Narrative summaries, when used in place of scene work or when used in excess, cause the reader to feel that the writing is boring, condescending, or lecturing—which will not win more readers. That said, narrative summaries, when used correctly, do have a place and a function in scenes, and we'll take a closer look at those functions throughout this book.
SCENE LENGTH
Before we wrap this chapter up, let's talk about another issue that's sure to rise up in your mind: scene length. One of the benefits of writing in scene form is that the ending of a scene provides a place for the reader to comfortably take a pause. You may wonder when to use a short scene versus a long scene. Once again, the decision rests with you, but we'll take a quick look at the benefits of using either kind.
Long Scenes
Generally speaking, if a scene runs to more than fifteen pages, it's on the long side. A scene can be picked up, read, and put back down (though not too easily!), leaving the reader with more information than he had before. Even the most avid reader wants to pause eventually, and scene and chapter breaks offer them chances to do so.
Long scenes don't need to be avoided, but they should be peppered in sparingly. Too many long scenes in a row will cause your narrative to drag.
Use long scenes in the novel when you want to:
• Intentionally slow down the pace after lots of action or intense dialogue to allow the protagonist and the reader to digest what has happened, and to build new tension and suspense
• Include a lot of big action in a given scene (fights, chases, explosions)— so the scene doesn't hinge on action alone
•Add a dialogue scene that, in order to feel realistic, needs to run long
Short Scenes
A scene that takes place in ten or fewer pages can comfortably be considered short. Some scenes are as short as a couple of pages. Short scenes often make readers hungry for more. But remember that too many short scenes in a row can make the flow of the plot feel choppy, and disrupt the continuity that John Gardner said creates a dream for the reader.
A short scene has to achieve the same goals as a longer scene, and in less time. It must still contain main characters engaging in actions based upon scene intentions. New information must be revealed that drives the plot forward. The setting must be clear. In the short scene, you have even less room for narrative summary.
You're best using short scenes when you need to:
• Differentiate one character from another (a secretive, shy, or withdrawn character, for instance, might only get short scenes, while an outspoken character may get longer scenes)
• Pick up the pace right after a long scene
• Leave the reader hungry for more or breathless with suspense
• Include multiple scenes within a chapter
• Create a sense of urgency by dropping bits of information one by one, forcing the reader to keep reading
Whether you go long or short depends on your own stylistic preferences. Just keep in mind that length affects pacing as you decide what kind of flow you want for your manuscript.
SCENE BEGINNINGS, MIDDLES, AND ENDINGS
Each scene needs to have its own beginning, middle, and end. The following three chapters will pare the scene down to these three basic sections. The beginning should be vivid and memorable, and help immediately draw your reader into the scene. Scene middles are the vast territory where the stakes must be raised, characters get caught in conflict, and consequences follow that keep your plot interesting. Scene endings, of course, set the stage for the scenes that follow, and leave a feeling or taste with the reader that should be unforgettable. When all three sections of a scene are handled well, the result is an incredibly vivid reading experience. The remaining chapters of part one will help you address these important structural elements of the scene.
All great novels and stories start out with a mere idea. Maybe it's a large idea that spans centuries and crosses continents, like the idea of the origins of the real Dracula; or maybe it's an idea for a surreal short story in which a man has keys for fingers. No matter how grand or minute, strange or beguiling your idea, you must take it through an alchemical process that transforms it into story. How do you do that? This is the function of the scene; it is your story-maker. Inside each scene, the vivid details, information, and action breathe life into your flat idea and round it out into something a reader participates in.
Any story or novel is, in essence, a series of scenes strung together like beads on a wire, with narrative summary adding texture and color between. A work of fiction will comprise many scenes (the number of scenes varies for each individual project). And each one of these individual scenes must be built with a structure most easily described as having a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning of each scene is what this chapter will address. (Chapters twelve and twenty-one, respectively, will discuss how to write the first scene and the final scene in a story.)
The word beginning is a bit confusing, since some scenes pick up in the middle of action, or continue where other actions left off, so I prefer to use the term launch, which more clearly suggests the place where the reader's attention is engaged anew.
Visually, in a manuscript a new scene is usually signified by a break of four lines (called a soft hiatus) between the last paragraph of the previous scene and the first paragraph of the next one, or sometimes by a symbol such as an asterisk or dingbat, to let the reader know that time has passed, and a new scene is beginning.
Each new scene still has a responsibility to the idea or plot you started with, which is to communicate your idea in a way that is vivifying for the reader and that provides an experience, not a lecture. Scene launches, therefore, pave the way for all the robust consequences of the idea or plot to unfurl. Each scene launch is a reintroduction, capturing your reader's attention all over again.
You want to start each scene by asking yourself the following questions:
• Where are my characters in the plot? Where did I leave them and what are they doing now?
• What is the most important piece of information that needs to be revealed in this scene?
