Making a Scene

I've been having a blast at Penguicon, as you can probably tell by my super happy self-portrait. The Stormtroopers playing Rock Band are pretty awesome, too.

As asked for by several congoers, here is the info from the handouts given out at my dialogue/scene writing panel.

For the dialogue handout, please see my previous post here.

And now:

Writing a Scene

A scene is a miniature story. A scene is unified around desire, action, conflict, and change.

The objective of the scene should be related to the overall goal that spans the story.

The action in a scene develops through a conflict that will somehow change the character’s life from positive to negative or negative to positive. This change in value also creates an emotional transition.

An effective scene ends with something the character didn’t anticipate, splitting open a gap between expectation and result. Scenes are turning points that surprise, increase curiosity, and provide insight and new direction.

The Gap

Characters will take the most minimal, conservative, yet sufficient step to achieve their goal. The moment the character takes this action, a reaction from the world blocks his desire. There is a gap between his subjective expectation and the objective result. Now, the character realizes he cannot get what he wants in a minimal way. He must gather himself and struggle through the next scene, the next gap, and take a second action. The next action is something the character didn’t want to do in the first case because it puts him at risk. These obstacles are the key to building rising tension throughout your story, the obstacles become greater in each scene and the actions taken needed to overcome become more desperate until the climax of the story. At the climax, the stakes should be so high the reader is riveted to discover what your character will gain or lose.




Sources: Story by Robert McKee