How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method

by Randy Ingermanson

  The middle of a Proactive Scene is Conflict, and this will use up the great majority of your word count for the scene.

  The Conflict comes directly out of your Scene Crucible. The Conflict may be caused by the environment, by another character, or by the POV Character’s own internal conflicting Values. Or any combination of these. All of them can be part of the Scene Crucible.

  You’ll spend most of your scene showing your POV Character in conflict with her Scene Crucible. If you’ve been putting off explaining part of the Story Crucible, and you need the reader to understand that part for this scene, now is the time to explain it. Do so as quickly as possible.

  How Much Tension in Your Proactive Scenes?

  The Conflict should be tough on your POV Character. That raises a question. How tough do you want your Conflict to be?

  Some novels have ridiculously high-tension Conflict in just about every Proactive Scene. If you’re writing an over-the-top action-adventure novel, then that’s appropriate and your target audience will accept it. That’s the powerful emotional experience they’re looking for.

  But in most novels, the Conflict is dialed down a bit in some of the Proactive Scenes. Of course some scenes are very high tension, but others are only moderate tension. If you have low-tension scenes, they generally won’t be Proactive Scenes; they’ll be Reactive Scenes. But more on Reactive Scenes a few chapters down the line.

  There isn’t any one right answer for what mix of tension you should use for your Proactive Scenes. You should study the category of fiction you’re writing, and you should know what range of tension your target audience is expecting. Then write your Conflict in that range.

  The Pattern for Conflict

  The pattern for Conflict is pretty simple:

  Your POV Character tries something that she expects will take her to her Goal.

  Something or someone tries to block her.

  Repeat this cycle over and over until you’re ready to end the scene.

  There are no rules for how long this can go on. You might have only one or two rounds of try-something-and-be-blocked. Or you might have five or ten or more. The most important scenes in a book will often go on quite long, stretching out the Conflict and gradually jacking up the tension until it can’t go any higher.

  Some Example Conflicts for Proactive Scenes

  We’ve just defined the basic pattern for Conflict in a Proactive Scene. Let’s see how that pattern plays out in the scenes we began analyzing in the last chapter.

  Example 1: The Conflict for a Proactive Scene in The Hunger Games

  In the last chapter, we began analyzing a scene in which Katniss is up a tree. Her Goal is to drop a nest of tracker jackers on the Career Tributes on the ground. She wants to do it while the Gamemakers are playing the anthem, which will distract the Careers. Let’s see how that works out for her. We’ll see the tension rise and fall as the scene progresses. Each bullet point below is one loop of trying-and-hitting-obstacles.

  Katniss moves up higher on the branch she’s on. The anthem begins playing, and Katniss begins sawing with her knife. But her hands were burned in the previous scene, and it’s agony to grip the knife.

  Katniss keeps sawing through the pain. The anthem ends, and Katniss is only three-quarters of the way through the branch. She has to stop because she can’t afford to let the Careers notice what she’s doing or they’ll pull back to a safe distance.

  Katniss inches back down the branch to her sleeping bag and finds that some wealthy sponsor has parachuted in a gift—ointment for her burns! That’s a direct result of her courage, and it gives Katniss a boost. She puts the ointment on her many burns, and they begin healing. Katniss sleeps through the night. At first light, she goes back to the branch and sees a tracker jacker crawling on the nest. Danger! She ignores her fears and starts sawing. The tracker jackers begin buzzing inside the nest. They’re coming out!

  Katniss keeps sawing, faster, faster. A tracker jacker stings her.

  She finishes cutting the branch and shoves it free. The branch with its nest falls to the ground, right in the middle of the sleeping Careers. The nest breaks open. But Katniss is stung twice more.

  The Careers on the ground scatter, with the tracker jackers stinging them fiercely. Two Careers are stung so many times they go down. The others are running for their lives. Katniss climbs down the tree and runs the other way. She’s in horrific pain from her three stings.

  Katniss takes out the stingers. She remembers that one of the Career girls had a bow and arrows. She needs that, no matter how dangerous it is to go back. She goes looking and finds the girl, who is just dying. That means the Gamemakers will remove the body shortly, along with the weapons.

  Katniss tears wildly at the bow and arrows. She’s already hallucinating. The girl’s body is tangled up with the weapons Katniss needs.

  Katniss finally pulls the weapons free. But now she hears somebody coming back to kill her. Peeta arrives first, followed shortly by the biggest thug of all the Careers, a brute named Cato. This can’t possibly end well.

  Example 2: The Conflict for a Proactive Scene in Outlander

  In the last chapter, we began looking at a scene in which Claire and her escort Dougal go into the village of Brockton because they’ve heard the local garrison commander has stayed there in an inn overnight. Claire’s Goal is to persuade this commander to give her a few soldiers to take her to the circle of standing stones. She’ll need to make up a reason why he should do it. Here’s how the scene plays out:

  Claire waits downstairs at the bar while Dougal goes up to the garrison commander’s room. Several English soldiers give Claire the eye in a way that makes her feel unsafe.

