Four Things to Check to Make Sure a Scene Works
In my practice as a book coach and editor, I often have to flag scenes that don’t work for one reason or another. This has nothing to do with the writer’s talent, or level of craftsmanship. Many of the more advanced writers I’ve worked with will have a scene that isn’t quite working—beautifully written as it might be.
So, what do I look for when I’m assessing if the scene works or not?
(This is by no means an exhaustive list of issues that will make or break a scene, but it should give you an idea what to focus on).
1. Does the scene contain a story-relevant event?
For a scene to work, there must be a story-relevant event at its core. A story-relevant event is an event (a plot point) that challenges the character’s arc to shift one way or another (negatively or positively; from or to the final goal of the story).
Let’s take a well known story for an example— ‘The Little Mermaid,’ (as it’s told in the Disney movie). There’s a scene, not long after Ariel has saved the prince, when she is in her cavern where she keeps items from the human world. Flounder found prince’s statue and gave it to Ariel, and Ariel is admiring it. When king Triton finds out about the secret collection, and destroys it as a punishment for Ariel’s disobedience—it challenges Ariel to resolve to leave the ocean, even at the price of throwing herself at the mercy of the Sea Witch.
A plot point (her father finding out about the cavern and destroying the items found there—plot) challenges the protagonist (Ariel) to come to a decision (rebel against her father, find her own solution, do her own thing—a shift along her character toward making the point of the story: We shouldn’t be blindly obeying our elders, nor blindly disobeying them either, there’s strength in finding middle ground)
2. Does the scene move the story forward?
Every scene should move the story forward. Sounds simple enough, but what does it really mean—to move the story forward?
In this graph that delineates ‘The Little Mermaid’ story, you can see how the story slowly progresses from one plot point to another, as the protagonist makes her journey toward meeting her character arc.
The story starts with Ariel living in the ocean, longing to know more about the human world (starting point—point A), and ends with her dream of becoming human—with her family’s blessing—coming true (ending—point B).
There are no redundant scenes—scenes where nothing happens. Even the songs are there to move the story forward. For instance, when Sebastian sings ‘Under the sea’ song, it’s not only there for the kicks of it—it’s there to persuade Ariel to stay at home, and also to give a glimpse of all she stands to lose if she leaves. SO, while it looks like it’s only a fun song, it’s actually moving the story forward; and at the end of that scene Ariel turns her back on what Sebastian’s offering.
In ‘The Little Mermaid,’ each scene disturbs the previously established status-quo, and gets Ariel closer to meeting her character arc and resolving the main story question: Will she be able to leave the ocean and live happily ever after with the prince or not?
So, essentially, you want your each scene to move your protagonist one step closer toward the end—even if that step might seem like a giant leap backward. Because, as the graph above suggests, the story doesn’t move linearly. It has ups and downs, it’s set-backs and leaps forward.
3. Does your scene have an arc?
Just like the whole story has an arc, each scene should have an arc too.
There should be an inciting incident unsettling your protagonist’s status quo; complications making things worse for the protagonist; the crisis, when your protagonist faces a choice on how to deal with the unsettling events and complications, the climax, when they make a decision/reach a conclusion/act in a certain way, and resolution—that shows how things changed because of the decision/conclusion the protagonist made.
Let’s revisit “The Little Mermaid,” and dissect the scene when Ariel first sees the Prince.
Ariel is safely ensconced in her cavern where she keeps items from the human world, when she notices a ship sailing above her (inciting incident).
Curious about the human world, she disregards her father’s direct order of no contact between merman and human world (complication 1), and swims to the surface, where she notices the prince and is instantly smitten with him (complication 2). The storm starts (complication 3), a lightning sets the ship on fire (complication 4), and the prince falls into the ocean unconscious (complication 5).
Ariel has a choice: to disregard her father’s direct command and risk humans seeing her in order to help the prince, or to let the prince drown (crisis).
She saves the prince and gets him to safety (climax).
The prince is then found by his people, and she gets away without being noticed, but her world is forever changed. She will no longer be able to live under water and be happy (resolution).
4. Does your scene have a value shift?
Every story has one main story question. For instance, in a romance, it’s will the couple end up together or not. In a thriller, it’s often, will the protagonist survive or not. This main story question points you in the direction of the value that is at stake for your protagonist.
Here are some values that are often at stake in novels:
life — death
love — hate
connection — disconnection
loneliness — togetherness
independence — dependence
Each scene should begin in one place—and end in another in terms of these values. In other words, for a scene to work, the value that is at stake for the protagonist should shift and change in some way over the course of the scene. That change can be from positive to negative (for instance, feeling connected to feeling disconnected from others), negative to positive (feeling disconnected to feeling connected), negative to double negative (disconnected to even more disconnected) or positive to double positive (feeling connected and then even more connected).
The scene should start on one side of this value axis, and end on the other side.
In ‘The Little Mermaid’— in the scene where king Triton demolishes Ariel secret collection—the scene starts with Ariel looking at the prince’s statue, pining after him—she isn’t really considering acting on this attraction or planning an escape. But when her father ruins the collection, statue included, Ariel is determined to find a way to leave the ocean.
The value shift at stake is obeying—disobeying. At the beginning of the scene, Ariel is daydreaming about the prince, but isn’t really considering disobeying her father’s orders. In the end, she’s disobeying him the worst way possible—by seeking help from the Sea Witch, her father’s nemesis, and biggest enemy.
The story event (destroying her collection) causes Ariel to make a shift in her character arc (disobedience, doing things her way) which will ultimately lead to the dark night of the soul (the showdown with the Sea Witch), thus teaching both Ariel and Triton the point of the story—We should not be blindly obeying our elders, nor blindly disobeying them either, there’s strength in finding middle ground.
So if your protagonist ends the scene feeling the exact same way they were feeling going into the scene, then it could be a sign that your scene isn’t working, even if it does contain a story relevant event that moves the story forward and a scene arc.
***
Was this article useful? Let me know in the comments!
If you’d like to receive more articles, news, and offers, please sign up for my NEWSLETTER (sign-up form in the website footer).