how to write a scene – WordServe Water Cooler

Ever try to stab a pile of peas with a fork? Inevitably, a few green roly-polys fly off your plate and plummet to the floor. It’s a horrible way for a pea to go.

And even worse when it happens to one of your scenes.

Track with me here. You’re writing along la-de-dah-de-dah and wham! An invisible pitchfork skewers your brain, and the words go flying right out of your head. You have no idea what to write next. And the longer you sit there, the more you wonder if the words you’ve already written even have a point.

Don’t panic. Be proactive. Mind your P’s and…umm…P’s! Four of them to be exact: POV, Plan, Purpose, Page Turner. Try the following handy-dandy trick at the beginning of each scene to keep your writing on track.

POV (Point of View): This is the easiest P of all. Simply jot down from which character’s perspective your reader will experience the scene.

Plan: An architect needs a blueprint to construct a building that’s stable and functional. A writer needs one, too. This step is exactly what the label implies. Plan out the sequence of action for the scene, including setting and who’s involved.

Purpose: If your scene doesn’t have a purpose other than back story or description, then toss it out. A well told story is one that takes the reader by the hand and pulls them along, always moving forward.

Page Turner: a.k.a. Cliff Hanger. This doesn’t have to be a literal hero dangling by his hangnails from a ledge. Simply put, the goal of every scene, especially the last few sentences, is to leave the reader begging for more. Physical action is the most tangible way to accomplish this, but it doesn’t have to be. Emotional or spiritual conflicts are great ways to make a reader wonder what will happen as well.

Pulling It Together: At the beginning of each scene, simply satisfy each of these “P’s” before starting to write fresh copy. Here’s an example of how all this pulls together (taken from my current WIP):

POV: Nicholas Brentwood

Plan: Ballroom scene / Nicholas allows Emily to dance with Henley, though he doesn’t like it one bit / Shadwell asks Emily’s friend Bella to dance, but Bella says she’s already dancing with Nicholas / Nicholas is about to protest when he realizes not only will he be doing Bella a favor by saving her from dancing with Shadwell, but he’ll have a much better view of Emily on the dance floor himself / While out dancing, he loses sight of Emily and rushes out to look for her / He searches upstairs, downstairs, everywhere, but merely turns up Emily’s scare-rific ‘friend’ Millie, the one who’s been trying to snag him / he tries to evade her, until her parting words make him stop and turn around

Purpose: Hypes up Nicholas’s concern for Emily / Provides an opportunity for the next clue as to what happened to Mr. Payne

Page Turner: Millie’s parting words, “I know what happened to Mr. Payne.”

There you have it. It’s really that simple. By thinking through the four “P’s” ahead of time, words will roll right off your fingertips and appear on your screen, which technically crams one more P in the ol’ writing pod…

Productivity.

How will you use the four “P” technique this week in your writing? What other techniques do you have that keep the words flowing?

Stage You’ll notice I didn’t include the word “easy” in the title of this post. There are not seven “easy” steps to writing a story in scenes. It takes hard work. I suspect that’s why so many writers substitute narrative summary for scenes.

Of course, when you’re not sure of the components that make up a scene, it’s harder to write one. If your writing seems flat or passive and you don’t know why, you may have omitted one or more of the following:

Real Time: Even if you’re writing in third person using past-tense verbs, lay out actions in sequential order. As a rule, especially in the beginning of your novel, don’t jump backward or forward in the story. If you do, you’ll interrupt the flow of time and disconcert your reader. For an unusual perspective on time flow in fiction, read Teach Your Writing Voice to Sing.
Characters: This element may seem like a “no-brainer.” (Of course a scene will have characters.) But hear me out. Let’s say you’re writing about a lynch mob ready to hang an outlaw. You could state the bald fact, or you could pick faces from the crowd. Maybe the outlaw killed Jack’s brother, robbed Otis’s store, and held a gun to Chet’s face just for fun. Having these fellows, even as minor characters, call out their grievances makes the incident personal and, therefore, more immediate. For a unique and efficient perspective on creating characters, read Dianne Christner’s Creating Characters With Personality.
Showing: You experience the world through your senses. Similarly, for readers to enter your written world, you must draw them through their senses. Labeling emotions is telling. It’s also lazy writing. Instead of stating that Mary is sad, show her reasons for sadness, and then have her react physically and perhaps with introspection. Just don’t do this in a clichéd manner. Maybe she doesn’t weep but instead grows quiet or withdraws. David is angry but rather than punch a hole in the wall he exterminates every weed in his yard. For more tips, watch my video: 5 Ways to Show Rather Than Tell in Fiction Writing.
Setting: New writers often neglect this element needed to ground every scene in place and time. Using too much or not enough description is a common mistake. With too few setting details the reader will feel curiously weightless, like an astronaut floating in a zero-gravity chamber. Characters will seem like “talking heads” lost somewhere in space. If you overload your readers with description, you’ll weigh them down so badly they’ll barely make progress through the scene. Finding a happy balance takes practice. It helps to have feedback from great critique partners. Sarah Baughman tackles the topic of How To Balance Dialogue and Description.
Action: Something physical happens, with or without dialogue. Some writers call actions that accompany dialogue “beats.” Using beats instead of tags to identify speakers helps you bring a scene to life. For tips on writing dynamic action scenes, Bryan Thomas Schmidt has you covered. Read his Write Tip: 10 Tips For Writing Good Action Scenes.
Dialogue: Too many writers neglect dialogue, which is a shame. It’s a vital tool for characterization and for imparting information (provided you don’t try to shoehorn it into your reader). You can even use dialogue to give glimpses of back story in a realistic way that doesn’t disrupt your story’s flow. For more on dialogue, read Sharon Lavy’s Do You Hear The Voices?
Purpose: Every scene must further your plot. If a scene exists merely to dump information on the unsuspecting reader, it has no real purpose and will seem aimless. Cut all such scenes and work only the information your reader needs to know into the story when your reader needs to know it. Jody Hedlund offers great advice on strategically selecting scenes in How To Make Your Book Play Out Like a Movie.