  Dougal calls Claire to come meet the commander. Claire goes upstairs and finds that the commander is no stranger. He’s the evil Captain Randall she met six weeks earlier when she came through the time portal. He recognizes her, and she realizes this is not going to be a cakewalk.

  Claire tells her story of how she came to be here. She’s pretending to be a widow from Oxfordshire and claims that her married name is Beauchamp, which was her actual maiden name. (It would be dumb to say that her married name is Randall, which would make her a relative of Captain Randall.) She says she was attacked by outlaws while traveling to meet her dead husband’s relatives in France. Her story is full of holes, and Captain Randall isn’t fooled. He probes at her story, asking how she can be from Oxfordshire, when no Beauchamps live there.

  Claire asks how he knows, since he’s from Sussex. But that’s a blunder. Captain Randall never told her where he came from. Her husband, who’s a distant descendant of Randall, told her. Randall is instantly suspicious and demands to know how she knows where he’s from.

  Claire claims to know from his accent. Randall spars with her a bit on that, trying to catch her in a lie. He tests her knowledge of French, which she passes. Then he asks her maiden name, and Claire has no answer for that, because she’s already claimed her maiden name as her married name.

  Claire tries to dodge by asking straight-out to be allowed to continue her journey. Randall glares at her and lays out the case against her, which is devastating. She’s obviously lying, and Randall demands to know the truth. He warns her he will take any steps required to learn who she really is.

  Claire asks him what those steps might be. Which turns out to be a mistake.

  Example 3: The Conflict for a Proactive Scene in The Godfather

  In the last chapter, we left Michael Corleone just as he walked out of the hospital onto the street, late at night, alone and unarmed, to wait for a team of Mafia hit men who intend to kill his father. Michael’s Goal in this scene is to stall them for fifteen minutes until Corleone Family reinforcements arrive. He’s playing a very weak set of cards. Here’s how the game unfolds:

  Michael stands under a streetlight so that anyone coming by will see him and recognize him as a Corleone and possibly think he’s on guard duty. But the first person to arrive is no
t the hit men; it’s an innocent young baker, Enzo, who is a Family friend, coming to pay his respects to the Godfather. He’s a noncombatant, and now Michael needs to get rid of him before the kid gets hurt.

  Michael tells Enzo to leave. He says there may be trouble, and trouble means police. Enzo is not a citizen and knows he might be deported if there’s trouble, but he insists on staying. He’ll do what he can to help the Godfather. Michael is stuck with him.

  Michael and Enzo smoke cigarettes, trying to look like foot soldiers of the Godfather. A car comes around the corner and slows down, and the men inside take a long look at Michael and Enzo. The car speeds away, but Michael knows they’ll be back, and next time the car will stop.

  Ten long minutes pass, and then three police cars fly in, sirens screaming. Michael thinks they’ve arrived to help, but two of the cops grab his arms while another one checks him for weapons. The police captain yells at Michael and says he thought he’d cleared out all the hoodlums hanging around, so what’s he doing here? One of the cops tells the captain that Michael is the son of Don Corleone.

  Michael demands to know why there are no police detectives up in his father’s room to guard him. The police captain flies into a rage and tells him he doesn’t care if all the Mafia thugs kill each other. He demands that Michael leave at once.

  Michael realizes that this captain is in the pay of his father’s enemy Sollozzo. He calmly says that he can’t leave until his father is guarded again. The captain orders one of the cops to arrest him, but the cop points out that they have no grounds. Michael has no weapons, and he’s a war hero. There’ll be a fuss if they arrest him. The captain says he doesn’t care and orders the cop to lock Michael up.

  Michael very calmly provokes the police captain. Knowing that the other cops are not dirty, Michael asks the captain how much Sollozzo is paying him to set up Don Corleone. This pushes the captain over the edge.

  All Good Scenes Must Come to an End

  Conflict is good, and in a well-played scene, you’ll build up the tension to the maximum level that your Scene Crucible can support. When the tension is maxed out, don’t let it plateau. You don’t want your reader to get bored. You want your reader to finish the scene wanting more.

  Break your POV Character out of the Scene Crucible.

  When you do that, either the POV Character wins or the Scene Crucible wins.

  Those are the only two options. We’ll look at those next.

  Chapter Nine

  How to Create a Dynamite Setback

  You’re now ready to end your scene. Remember, every scene is a miniature story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. So the end of your scene must be an emotionally powerful ending to this miniature story.

  But not necessarily emotionally satisfying. Generally, you want the reader to be unsatisfied. You want the reader to be wanting more. You want the reader to turn the page and read the next scene.

  And the best way to do that is to end the scene with a Setback. If you can’t end with a Setback, then end the scene with a Victory. Do something that closes off the miniature story for your scene, but without closing off the larger story that contains it.

  A Setback Is Relative to Your Protagonist

  There’s one point we need to make clear here. What do we mean by a Setback and a Victory?

  Remember that your reader is emotionally attached to the protagonist of your main story.

  But the lead Character in any particular scene (the POV Character) can be anybody—the protagonist, the love interest, the sidekick, the villain, or some other person.

  Everything in your story is measured by your protagonist. When we talk about ending a scene with a Setback, we mean a Setback as measured by the protagonist.

