by C. S. Lakin
The novel is now finished and was a lot of fun to write. Using the chart made it easy!
Remember, there are many ways to vary this, but I hope this look at my process with a recent novel—using this structure I’m sharing with you—is giving you lots of ideas. Use the charts; they were created to help you!
And if you aren’t sure yet what those ten key scenes should be, study The 12 Key Pillars of Novel Construction and use the workbook! If you work through all the brainstorming questions and checklists, you’ll get to that solid story.
Seriously, too many writers suffer fear and loathing when it comes to writing a novel. You don’t have to. With a bit of work and planning, you can take the pain out, and guess what’s left? The fun!
I love writing novels. I’m on my twenty-first (I think). I want you to love writing novels too! And I believe you will if you use this layering method.
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Your assignment: If you’re writing a romance, plot out your second layer of romance scenes over your key ten scenes. Take some time to thumb through your favorite romance novels and find first the ten key scenes, then the ten romance scenes that make up the second layer.
If you don’t write romance, you get a pass!
Chapter 14: What about the Next Layer?
We’ve nailed the first layer: the ten key scenes. That’s the strong foundation for just about any story. That next layer? You’ve seen how you could come up with a solid and relevant subplot and layer those scenes in among the first ten. You’ve also seen how you might focus on action-reaction to craft those next ten scenes. And if you’re writing in the romance genre, you now have a handy method to layering in romance scenes in a way that befits the genre.
But twenty scenes does not a full-length novel make. So we’re going talk a bit about the third layer: scenes 21-30. This layer is really all about pouring the sand into your jar to fill all the remaining spaces (though, granted, you may have many more than thirty total scenes).
Every layer builds on the previous layer. At some point you are going to be done with your layers. How do you know when to stop layering?
Good question. We don’t want cakes with fifty layers that topple over or collapse under the weight of the icing. And with our “Is it full yet?” jar of rocks, we don’t have a jar that reaches heaven. It has to be a practical size to be functional. And so does a novel.
Here’s how I look at it.
Every scene must serve a purpose in your story. If you have a scene that doesn’t advance your plot in a meaningful way or reveal something important about the characters, or both, it shouldn’t be in your novel.
That’s the first test of a scene. And it’s a big one.
Thirty scenes might be just the right number (give or take a few) for a novella. Some novels may have around thirty scenes—we saw Catching Fire with about twenty-seven chapters. I don’t know what the word count is for that novel; the hardcover edition has 390 pages, but the font is large and set with wide line spacing and big margins (which is done to help a short book look long), so it seems more like a novella than a typical novel at about 80,000 words.
I like to quote (or paraphrase, since I can’t remember the exact words) Donald Maass, who, when asked at his weeklong workshop how long a novel should be, answered, “As long as it needs to be.”
Novellas and Their Key Scenes
A novella isn’t going to have the depth a novel should have. You may not have any subplots. The story may take place over a mere few days rather than months.
My historical Western romance novella Wild Secret, Wild Longing lands fairly long at about 47,000 words and takes place over about four days all told. A lot of action and character development takes place in that short amount of time, and it’s a challenge to write a rich and believable story in so few words. This installment in my series has fourteen chapters that comprise about eighteen or so scenes.
This novella has no subplot. If it did, it would have become a novel. My objective, however, was to write a short and sweet (though intense) story of how LeRoy Banks falls in love.
So, the scope of your plot and the demands of your premise will dictate, for the most part, whether you’ll be writing a novella or a novel. But focus on making the story “as long as it needs to be.” And deconstruct best-selling works in your niche genre so you can make sure your book will fit right in alongside them—in both length and structure.
I’m going to summarize the chapters in Wild Secret, Wild Longing so you can see how this story, even though a short one, uses the ten-key scene structure, and the romance structure as well. (Note: this summary contains spoilers here, in case you’re thinking you’d like to read this book.) I’ve put in bold the key scenes. Even though this is an unusual plot, I made sure to lock in those foundational scenes and build from there.
