Scenes are the building blocks of a novel. They are the smallest units of your plot that can potentially make or break your story. The structure of a scene may vary, but great scenes possess several fundamental characteristics that play a key role in their success.
1. Being a Miniature Story
Every scene in your novel should tell a story that is complete with a beginning, a middle, and an end. This miniature story should be connected to the main plot, and it should also advance it.
A Scene Beginning
The first goal at the beginning of your scene is to present your scene’s main character to your reader as soon as possible. Presenting a character also means an introduction to action, and the action keeps readers engaged. If you need to do a little narrating to introduce the scene world before the character, try to do this as briefly as possible.
The next step is to introduce the goal of the main character, followed by what is preventing your character from achieving this goal.
In the first scene of Pride and Prejudice the main character of that scene (Mrs. Bennet) is introduced in the second paragraph. Which reads as follows:
“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”
Soon after the reader learns of Mrs. Bennet’s goal, which is making the acquaintance of Mr. Bingley (the new owner of Netherfield Park).
A Scene Middle
The middle of your scene should be filled with complications for your scene’s main character. You would have already identified your character’s main goal for this scene. So, your task is to create complications for both your character’s scene goal and the main plot goal. This means hurting your character and will involve preventing their plans and desires from coming to fruition or taking beloved people and possessions from them.
This section of your scene is where you expand on the scene complication introduced at the beginning of the scene, by making it progressive. Progressive complications are those that get more difficult over time.
You can do this by first identifying everything that might get in the way of your character achieving their main scene goal. Then, you can rank these complications on a scale from one to five, where one is not so complicated and five is extremely complicated. Next, you’ll want to introduce the complications that most relate to the main plot in ascending order of difficulty as the scene progresses.
The middle of the scene is also a great place for an unexpected revelation. This revelation should increase the scene complication (or conflict), but a revelation can also bring relief and comfort to your character.
In the middle of the first scene of Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Bennet’s complication starts to increase as Mr. Bennet’s lack of interest in making the acquaintance of Mr. Bingley becomes evident. Mr. Bennet’s preference for Lizzy over his other four daughters is an unexpected revelation that further complicates things for Mrs. Bennet.
A Scene End
At the end of a scene, you want your reader to have more knowledge of and greater investment in both your plot and characters. Like the ending of a complete novel, a scene end can take one of many forms. However, most scenes should have a resolved ending where the main character either achieves or fails to achieve their main goal for that scene. This result should directly impact the scenes to come and thus, be meaningful to the greater plot.
At the end of the scene, Mrs. Bennet fails to get Mr. Bennet to visit Mr. Bingley. The result of this failure would mean that none of Mrs. Bennet’s daughters will get the opportunity to become familiar with Mr. Bingley, which according to the narrator is the business of Mrs. Bennet’s life (to get her daughter’s married).
2. Having Some Complication or Miniature Crisis
A scene should pose an obstacle to its main character achieving some goal, a mini crisis if you will. Each scene can have a different main character, but as the scene progresses you should see the lead character of that scene overcome some obstacle or be defeated by it.
In the first scene of Pride and Prejudice, we see Mrs. Bennet failing to get Mr. Bennet to agree to a visit with Mr. Bingley. Thus, failing to resolve the complication or overcome the obstacle in that scene.
In much the same way that conflict drives a story forward, it should also drive your scenes forward. The conflict that your scene protagonist must tackle can either be internal or external, its main objective is to complicate things. Thus, keeping your readers engaged.
3. Having a Clear Purpose
Before you start writing a new scene you need to establish its purpose. A scene’s purpose can be to advance the plot, develop characters, relay essential information, foreshadow, resolve subplots, build tension and suspense, etc.
Though your scene can serve one or more purposes, it should only be one of two types—proactive, or reactive. The purpose of your scene will influence your scene type. For example, a scene that aims to advance the plot and build tension is usually proactive, whereas a scene that aims to relay essential information and create foreshadowing is usually reactive.
Still, a proactive and reactive scene can have the same purpose. For instance, you can develop characters in a proactive scene through action, and in a reactive scene through self-reflection.
Pride and Prejudice First Scene Purpose
The first scene in Pride and Prejudice is a proactive scene with several clear purposes. While Mrs. Bennet is actively trying to convince Mr. Bennet to visit Mr. Bingley, the reader learns essential information about the story world. One such piece of information is that the people in this story travel by carriage.
Novel excerpt: “…that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place…”
This scene also advances the plot, while building suspense and tension. Mr. Bennet’s unwillingness to make Mr. Bingley’s acquaintance will mean that his daughters (who are all looking for husbands) will have a more challenging time gaining an audience with Mr. Bingley. And when there is a community of girls that will also be vying for Mr. Bingley’s attention the Bennet girls will be at a major disadvantage.
Another clear purpose of this scene is to develop the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, while also showing the reader the dynamics of their relationship. The reader learns that Mrs. Bennet is less intelligent than Mr. Bennet, so his sarcasm (which was present in this scene) usually goes over her head.
Novel excerpt: “Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humor, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper.”
4. Being Well-Paced
The length of a scene will affect the pacing of your story. Scenes that are too long can slow down your story and bore your readers. At the same time, scenes that are too short can disrupt the flow of your storyline, by making it disjointed.
The general length of your scenes should occupy a nice spot in the middle, which will be around two thousand words (give or take a few hundred). Then you can sprinkle long and short scenes, between these general scenes, when you see fit.
Having a few long scenes in your story does have its advantages. Long scenes are great when you want to intentionally slow down the pace of your story after an intense action. In these instances, a long scene can help a reader process all the action that just happened. A few scenes can also be long because of a lot of action, and this is okay. The goal is to not have too many long scenes, not eliminate them.
Likewise, having some short scenes in your story can also be advantageous. When used correctly, a short scene can increase the pace of your story after a long scene, create a sense of urgency, and leave your readers hungry for more. The first scene in Pride and Prejudice was less than a thousand words and it certainly left me wanting more.
5. Insight Emotional Resonance
A remarkable story scene evokes emotions, whether negative or positive. The goal is to get your readers to relate more to your characters, which will enable them to see a character as less of a figment of someone’s imagination and more of a person. This will in turn encourage a reader to read on to see how this person’s story unfolds.
It is important to remember that emotional resonance doesn’t always have to be positive. Yes, you want to create a connection with your readers, but this connection can be one of fear and anger as well as empathy and compassion.
I empathize with Mrs. Bennet in this first scene, as I can understand how it must feel to want your daughters to have some level of security, which in the story world means securing a financially stable husband.
Final Thoughts
If your scene doesn’t have all the qualities of a complete story, then it is incomplete. Each scene in your novel should have a beginning, middle, and end. This miniature story structure is only complete with the inclusion of some type of complication or miniature crisis.
Be mindful that a scene is not a chapter, and a scene can extend across multiple chapters. A writer might also decide to skip a scene’s beginning, especially if the entire novel is narrated from a single character’s point of view. However, you should never skip a scene’s ending, you might choose to delay sharing this detail with your readers, but they need to know what happened at some point.
Your scenes must also have a clear purpose and should be either proactive or reactive. The scene type can potentially influence the pacing of your scene, which plays a key role in your overall reader experience. At the end of each scene, the goal is to evoke some type of emotion from your reader.
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