Tag: scenes

Storytelling Class — Scenes

Every once in a while, my daughter Freya and I have a “storytelling class.” Really, it’s just a fun opportunity to chat about writing stories. This time, our topic was scenes.

We always start with two questions: What did we read and write recently?

What Did We Read?

I’ve recently been reading the Maus graphic novels, the Timeshift anthology of time-related sci-fi, and Mort (a Terry Pratchet Discrworld novel) at bedtime with the kids.

Freya has been reading the first Wheel of Time book. She said it was a little slow at first, but she’s enjoying it now that she’s halfway through.

What Did We Write?

I’ve only been writing Razor Mountain recently, and trying to get ahead on blog posts. Freya hasn’t written any more of her book recently, but she has been writing poetry, including one about all the many fragrances of bath bombs.

What’s In a Scene?

Today’s topic was the structure of scenes. A scene is the smallest “unit” that we typically break stories into. A short story might have only a couple scenes, while a novel can have dozens or hundreds.

The beginning and end of a scene are often delineated physically on the page with a line break, chapter break, or asterisks and similar markers. However, it takes more than that to make a scene feel cohesive. There are a few different tools that can help a scene feel like a single unit of story: setting, characters, and theme.

Setting

A scene is typically a section of the story that occurs entirely in one setting. In this case, I use “setting” fairly broadly. It can refer to a specific location or a specific time period. Most of the time, a scene will take place in one location and cover a specific, contiguous period of time. For example, two people meet in a coffee shop, have a conversation, and then leave.

In some cases, some characters may enter or exit in the middle of the scene, or the scene may start in the middle of the action, with the characters already in their places. In these cases, it’s usually the static setting that holds the scene together. All the action happens in the same place, over a specific span of time.

You can think of this in terms of a stage play. The scenery for the scene is ready and the lights come up. Are the characters already on the stage? Do they enter or exit during the scene? Eventually the scene ends and the lights go down so the props can be replaced and a new scene can start.

Characters

It’s also possible for a scene to move across multiple locations (in time or space) or take place in multiple locations simultaneously.

For example, in visual media like TV, film and comics, it’s common to have a “split screen” scene where a narrator in one location (in space or time) narrates action set in a different location. This lets the writer play with juxtapositions or relationships between the narration and the action. Imagine a scene where a person talks about falling in love while a montage of scenes with the happy couple flash by. Then imagine how the mood changes if the character is instead talking about slowly falling out of love.

In a plot like a heist, there might be a single scene that jumps between several bank robbers in different areas of a bank, each one carrying out their part of the bigger plan. Everything is happening at the same time, or in sequence, but in many different locations.

Fuzzy Edges

While most scenes have an obvious beginning and end, not every scene is so clearly delineated. One scene may blend into another. Often, this takes the form of “zooming in” or “zooming out,” and may involve a change of perspective.

For example, the opening of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy begins with a description of our galaxy, the evolution of the human race, and the problems that beset us. Then it “zooms in” to one woman in particular, who has an important revelation. Then, because it’s Douglas Adams, we are told that the story isn’t about this woman at all. It’s about a terrible, stupid catastrophe and the book called “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Then, at the start of the next chapter, it does the same thing, zooming in on the protagonist’s house, and eventually the protagonist himself.

This example shows nicely that this sort of zooming out can happen in location (zooming from outside the galaxy to a particular café in Rickmansworth) but also in time (across the entire evolution of humanity to the modern day).

“Zooming” can also encapsulate a change in the level of specificity, where the author glosses over less important details until reaching a place and moment in time where the details are important. This is often done for the sake of continuity. A character might spend one scene talking with a friend, then have to drive across town to speak to another friend. The drive isn’t very interesting. So the author describes the first conversation in detail over several pages. A short paragraph describes the uneventful drive, and then there are several more pages of detail for the second conversation.

Theme

These aspects of location and character are the logistics of a scene. The level of zoom or specificity are stylistic choices. But there is one other thing that can affect whether a scene feels satisfying and complete: the theme or arc of the scene.

Each scene needs to have some purpose in the larger story, and oftentimes scenes fulfill several purposes at once. They could provide new information to the characters or the reader. They could show some change in the character, perhaps resolving a goal or revealing a new goal. They could create or resolve a mystery. They need to drive the story forward in some way.

One of the more common challenges in fiction is when the logistics of the story require things to happen, but those things don’t actually feel like they’re furthering the story. They are like the character driving across town between important conversations.

It’s easy to make a whole scene out of these kinds of unsatisfying story beats, and the scene will inevitably be a dull one. Sometimes these scenes can be cut completely. Other times they can be replaced with a little bit of connective tissue, like the zoom-in or a quick, summarizing description of the necessary action. Sometimes, by looking at the larger picture, you’ll find that the story can be tweaked so the boring part isn’t needed at all.

Class Dismissed

That’s all for this class. We’ve been doing fewer of these little “classes” over summer, since…well, we’re outside and enjoying the warm weather while we can. I do have at least one more planned though, before school is back in session and our schedules get busy.