  If the POV Character for your scene is working in your protagonist’s interests, then a loss for that POV Character is a Setback for your protagonist.

  If the POV Character for your scene is working against your protagonist’s interests, then a win for that POV Character is a Setback for your protagonist.

  And likewise, when we talk about ending a scene with a Victory, we mean a Victory as measured by your protagonist.

  But a Protagonist Can Be Complicated

  That raises another issue. Your protagonist may not be a nice person. Nobody’s perfect, and your protagonist may be flawed.

  In The Hunger Games, Katniss is a generally likable person, but not entirely. Early on, she gets on our good side by volunteering to replace her little sister in the Hunger Games. That’s amazing. That’s someone we can root for. But she’s got a hard side to her. She’s cynical and not a bit romantic. Peeta’s in love with her, but she doesn’t love him back and she often manipulates him. We’re rooting against her there—we don’t want the same thing she wants; we want what’s best for her. We want her to fall in love with Peeta. So in some scenes, we feel torn. We understand that she wants desperately to survive, and we can get inside her skin and want that too. But at the same time, we want something for her that she doesn’t want for herself—we want her to learn how to love.

  In Outlander, Claire is an entirely likable person. The reader is completely on her side throughout the story. We want her to get home to her husband. But we also feel her growing love for this other man she’s met and been forced to marry. Claire is torn and doesn’t always know what she wants. And the reader is torn right along with her, because her battle is one good thing against another good thing.

  In The Godfather, Michael Corleone is a generally likable person who is gradually being pulled over to the dark side. The novel is the story of a good person corrupted. We like Michael. We want what’s best for him. As Michael begins to go wrong, we don’t want him to go that way. Yet we can also walk inside his skin and understand what makes him turn. We’re rooting for him to go straight. But we can’t look away as he veers off his original course into a new, dark destiny—as he gradually becomes the new Godfather.

  When things get complicated, doesn’t that make it even harder to define what we mean by a Victory and a Setback?

  We’ve said that we measure Victory and Setback by the protagonist.

  So what happens when the protagonist wants the wrong thing?

  We could tie ourselves in semantic knots over this.

  But we won’t. We’ll just define a Victory by what the protagonist wants, even if it’s actually bad for him. And we’ll define a Setback as what the protagonist doesn’t want, even if it’s actually good for him.

  This means that in some cases, a Setback is good and a Victory is bad.

  So be it. Life is complicated.

  Some Example Setbacks for Proactive Scenes

  Now let’s look at our example Proactive Scenes and see how they end. We’re aiming for Setbacks here, but sometimes we’ll have to settle for Victories.

  Example 1: The Victory for a Proactive Scene in The Hunger Games

  In the last couple of chapters, we’ve analyzed the Goal and the Conflict for a scene in which Katniss starts out trapped in a tree by several Career Tributes. They mean to kill her, and her Goal is to drop a nest of tracker jackers on them and escape. That turns out to be hard, but she succeeds. All of her tormentors are driven off. It looks like one of them is probably going to die. Katniss sees another that she knows for sure is dying and takes her weapons.

  So that counts as a Victory, right? Katniss got what she wanted?

  Yes, but Suzanne Collins very wisely turns this Victory on its ear. Two of Katniss’s enemies return. The first is Peeta, whom Katniss is convinced is a liar and a murderer.

  Katniss tries to shoot him, but the tracker jacker venom has ruined her vision. She can’t see well enough to string an arrow.

  Peeta has a spear. But he’s not trying to kill her. He’s screaming at her to run. Katniss still hasn’t figured out that Peeta is on her side. She’s too befuddled to run. So she stares stupidly at Peeta while he’s trying to save her life.

  Then Cato appears. Cato is the biggest and badd
est of the Careers, and he’s demented in his hatred of Katniss. And he’s got a sword.

  Finally Katniss runs. She can barely see, and she’s hallucinating from her stings. But all she can think is that Peeta saved her life.

  And she left him alone to face Cato.

  So yes, Katniss had a Victory. But with all the tracker jacker venom in her body, the hallucinations, and the guilt of leaving Peeta to face Cato alone, it’s a mixed Victory that includes a fair bit of Setback.

  As authors everywhere like to say, Suzanne Collins has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

  And the reader has to turn the page to read the next scene.

  Note that the Scene Crucible is now gone. Katniss is no longer in a tree. Two of the Careers who had her surrounded are now dead. There’ll be a new Scene Crucible shortly, but it will be different from this one.

  Example 2: The Setback for a Proactive Scene in Outlander

  When we left Claire in the previous chapter, she had just challenged the evil Captain Randall by asking him what he thinks he can do to force her to change her story.

  Captain Randall doesn’t waste any time. He orders his corporal to stand behind Claire and hold her elbows.

  Then he slugs her in the belly as hard as he can.

  Claire started this scene hoping to persuade a nice, friendly English officer to help her find her way back to the time portal just a few miles from his garrison.

  She ends this scene in massive pain, knowing that this man is not going to help her and he’s going to do everything in his power to prevent her from ever reaching that stone circle.