Some of the key scenes are missing, such as “Wise Friends Counsels” (it’s just the hero and heroine trapped alone in a cabin), but you can still see how the framework is supported by most of those foundational scenes in the right places.
Wild Secret, Wild Longing
Chapter 1: #1 (and #R1) and #2 – The Setup and the Inciting Incident. LeRoy (hero) is at his brother Eli’s wedding and feeling a bit lonely. His mother hints that maybe it’s time he found a wife and, as per her usual mysteriousness, warns that the mountains hold secrets. Will his heart be ready? The Inciting Incident barrels in near the end of this chapter: a grizzly attacks the horses at this ranch where LeRoy’s employed. The beast is shot and dangerous, and someone must hunt it down and kill it. LeRoy is the best tracker, so he knows it’s up to him.
Chapter 2: #11 R1 – Introduction of the Heroine. We meet Genevieve (heroine), a woman living alone up the mountain. She is running out of supplies and can’t bear the thought of trying to survive yet another lonely winter. But she has no other choice. She hears a wolf howling and knows danger is waiting outside her cabin. She grabs her rifle and heads out, with the first big winter storm approaching.
Chapter 3: LeRoy gets ready to head out after the bear. Other ranch hands prepare to chase it down too, but LeRoy goes alone, knowing those useless men won’t find the bear. With a scene break, we watch Gennie head through the woods and realize that grizzly she’d seen before is back. She has to kill it before it kills her or her mule.
Chapter 4: #12 R2 – The Meet (Yes, it is! Read on). LeRoy tracks for hours, smells the smoke of a nearby cabin, then runs headlong into a massive growling wolf. Just as he’s about to reluctantly shoot, something smashes him upside the head. When he comes to, he sees the man who struck him, and the wolf seems to be his pet. Turns out the man, Dan, is also hunting the grizzly. The unfriendly man allows LeRoy to join him.
Chapter 5: Complication. The two encounter the bear. LeRoy saves Dan’s life by diverting the bear from attacking the fella. But then the bear attacks LeRoy, slicing open his stomach. Dan bandages him, then helps him get up and moving, and as snow falls, the wolf leads them to a cabin.
Chapter 6: #3 First Pinch Point. (To Gennie, LeRoy is the opposition she must best.) Gennie is inside her cabin, cursing over not finding that bear. Here we learn she is “Dan”—a woman pretending to be a man in order to survive in her world. She drags the injured half-breed into her cabin and tends to him, determined that he not find out her secret. She hates Indians because they had murdered her family and raped her when she was young, but this man saved her life, and he’s handsome, to boot. His presence generates huge inner conflict. She wants to get him healed and out of her cabin ASAP.
Chapter 7: #4 Twist #1. Next morning LeRoy wakes, goes outside with the wolf and makes friends with it. “Dan” gives him breakfast and warns him not to snoop, then heads out to do chores. LeRoy doesn’t know what to make of his host. Outside, Gennie despairs at the already heavy snowfall, knowing she won’t last another winter. Then her mule brays, and she sees the grizzly going after it. This is the last straw. She will die trying to kill that grizzly. She fires her gun. Inside the cabin,
LeRoy hears the shot, and though hardly able to walk, heads out, tracking her steps in the deep snow. A snow-heavy branch crashes on Gennie and knocks her out. LeRoy rushes to her aid. He shoots and kills the bear, then finds “Dan” almost dead and lugs the “fella” back to the cabin. (These are via multiple scene breaks and POV shifts.)
Chapter 8: #5 The Midpoint – no turning back. Back in the cabin, LeRoy tends to unconscious “Dan.” Very quickly he realizes Dan is a woman. LeRoy ponders her situation, dire indeed. Gennie comes to, and LeRoy assures her the bear is dead, not letting on he knows her secret. The snow has them trapped inside, and LeRoy learns more about this amazingly brave woman. His strong feelings for her now cannot be ignored.
