Questions to Consider When Plotting a Scene

writing scenes
Photo credit: Chris Devers on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Today’s guest post is by novelist C.S. Lakin (@cslakin), author of The 12 Key Pillars of Novel Construction.


Some writers can sit at their computers, come up with an idea for a scene, and start writing. If they’re experienced novelists, they might write a pretty good scene out the gate.

It’s likely, though, they’ll end up rewriting the scene multiple times until it starts to gel. Or they’ll throw the scene out and chalk up the hour or two spent as part of the process.

And that’s not a bad process necessarily. It might be just the process a certain writer needs to end up with a terrific scene. But it’s not the best process for the beginning writer. Or for the writer who doesn’t want to needlessly waste a lot of time and effort.

Anyone who says writing a scene is easy probably hasn’t written one (or, at least, written one worth reading). There are so many elements that make up a great scene, and so many things to juggle as you write.

And then there are all the preparatory issues to be considered before you begin. Questions that must be answered:

  • Who will the POV character be for this scene? What mind-set do they need to have?
  • What is the high moment I need to build to, and what will happen and be revealed in that high moment?
  • Where and when will this scene take place?
  • Why and how is this scene essential to my plot?
  • What is the central conflict in this scene (inner and outer)?
  • How will my character change by the end of the scene (because she should, in a significant way, at the end of every scene)?
  • What key bits of backstory do I need to include, and how will I insert them without info-dumping?
  • How will I create micro-tension on every page by hints, secrets, innuendo?
  • What other characters should be in this scene and why?
  • What is the tone or mood I need to set in this scene?
  • What take-away feeling do I want to leave with the reader when they finish reading the scene?

These are only some of the many questions to consider when plotting out a scene. (You can grab this First-Page Checklist, my Scene Structure Checklist, and my 8 Steps to a Perfect Scene, for starters, to help you with this).

Types of Scenes

Before you write a scene, you need to determine what type of scene it’s going to be.

  • Will it be a narrative scene in which the POV character is telling a story?
  • Will it be a high-action scene?
  • A low-energy dialogue scene?

How many novelists first look at the bigger picture of the string of scenes they are crafting for their novel? If you’ve just had a big-action scene, you might follow it with a contemplative processing scene. If you put too many high-action scenes in a row, you can start to tire out (read: bore) your reader.

There are more than a dozen basic scene types, some of which are transition scenes, epiphany scenes, twist scenes, escape scenes, recommitment scenes, and resolution scenes.

You can see how having so many choices might paralyze you, especially if you don’t have a strong handle on novel structure. When you know, for instance, what the ten foundational scenes are, it makes it easier to choose your scene type. A climax scene will have high action, and, of course, the resolution of your novel would require a resolution scene.

Your genre comes into play as well. The type and number of high- and low-energy scenes are going to vary based on genre. A thriller is going to have a lot more high-energy scenes than a slow-paced thoughtful women’s fiction or romance.

Want to know the best way to figure out what scenes should go where? Study bestsellers in your genre, novels that are as close in plot and style as yours. Tear them apart. Make a list of scene summaries and note what type of scene each one is. That should give you a good idea.

The Action-Reaction Principle

Another thing that will help you determine what type of scene to write is to always keep in mind the natural cycle of action-reaction. This is also something that will vary by genre.

The natural behavior cycle of humans that our characters should also convey is this: action-reaction-process-decision-new action.

A scene might be solely a processing scene. A detective, in the prior scene, just discovered some important clues. Now, in this scene, she is mulling over what she’s learned, maybe discussing it with her partner, to determine the next course of action (decision).

Or you might have an action scene that ends with a reaction. That detective might be chasing down a lead (action), only to find a gang of vampires waiting for her in a dark alley. The last paragraph might show the detective swearing under her breath, wishing she had listened to her partner about going it alone (reaction).

Or you could make that scene all action, ending it with her running into the vampires, leaving the reaction to the next scene.

Sometimes that cycle of action-reaction repeats dozens of times within one scene. Your detective chases the bad guy, who vanishes around the next corner (action). Now she has to process that and make a decision. Should she continue her search or give up and get a latte? She might go to get coffee (new action), only to spot the bad guy flirting with the barista. She then reacts, processes (Should I confront him here or wait till he gets her phone number?), then makes a decision.

At any point, the scene may end in the middle of that cycle on one of the five stages. It all depends on what your high moment is, what key reveal you are building to, how the character will change and why, what is that lasting feeling you want to leave with your readers …

You see how all these pieces intertwine?

Your scene also needs an opening and ending hook. It needs a balance of narrative, dialogue, internal thoughts, and action. How do you know how much of each you should have?

No, scene writing is not easy. It’s a daunting task every time a writer sits down to write.


Note from Jane: If you’d like to master scene writing, C.S. Lakin runs Scene Mastery Boot Camps in Northern California, where you’ll learn with a dozen other writers in an intimate setting. For more information, visit Writing for Life Workshops.

