimes they conclude simple things like conversations or dates. In other cases, they end livelihoods and lives. But some endings are unresolved and leave the reader with more questions. Both kinds are acceptable when writing scenes (see chapter twenty-one for more on final scenes).

The end of a scene is a space for the readers to take a breath and digest all that they have just finished reading. Endings linger in memory because they are where things finally begin to add up and make sense. At the end of a scene, if it has been done well, the reader will have more knowledge of and a greater investment in the plot and characters, and feel more compelled to find out what happens next. In fact, you know you've done your work when the reader reaches the end of a scene and absolutely must press on. For novels, often each chapter is one long scene.

It is helpful to put scene endings in one of two categories: zoom-in endings and zoom-out endings. Just like a camera can zoom in or out on the image captured in its lens, endings should either bring the reader up close or pull back and provide a wider perspective.

ZOOM-IN ENDINGS

Anything that invites intimacy or emotional contact with the characters and their plight at the end of a scene has a zoom-in effect on readers, drawing the readers closer, even uncomfortably close in order to ensure that they have an emotional experience.

Character Summaries

Looking back on the events that have come before, characters can summarize, in the form of interior monologues or simple dialogue, what has just happened in the scene at hand.

"Wow," Snow White might say to one of her bluebird friends, "I can't believe the Queen actually sent the woodcutter to cut out my heart! I was so naive to trust her!" This summary device is useful when your plot is complex, you have multiple main characters, or there is a mystery involved. The more pieces there are to put together, the more useful end summaries can be. A character summary also helps to show readers where your character is at this final moment before you launch into the next scene.

For instance, in Michael Cunningham's novel
The Hours,
a character named Laura has been debating leaving her family because she feels suffocated. At the end of an important scene, she comes to this decision (told in limited third-person point of view):

She will not lose hope. She will not mourn her lost possibilities, her unexplored talents (what if she has no talents, after all?). She will remain devoted to her son, her husband, her home and duties, all her gifts. She will want this second child.

This kind of ending gives the reader a way of measuring the character's emotional pulse at the end of the scene. Up until this point, Cunningham has built a great deal of anxiety into Laura's storyline, and for this tiny moment, the readers can rest, feeling sure they know what Laura has decided to do. Of course, this is not the end of this character's story, or her dilemma; that is saved for the end of the book.