Chapter 9: #6 Pinch Point #2 (Gennie feels exposed by her “opposition”) While LeRoy naps, Gennie thinks about her lonely life, then starts to cry. LeRoy awakes, and from his expression, she knows he knows her secret. She feels exposed and trapped, so she flees, wanting to die.
(No #7 twist here, but twists were added before the Midpoint)
#8 Dark Night moment for LeRoy. LeRoy, still hobbling takes off after her in the heavy snow, with her wolf leading him. He nearly dies in the blizzard but presses on and finds her half dead. It takes him forever, but he manages to get her back to the cabin alive.
Chapter 10: #15 R6 – The First Quarrel. Gennie wakes, they have the “big” talk in which they share their hearts and fears and begin to see how they are alike in many ways, but there is resistance. LeRoy has already fallen in love with her. He pries out her story and learns what happened to her and why she is hiding in the mountains. Gennie believes she is tainted and has no place in the real world down the mountain. LeRoy shares his heart and tells her she has value and to stop blaming herself. They kiss.
Chapter 11: #9 The hero reaches his goal (getting the girl). Next morning, LeRoy ponders what to do and how he might convince Gennie to leave with him once the storm passes. He knows she’s terrified at the thought of joining humanity. Gennie wakes, aware that she is falling for LeRoy. Over breakfast he tells her his plan. She resists but decides to trust him. He’s saved her life twice. But he assures her she’s saved his as well.
Chapter 12: #18 R9 – The lovers are united. A few days later they are headed down the hill on his horse, mule and wolf following.
#19 R10 – One last big obstacle. They run into the two lost ranch hands, who make lewd advances on Gennie. LeRoy punches them, putting them in their place and showing Gennie he meant what he said about protecting her. It also helps that her wolf is a frightening sight. LeRoy takes their horses and makes them walk down the mountain.
Chapter 13: #20 R11 – Together at last. They’ve made it (She reaches her goal here—to rejoin society). Gennie gets nervous as they approach the ranch and everyone welcomes them back. She learns quickly that all those scary people are actually kind and loving. The women take her off to bathe her and give her beautiful clothes. A Cinderella moment.
Chapter 14: #10 and #20 R12 – The wrap-up and the HEA. LeRoy, at dinner and waiting for Gennie, talks to his ma, who’s worked it all out. Gennie will go to their ranch with his ma and the wolf, and LeRoy will finish up his time at this ranch, keeping his promise to help break the wild horses he and his brother had caught (prior novel’s plot). LeRoy is besotted by Gennie’s transformation, and they share a kiss full of promise and joy.
I hope you can see from this elaborate breakdown how you can plot out a novel or novella of any reasonable length and make this general structure work. If you feel a novel is too daunting a starting place, consider plotting out a novella with those first two layers. If you’re not doing a romance, try the action-reaction method (since it’s hard to develop a strong subplot in so few pages, though I’m sure it could be done).
Don’t Neglect Scene Structure
Aim for purpose and economy of scenes. Every scene must serve a purpose. And now that you understand novel framework, it’s not all that hard!
I hope you noticed in my breakdown of my novella that every scene contained important action, inner and/or outer conflict, and story advancement. You don’t see characters sitting around merely talking about the weather and deciding what to eat for dinner.
Let me just add this for good measure: to make this layering method work, you also need to nail scene structure. Scenes are like mini novels. They should start in the middle of something happening, build to a climax, reveal something important (the high moment), then end (resolve or hang).
Approach building a scene the same way you tackle building a novel. And if you need help on scene structure, I have more charts that can help you! Either hop over to my blog Live Write Thrive and grab them from my resource page or, if you’re reading this as an ebook, click on the links here to get my Scene Structure Checklist and my chart 8 Steps to a Perfect Scene.
Once you have those twenty scenes in place, you may only need a few more, as I did in Wild Secret, Wild Longing, to fill up the jar.
But if you’re aiming for a novel, you’ll need at least a third layer. Let’s take a look at one example, building on what we’ve looked at in previous chapters.