Share on:
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

10 Comments
oldest
newest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Mary McFarland

Yes to all. I can spot unplotted scenes that stall, tease, take me nowhere. As a writer, I think well structured scenes are one of the most important elements of great writing. Thanks.

Harald Johnson

Yep. I use Ms. Lakin’s guidelines above (and in her Scene Structure Checklist) to create a mini scene checklist for every scene I write. It *really* helps. Thanks for post.

trackback

[…] C. S. Lakin: Questions to Consider When Plotting a Scene […]

Star Ostgard

Well, sorry to say that the first few paragraph points out why so many writers – new and not so new – give up writing. They have to plan or they will be wasting time, effort, probably won’t have anything that good when they’re done, yada yada yada. Which only really proves that Ms Lakin doesn’t understand organic writing, and is, like so many others who don’t understand it, telling new writers they have to write a certain way or they’ll likely fail. And too many writers actually believe this, and when they can’t plot/plan, they decide they just weren’t meant to be writers.

Amazing how many successful writers don’t plan their stories. Must be pure chance that they’re successful at organic writing – over and over and over again.

C. S. Lakin

Hi Star, I understand where you are coming from. I wrote some of my novels before I learned scene and novel structure. I spent many months on them, and then many years trying to sell them. It was only years later that I realized the fatal flaws in my structure, and I wished I’d had experienced writers and agents and publishers share with me then what I’m sharing with writers now, that while writing organically (I’m assuming you mean pantsing without any plotting) can be fun and enlightening and get the creative juices flowing, relying on that without adding in an understanding of structure will often result in a mess. Maybe a fun mess. But for a serious writer wanting to craft excellent, marketable stories, not so great.

I’d be interested in learning about the “amazing number” of successful writers who you say don’t plan their stories. I’ve never heard of any. Even people like Stephen King and Jerry Jenkins, while promoting “pantsing,” are very keen on story structure and know it so well they don’t plot out every detail. But they certainly don’t write a novel without “planning their story.”

I’ve critiqued hundreds of novels over the last ten years, and from my experience I can truly say that those writers who put time in studying and applying scene and novel structure overall had much greater success with their novel than those who didn’t. I don’t mean specifically in a monetary way—successful in crafting a terrific story.

We are talking about novels here, which are highly complex things. It’s great to write organically, experimenting with voice and style, and characters, and that’s something I do all the time in my novels. But there comes a point when all that organic stuff needs to be organized into something cohesive that will be loved by readers, who have specific expectations of story structure. Rather than feel like quitting because of the work involved, writers might feel encouraged, as I was years ago, to get direction that will help them learn structure so they can turn all that wonderful organic writing into a terrific novel.

Star Ostgard

Ask writers who plot and plan if that means they never revise, edit, re-write. Ask them if plotting and planning means the story magically appears without any further work. Ask them how much their final story resembles the original plan.

Organic didn’t work for you; it doesn’t work for a lot of authors. Planning doesn’t work for a lot of other authors. Organic doesn’t mean just mindless rambling and then trying to make sense of the mess. If you think planning is a good route, then it should stand on its own merits without the spreading of misinformation about organic writing (in its many permutations) or the doomsday scenarios which insult writers who use it successfully. Interestingly, I see this kind of “you’ll fail if you don’t plan” thinking coming mainly from nonfiction writers who move into fiction.

Understanding structure doesn’t mean planning. It means you understand structure and employ it as you write, whether you plan things out or not.

Rachel Thompson

I’ve heard it said that seat of the pants is a random, long way around, search for structure. In the end, no structure, no story.

Star Ostgard

Absolutely NOT correct. As I noted above: “Organic doesn’t mean just mindless rambling and then trying to make sense of the mess.” I’m a pantser, and there is definitely nothing random in my writing – and apparently I’ve done enough reading to understand structure without having to diagram it for each new story.

Diana Kimpton

I think the most important piece of advice in this article is “Why and how is this scene essential to my plot?” Once you know that, everything else will start to click into place.

Plotting and organice writing aren’t mutually exclusive. When I’m working, some scenes come naturally as if they were sitting in my brain waiting to be written while others take lots of planning and thought.

Jeffrey K. Walker

Great post. Vert informative indeed.
I can only speak for myself, but as an inveterate–alright, neurotic–Planner, I don’t write word #1 without the whole book outlined down to the scene level. Scrivener is great for this–each scene is a note card on my cork board. That said, all that note card contains is 1) the location and required characters (e.g., Dierdre working on a ward of the field hospital), and 2) the objective(s) I have to meet in that scene (e.g., create the injury that’s the start of her morphia addiction). I can then do whatever free-flow writing I want/need within that basic scene construct to get in touch with my Inner Pantser. For me, it’s possible to over-think a scene before sitting down to write it, but the bare-bones note cards keep me oriented and always knowing what comes next, which keeps writer’s bloc (mostly) at bay. Just my two cents worth.