Storytelling Class — Beats, Scenes, Chapters

Every week, my daughter Freya and I have a “storytelling class.” Really, it’s just a fun opportunity to chat about writing stories. This week, our topic was ways to divide up a story.

We always start with two questions: What did we read, and what did we write over the past week?

What Did We Read?

I continued to read Dune to my oldest son at bedtime. I also finished The Unwritten, reading volumes 8-12. I really enjoyed this series, and I think I’d rate it as my second-favorite comic run of all time, after The Sandman. I need to process and unpack, but I’ll definitely have a post about it at some point.

Freya is nearly done with the Harry Potter series, currently reading the last book. She continues to read The One and Only Bob at school, and the Wildwood trilogy (now on book two) with my wife at bedtime.

What Did We Write?

I finished off Razor Mountain chapter 9. I’m also working on getting back in the habit of writing short stories and submitting them for publication. I sent out a story I’ve been holding on to for a while, called “Dr. Clipboard’s Miracle Wonder Drug.” I’ll be working on a new story next week.

Freya continues her epic, “Amber and Floria.” The two sisters are headed to the jungle to look for their lost parents! I’m pretty excited to read this one when it’s done.

Dividing Stories

This week’s topic was about different ways to divide a story into parts.

Story Beats

A “beat” is the smallest unit of story. Each beat moves the story, although this can be forward progress or backward progress from the viewpoint of a given character.

Some example story beats:

  • A character learns something
  • The reader learns something
  • A character makes progress toward a goal
  • A character achieves a goal
  • A new impediment blocks a character from their goal
  • A character fails at achieving their goal, or their goal becomes impossible
  • A character gains a new goal

It’s also worth noting that some books are less plot-heavy and character-heavy and are more interested in playing with language. Beats in these stories might be a little bit more abstract, like:

  • Make the reader feel something
  • Make the text challenging for the reader

(It might sound absurd to make the reading difficult for your reader, but books like House of Leaves do exactly that with the unusual formatting of the text, and books like Finnegan’s Wake use ordinary text, but obfuscate the meaning and structure. Some readers want a puzzle or a challenge or an extremely high level of density.)

Scenes

A scene is usually just a series of beats that happen in the same place, same linear time, and often with the same set of characters. Scenes are often separated by a simple line break or some little visual motif.

Occasionally, you can have more mixed up scenes, where two things happening at once or the story skips around in a non-linear way. This is a little more common in audio-visual media like TV and movies, where tricks like split-screen, voice-over, and cuts between locations make things a little easier to follow.

One of my favorite comic issues growing up was a fantastic example of this kind of “split screen” storytelling. It’s the 1996 Issue 102 of Wolverine, and it stars the title character shortly after he’s suffered severe trauma that’s left him in a state like a feral animal. There are no spoken words in this issue. The visuals of the comic follow Wolverine as he prowls around New York. The text is a story told by an unseen character, about things that happened to her as a child. Both of the stories, text and visual, are about violence, mercy, and redemption. These themes are pertinent at the end of the story, when it’s revealed that the storyteller is Elektra, another superhero, and she’s come to help Wolverine overcome his affliction and essentially become human again.

Chapters

Pretty much all stories are built out of the building blocks of beats and scenes. Once you zoom out into bigger structures than that, you have some choices. Some of these affect the structure and layout of your story, and some of them are more mental exercises of how you want to think of your story.

Some books have only one scene after another, with no larger delineations of structure. These books have a steady, continuous flow. Dune is an example of a book with scenes, but no chapters, and three “parts” that split the book into much larger sections. That said, the majority of books have chapters.

Chapters are the most common way to create a collection of scenes. A chapter may only have one scene, or multiple scenes. Chapters break the story into chunks in a very visible way. This gives them two properties:

  1. Scenes within a chapter have an implied connection.
  2. Chapter breaks imply a separation between scenes.

The implied separations can be just as important the implied connections. They provide what is probably the cleanest way to tell the reader that there is a break in time or space here.

A chapter can be:

  • A super-scene that collects related scenes together (time, place, characters)
  • A way to form a relationship between scenes that might otherwise seem separate
  • A thematic grouping of scenes
  • A clean way to denote separation of time and place between scenes

Parts, Books, and Bigger Structures

Some stories have even larger groupings, often called Parts or Books. These seem especially prevalent in fantasy, possibly because they’re the modern continuation of mythological and epic forms that are often split into similar parts.

These parts can be treated like super-chapters, collecting larger groups of scenes. They can also imply larger separations of time and place.

The split between books or parts will often want to follow your story’s multi-act structure and major events. The biggest, most important parts of the story tend to happen around the end of one act and the start of another, and these can be natural places to break. That said, books or parts don’t have to follow the story arc or act structure. For example, in Lord of the Rings, the last two books each have two parts that cover the exact same span of time from the point of view of two different groups of characters.

Next Time

We decided last week to alternate between story class and extra writing time, so next week will probably just be another brief read/write report.