Only you and the course of your narrative can decide which kinds of launches will work best for each scene, and choosing the right launch often takes some experimentation. This section will provide you with techniques for launching with characters, actions, narrative summary, or setting.
CHARACTER LAUNCHES
It's generally a good idea to get your characters on the page sooner rather than later. And, depending on how many points of view you use, the majority of scenes should involve your main character(s) (although there may be scenes from which your main character needs to be excluded, for the sake of your plot). If you write fantasy or science fiction, your characters may not be people, but dragons, elves, robots, or any of a vast miscellany of other life-forms; just be sure the reader knows who and what your characters are. The edict is still the same—bring your character into the scene as soon as possible. (Part three will elaborate on how to do this.)
Remember, if your scene launch goes on for too many paragraphs in passive description or narrated ideas without characters coming into play, the reader might begin to feel lectured to, or impatient for something to happen and someone for it to happen to. If your character isn't present by the second paragraph in any given scene, you're in danger of losing the reader.
ACTION LAUNCHES
Many writers believe they must explain every bit of action that is going on right from the start of a scene, but narrative summary defeats action. The sooner you start the action in a scene, the more momentum it has to carry the reader forward. If you find yourself explaining an action, then you're
not demonstrating the action any longer; you're floating in a distant star system known as Nebulous Intellectulus—more commonly known as your head—and so is the reader.
Keep in mind the key elements of action: time and momentum. It takes time to plan a murder over late-night whispers; for a
drunk character to drop a jar at the grocery; to blackmail a betraying spouse; or to kick a wall in anger. These things don't happen spontaneously, they happen over a period of time. They are sometimes quick, sometimes slow, but once started, they unfold until finished.
The key to creating strong momentum is to start an action without explaining anything.
Albert leads them all into the dining room and everyone drifts around the large teak table, studying the busily constructed salads at each place setting—salads, which, with their knobs of cheese, jutting chives and little folios of frisee, resemble small Easter hats.
"Do we wear these or eat them?" asks Jack. In his mouth is a piece of gray chewing gum like a rat's brain.
Lorrie Moore plunges her reader into the above scene in the story "Beautiful Grade." Though the action is quiet, there is physical movement and a sense of real time. The lack of explanation for what is happening forces the reader to press on to learn more. The action here gives clues to the reader: The fact that characters are led into a room full of wildly decorated salads that a character is uncertain whether he should eat or wear gives a sense of the envi-ronment—probably chic. We get a feeling for Jack—he's got a good sense of humor. Clearly something more is going to happen in this environment, and judging from the tone of the paragraph, we can probably expect irony and humor. Action launches tend to energize the reader's physical senses. To create an action launch:
• Get straight to the action. Don't drag your feet here. "Jimmy jumped off the cliff"; not "Jimmy stared at the water, imagining how cold it would feel when he jumped."
• Hook the reader with big or surprising actions. A big or surprising action—outburst, car crash, violent heart attack, public fight—at the launch of a scene allows for more possibilities within the scene.
• Be sure that the action is true to your character. Don't have a shy character choose to become suddenly uninhibited at the launch of a scene—save that for scene middles. Do have a bossy character belittle another character in a way that creates conflict.
•Act first, think later. If a character is going to think in your action opening, let the action come first. "Elizabeth slapped the Prince. When his face turned pink, horror filled her. What have I done? she thought."
NARRATIVE LAUNCHES
Writers often try to include narrative summary, such as descriptions of the history of a place or the backstory of characters, right at the launch of a scene, believing that the reader will not be patient enough to allow actions and dialogue to tell the story. In large doses, narrative summary is to scenes what voice-overs are to movies—a distraction and an interruption.
Yet a scene launch is actually one of the easier places to use a judicious amount of narrative summary (since you've only just gotten the reader's attention), so long as you don't keep the reader captive too long.
Take the opening of an early scene in Amanda Eyre Ward's novel How to Be Lost.
The afternoon before I planned how I would tell her. I would begin with my age and maturity, allude to a new lover, and finish with a bouquet of promises: grandchildren, handwritten letters, boxes from Tiffany sent in time to beat the rush. I sat in my apartment drinking Scotch and planning the words.
The above bit is almost entirely narrative summary, and the only action— drinking Scotch—is described, not demonstrated. There is no real setting, and the only visual cues the reader has are vague and abstract. However, the narrative summary does demonstrate Caroline's nature—she feels she must butter her mother up, bribe her even, in order to ask for something she needs, which turns out to be a relatively small thing. It reflects Caroline's tendency to live in her head, and shows us that Caroline is the kind of person who must prepare herself mentally for difficult things—a theme that recurs throughout the book. It's also useful because Caroline spends a lot of time by herself, cutting herself off from her relationships, and, therefore, it is very true to her personality. In just one short paragraph of narrative summary, the reader learns a lot about Caroline, and Ward gets to action in the next paragraph:
Georgette stretched lazily on the balcony. An ambulance wailed below. A
man with a shopping cart stood underneath my apartment building, eating
chicken wings and whistling.
