Writing scenes

Following on from my earlier post about showing, not telling, here are the basics and a few useful tips on writing scenes in genre fiction . . .

Scenes are the fundamental building blocks of genre.  They are the venues in which the stories are shown, not told.  Scenes may be connected by narrative writing -- "telling" -- and a given scene may contain some necessary narrative description to establish the setting and convey any details that are essential to the action, but they will be mostly about characters in conflict with each other, with their environment, or with their inner selves.

A scene in a genre story or novel is there for a specific purpose:  it either advances the plot or it develops the character, and ideally it does both.  If the author happens to be a literary genius, a scene may instead evoke mood or make a symbolic statement, but those of us who are not in the genius business are safer if we stick to the plot/character standard.

Now, an aside to establish a definition, because the word "scene" means different things in different media:  a scene in a genre novel or story is not the same thing as a scene in a play or a movie.  In a play, a scene is the action that takes place in a specific location.  In between scenes, the curtain closes (or at least the stage goes dark) and we wait while the set is changed for the next location.  In a movie, a scene is bounded by much the same considerations, although one follows fast upon another, because editing takes out all the lag time between showing us what happens on the bridge of the Titanic then cutting to what's going on in steerage.

In genre fiction, a scene is bounded by its content.  Just as every novel or story asks and answers a dramaturgical question -- will Hamlet finally make up his mind?  will Dumbo come to have faith in his ability to fly? -- so each scene poses and answers a smaller question that's part of the big one that frames the story.

So, in a detective story, we may have a scene in which the sleuth, tipped off, goes to a warehouse at midnight to look for the evidence that will solve the case.  The scene's dramaturgical question is:  will he find the evidence?  The answer, as in most scenes, is liable to be either yes, nor, or not yet. 

Say that when he gets to where the evidence is supposed to be, he's jumped by the bad guy's henchmen, beaten up, and hauled off to meet the boss.  At that point, we've answered the question and the scene is over.  Probably, we go on to the next scene where the confrontation between the bad guy and the sleuth poses a new question:  say, will the confrontation yield new information that moves the plot along?  And again, the question will be answered --  yes, no, not yet -- by the action in the scene.

Because it's about asking and answering a question, every scene, long or short or inbetween, has a beginning, a middle and an end.  The beginning is where the conflict inherent in the action begins, the middle is where the conflict develops, and the end is when the conflict resolves into the answer.

The key word in the above para is conflict.  Every scene is built around a conflict of some kind, be it physical, verbal, emotional, spiritual, or any other form you can think of.  The protagonist of the scene struggles against some kind of opposition to fulfill some kind of agenda.  A scene without conflict is just travel writing or character sketching, both of which are fine in their own milieus, but not what the genre fiction reader is looking for -- which is story, the basis of which is conflict.

Scenes also have a sense of time passing.  Things happen, one after the other, and the reader is carried along from moment to moment, action to action, with an illusion of immediacy.  Even though most genre fiction is written in the past tense, the reader is led by the "show, don't tell" technique to experience it as if it's happening right now.

To write a scene, you must first settle the issue of whose point of view the scene will be told from.  In narrative (or "literary") fiction, the point of view may be that of an omniscient narrator who describes characters and editorializes on their strengths and foibles.  In genre fiction, the author is advised to choose either a first-person pov or what is called third-person-limited. 

In first person, the warehouse scene would open something like this:  "I opened the door to the warehouse and slipped inside, my trusty Smith & Wesson sub-nosed .38 ready in my hand."  In third-person-limited, it would go:  "Dick Tracy opened the door to the warehouse and slipped inside, his trusty Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .38 ready in his hand."

The reason the latter is called "limited" is because it is restricted to the pov of only one character in the scene -- in most scenes it's usually the story's protagonist, although scenes shown from the pov of a supporting character or even the antagonist (the "bad guy") may be useful to the story-telling process.  So, even though other characters may come into the scene, like the henchmen waiting in the warehouse shadows, the reader will experience them only through Dick Tracy's sensorium -- seeing what he sees, hearing what he hears, feeling the pain of the blows he suffers.  If we want the reader to know anything about what another character is thinking or feeling, it will have to be funneled through Dick Tracy's senses and perceptions. 

Leaving a pov character's frame of reference to dip into another character's in the same scene is called "head-hopping."  It's acceptable in literary fiction, but not genre.  So we can't write, "The one with the squashed nose, a genuine sadist, was enjoying hitting Tracy in the same part of his belly over and over again, doubling and redoubling the pain." 

Instead, it has to be something like this:  "The one with the squashed nose threw a second punch that struck Tracy in the same spot as the first blow.  The pain flared up like a fire when gasoline is thrown on it, and the detective's vision became a tunnel framed in red.  He looked into the thug's eyes, saw the pleasure there, and knew that he was being beaten by a genuine sadist.  The man's knowing smile as he slowly drew back his fist for a third strike showed that this was not just business.  The bastard was enjoying himself."

The more you use the pov character's senses in describing what's going on, the more you'll draw the reader into the scene.  So try to avoid generic descriptions like "The air in the room was chilly," and instead describe from within the character's sensorium:  "The chill air raised goosebumps on Tracy's bare arms and sent a shiver through his back muscles."

Minimize description in scenes, because it slows down the action.  Choose a couple of apt details to put the reader in the picture and let the reader's power of confabulation -- that's the human mind's ability to create a complete picture from just a few clues -- do the rest.  For example, the thug above with the squashed nose and knowing smile needs no more embellishment.

A tip for beginners.  Most us, when starting out, have a tendency to write a lot more than is necessary.  In writing scenes, that includes writing your way in and writing your way out.  Modern readers, especially, have been educated by the rapid-fire editing of contemporary movies and television shows.  They don't need the written equivalent of the establishing shots that bygone generations of movie-goers were used to.

So in the warehouse scene, we wouldn't bother with how Tracy got to the place.  We would start the scene with him opening the door and going in, because that's where the conflict begins.  The reader will understand that he got there somehow.  And we would end it when the scene's question has been answered.  The warehouse scene could end with the bad guys putting a black bag over the detective's head and everything going dark.  There's no need to describe his being shoved in a car, driven across town, dragged out, manhandled into another building and shoved into a chair.  The next scene can begin with the hood being pulled off his head so the confrontation with the bad guy can get underway.

When you're going over your draft, look for those "ears" on the beginnings and ends of scenes, the places where you wrote your way in and out, and cut them.  You'll get a faster-paced story.

Finally, every character in a scene has an agenda, something he or she (or it) is trying to achieve.  It's the clash of those agendas that makes for conflict.  And conflict is the indispensable tool of the genre fiction writer.