The Third Layer Using the Subplot Method
A few chapters back, I shared my twenty layered scenes from my detective novel A Thin Film of Lies. In this chapter, I’ll show you how I added in ten more scenes (sand) over the twenty previously laid out (rocks and pebbles). I used the subplot method, but when you work on the third layer, the objective is the same for whichever method you use. Think: connecting.
What you need to do at this point in your layering is focus on smooth transitioning between scenes. If you have a twist, then a reaction scene, then the Midpoint, you might notice you’re missing a scene that helps segue from reaction to Midpoint. If you’ve had a lot of high-action scenes in a row, it may be time for a low-energy reflection scene. With any of these methods, it helps to identify which scenes are high energy and which are low (you can color-code them on your chart) to see where you could use more action, reaction, processing, or decision scenes.
Here is the chart once more for A Thin Film of Lies. The first ten scenes are the foundational scenes, inserted in the right places in the framework. The next ten pertain to the subplot. And while you don’t need exactly ten subplot scenes, again, this is just done to give a simple template or method. Veer as you wish, but make it work best for the story you are telling.
I’ve noted in bold this third layer—the additional ten scenes I’m adding in. Take a look at how these scenes bridge the bigger ones—essentially filling in those spaces.
What purpose do those additional scenes have? Some show the reaction to the previous action. Some show the processing that follows a reaction. Others show the decision that follows the processing, initiating a new action.
In other words, you need to be keenly aware of the natural action-reaction-process-decision cycle. Your characters should act naturally, and sometimes this process all takes place in only a part of a scene; other times this process covers many scenes. And those are often the “filler” scenes.
Make sense?
Once you get this nailed, you should be able to grab any great novel and chart it out. You should find that these key scenes are in just the right places and with these “connecting” scenes between them.
So here’s my chart (and remember, the numbering relates to the layering, but the scenes are laid out in order as the story unfolds). This may look daunting and complex, but what follows is almost the entire novel plotted out, which translates to more than 100,000 words. So it should be fairly complex.
Instead of being intimidated by the breadth and scope of layering, try to view this as your roadmap to success.
#1 Setup. Introduce protagonist in her world. Establish her core need. After prologue setting up Libby’s death, we meet Fran Anders, homicide detective, called to the scene of the hit-and-run. She gets an anonymous call while there stating this was murder.
#21 Meet Alisa, the wife of the suspe
cted murderer. Begin subplot of her character. Set up tension in marriage, letters she gets from “Libby” before she’s killed.
#11 Introduction of subplot. Set up the situation between the characters to show the existing tension and attitudes that is causing conflict. Fran is concerned about her son’s behavior. They are disconnected, and the tenth anniversary of her husband’s disappearance is approaching. He’s having problems with kids at school.
#2 Turning Point #1 (10%). Inciting Incident. Fran meets Mike Jepson—he’s the suspect, and she now starts investigating him. He claims he’s innocent.
#22 More development in the investigation. Mike and Alisa have been interrogated. Alisa claims she caused the dent in the car. Fran wants Ident to check out the bumper. (New action that leads to processing, decision, and new action.)
#12 Show how the Inciting Incident affects the subplot. It may trigger it, bring it to the forefront. Have something initially happen with the subplot to bring in problems and complications. Fran goes as chaperone on a class trip with son. At the park, she stumbles upon a drug sale gone violent that involves a couple of Trevor’s classmates and intervenes. Trevor is angry and embarrassed at her mother’s cop actions.
#3 Pinch Point #1 (33% roughly). Give a glimpse of the opposition’s power, need, and goal as well as the stakes. Alisa secretly meets with Mike’s best friend, finds out Mike had had an affair years ago. Trust erodes. Alisa decides to investigate Mike’s claim he was at the club nights. (Her husband, essentially, becomes the opposition to her.)
#23 Fran questions an acquaintance of the deceased and learns key info that advances the investigation. (New action, followed by processing.)