If the entire scene had continued in narrative summary, it most certainly would have had a sedative effect on the reader, and the scene's momentum would have been lost.
Narrative launches should be reserved for the following occasions:
•When narrative summary can save time. Sometimes actions will simply take up more time and space in the scene than you would like. A scene beginning needs to move fairly quickly, and on occasion, summary will get the reader there faster.
•When information needs to be communicated before an action. Sometimes information needs to be imparted simply in order to set action in motion later in the scene. Consider the following sentences, which could easily lead to actions: "My mother was dead before I arrived." "The war had begun." "The storm left half of the city under water."
• When a character's thoughts or intentions cannot be revealed in action. Coma victims, elderly characters, small children, and other characters sometimes cannot speak or act for physical, mental, or emotional reasons; therefore the scene may need to launch with narration to let the reader know what they think and feel.
SETTING LAUNCHES
Sometimes setting details—like a jungle on fire, or moonlight sparkling on a lake—are so important to plot or character development that visual setting must be included at the launch of a scene. This is often the case in books set in unusual, exotic, or challenging locations such as snowy Himalayan mountains, lush islands, or brutal desert climes. If the setting is going to bear dramatically on the characters and the plot, then there is every reason to launch with it.
John Fowles's novel The Magus is set mostly on a Greek island that leaves an indelible imprint on the main character, Nicholas. He becomes involved with an eccentric man whose isolated villa in the Greek countryside becomes the stage upon which the major drama of the novel unfolds. Therefore, it makes sense for him to launch a scene in this manner:
It was a Sunday in late May, blue as a bird's wing. I climbed up the goat-paths to the island's ridge-back, from where the green froth of the pine-tops rolled two miles across to the shadowy wall of mountains on the mainland to the west, a wall that reverberated away south, fifty or sixty miles to the horizon, under the vast bell of the empyrean. It was an azure world, stupendously pure, and always when I stood on the central ridge of the island, and saw it before me, I forgot most of my troubles.
The reader needs to be able to see in detail the empty Greek countryside in which Nicholas becomes so isolated. It sets the scene for something beautiful and strange to happen, and Fowles does not disappoint. To create an effective scenic launch:
• Use specific visual details. If your character is deserted on an island, the reader needs to know the lay of the land. Any fruit trees in sight? What color sand? Are there rocks, shelter, or wild, roaming beasts?
•Allow scenery to set the tone of the scene. Say your scene opens in a jungle where your character is going to face danger; you can describe the scenery in language that conveys darkness, fear, and mystery.
•Use scenery to reflect a character's feelings. Say you have a sad character walking through a residential neighborhood. The descriptions of the homes can reflect that sadness; houses can be in disrepair, with rotting wood and untended yards. You can use weather in the same way. A bright, powerfully sunny day can reflect a mood of great cheer in a character.
• Show the impact of the setting on the character. Say your character is in a prison cell; use the description of the surroundings to show how they shape the character's feelings. "He gazed at his cell: the uncomfortable, flat bed, the walls that squeezed around him, the dull gray color that pervaded everything."
The scene launch happens so quickly and is so soon forgotten that it'
s easy to rush through it, figuring it doesn't really matter how you get it started. Don't fall prey to that kind of thinking. Take your time with a scene launch. Craft each one as carefully and strategically as you would any other aspect of your scene. Remember that a scene launch is an invitation to the reader, beckoning him to come further along with you. Make your invitations as alluring as possible.
Where, exactly, is the middle of a scene? The term middle is misleading because scenes vary in length and there is no precise midpoint. The best explanation is to think of each scene's middle as a realm of possibility between the scene opening and its ending, where the major drama and conflict of the scene unfolds.
Be wary, because the middle has a seductive power to tempt writers into narrative side roads and pretty flower beds of words which, like those poppies in The Wizard of Oz, make the reader want to drift off to sleep.
If you grabbed the reader's attention with an evocative scene launch, the middle of your scene is the proving ground, the Olympic opportunity to hook the reader and never let her go.
UP THE ANTE: COMPLICATIONS
You are probably a very nice person who loathes the idea of even accidentally causing harm to another person. While this kindness is noble in life, in fiction writing it's a liability. You must complicate your characters' lives, and you must do it where the reader can see it—in scenes. Doing so is known as upping the ante. That phrase is most often heard in gambling circles when the initial bet goes up, making the potential win greater, along with the risk. What you must ante up in your scenes are those things your characters stand to lose (or even gain), from pride, to a home, to deep love. When you up the ante, you build anticipation, significance, and suspense that drive the narrative forward and bring the reader along for the ride.
Make A Scene Page 2