Words make sentences, sentences make paragraphs, paragraphs make scenes.
Here’s one approach to scene building. Something happens, and then there’s a reaction to it, which sets up the next scene.
Here’s another, more detailed way of looking at a scene—action, dialog, internal reaction, courtesy of the Two Writing Teachers blog.
Look at this: “He hoped with all his might if he showed her his book, it might convince her to stay.” This is a really good example of an internal cliffhanger, which can be very effective in storytelling. This is where you have a small cliffhanger in the middle of a chapter.
And here’s another way of looking at a scene. Establish the setting and where we are in the story, present conflict or a reveal, and then establish the new place in the story.
Conflict drives stories, but well-timed reveals can be gripping. Reveals are exposition for the reader. Filling in back story, things that were kept secret, and so on.
Reveal is why outlining is go important. You can keep secrets, foreshadow them, reveal them in drips until all is revealed at exactly the right time.
Outlining also allows effective foreshadowing, because you know what’s going to happen.
The + and – symbols indicate an approach to scenes where if a scene starts say positive, it should end negative or very positive. This indicates change that propels the story.
TIP: Know when to understate and when to exaggerate.
A decision you will make when creating scenes is how much writing needs to happen. Understating generally respects the reader’s imagination by allowing white spaces between ideas. The reader fills in those white spaces with his or her imagination and engages with the story. So you don’t have to describe everything.
This is particularly effective when the subject is serious. If you’re writing a war scene, for example, graphically describing the gore overplays the scene. If you’re writing pulp, however, lay it on as thick as you like. Or say you’re writing comedy. A lonely man sees the girl of his dreams across the bar. He might see her as an angel, or as a sunrise, etc.
TIP: Be sparing with stage direction.
Be sparing with stage direction. This is where you have a character here and you have to move them there so they can do something.
Describing in detail how a character crosses a room or gets in a car isn’t very interesting, so it should be handled carefully and sparingly for clarity and to spice dialogue.
In some cases, you can use what in film is called a smash cut. This is where the action jumps from one thing to the next. This could be handled by breaks between paragraphs or chapters, or even in the middle of a scene, as shown here.
“I’m warning you,” she said. “Not another word.”
He laughed and yelled, “Ha! You wouldn’t—”
Then he moaned, seeing stars. He touched his nose. His fingers came away bloody.
She leaned close, whispered, “I warned you.”
And that’s it for the day. Tomorrow, we’ll finish the series by talking about how to structure stories.