The cliffhanger draws the reader so deeply into the action that there is very little chance she will put down the book at that point, and when you have a dangerous cliffhanger as above, which puts a likable character like Tick in danger, the reader will be desperate to go on to find out what happens to her.
Cliffhangers have a tendency to pump adrenaline into the reader's heart, so you want to be careful not to end every scene on such a note. Cliffhang-ers can be an integral part of controlling suspense if they are not overused.
ZOOM-OUT ENDINGS
Zoom-out endings pull away from intimacy or immediacy. The reader often needs a bit of emotional relief from an intense scene, and pulling back provides him an opportunity to catch his breath or reflect on all that has just transpired.
Visual Descriptions
There are many reasons why a writer might choose to end a scene with a visual description. Visual passages in general ground the reader concretely in the present moment. A visual description simply shows what is; it isn't trying to be, or suggest, something else. In these instances, you will use more of the senses.
If there has been a lot of action in a scene—running, dancing, or fighting, say—drawing back to let the reader see something in a concrete visual way can be a very effective way to end the scene. If a fight has taken place during the scene, you might end the scene with a visual of the beaten protagonist passed out in the street, leaving the reader to wonder how badly injured he is. Or you might draw back to show the reader something peaceful or hopeful: a cow grazing quietly in the moonlight; a woman brewing tea in her kitchen; a child patting the head of a dog. The key here, of course, is that by using the senses, you leave a physical impression on the reader, an imprint that he will take into the next scene.
Visual endings don't need to give the reader anything to chew on beyond what is right there on the page; they are like palate cleansers between intense scenes, clearing away some of the feelings elicited in the scene to make way for a new one. One of the most masterful short stories ever written, "The Dead," by James Joyce, employs just such cleansing visuals between the end of one scene and the beginning of another:
The morning was still dark. A dull yellow light brooded over the houses and the river; and the sky seemed to be descending. It was slushy underfoot; and only streaks and patches of snow lay on the roofs, on the parapets of the quay and on the area railings.
The visual ending above provides a gentle transition between the last scene of the party, full of boisterous activity and motion and dialogue, and a quietly emotional, devastating final scene between Gabriel and his wife, in which he realizes that he does not know her as well as he thinks. That simple visual paves the way for a truly powerful next scene.
Philosophical Musings
Since writing is symbolic as well as literal, sometimes an ending can reflect back on the events of a scene (or many scenes) with a philosophical bent that explores the thematic undercurrents of the work. In this example from Jane Hamilton's novel A Map of the World, the scene ends with a description of a dip in a swimming pool. But this event also means something more to the character:
At face value it had been a dip on a hot night. But it was something else,
too. I could see that now, something on the order of a baptism, a kind
of blessing.
Ideas of baptism and blessings are recurring themes in the novel, and they make many appearances. Hamilton's use of these themes to end a scene leaves these ideas in the back of the reader's mind like a curious aftertaste that lingers through the scenes that follow.
The best way to work in a philosophical angle is often through the use of a comparison like a simile or metaphor, often a visual comparison, and always in the point of view of whichever character is most important to the scene. For instance, a character who is struggling to decide on whether or not to keep an unexpected pregnancy might, at the end of a scene, see a mother cat nursing her kittens and feel revulsion, which helps her understand her own maternal instincts. You could have her reflect upon this philosophically: "I was frightened by the babies' hunger, their desperate need. I was a woman, and pregnant, but I knew in that moment a mother was so much more than that. More than I could ever be." Let these musings seep out through the character's point of view, not through yours— the author's.
Philosophical endings tend to work best when:
• You're writing in the first person, since the reader is already inside the mind of the character intimately
• Your character is already prone to philosophical musing (it's better not to try for the philosophical ending if your character is literal or not very introspective)
• Your novel or story has a strong theme (redemption, empowerment, loss) that lends itself to philosophical summaries
• Your novel or story is more character driven than plot or action driven; it's hard to get philosophical when a character is about to fall from a cliff or is running from the police
THE CONCLUSIVE ENDING
There comes a time when a scene simply needs to end without anything fancy to get in the way. In these instances, your ending doesn't need to portend any future event, or lend thematic resonance; its job is just to conclude something that has happened or to tie up a plot point. This might be the place you kill off a character that you know must die. Death is a momentous act, and placing a death at the end of a scene gives the reader time to decide how she feels, and if she is ready to keep reading right away.
There are many other conclusive kinds of endings. You can answer questions that have been posed throughout the scene or the story. Who really is Superman, Lois Lane wants to know. At the end of a scene, he can reveal himself as Clark Kent. You can unmask murderers, reveal the results of blood tests, and lay down jail sentences at the end of scenes in as straightforward a fashion as you need in order to get the job done.
A conclusive ending bears a feeling of finality, which will leave the reader with a very different experience than if you end with things hanging in the balance, dangling at the edge of a cliff. Eventually, there will be places in your narrative where one plot avenue or character detail needs to be tied up so that others can be handled.
For instance, in Michelle Richmond's novel The Year of Fog, protagonist Abby Mason loses sight of her fiance's daughter, Emma, for just a brief moment, long enough for the child to disappear. She is not seen again for nearly a year. Even after Emma's father, Jake, gives up searching for his daughter months after her disappearance, Abby keeps up the search on her own. When the child finally is found, that event concludes a major plotline in the novel, but the novel doesn't end there.
She comes out grimacing, holding her fingers to her nose. It's a nothing gesture, universal among children, and yet I'm strangled with emotion just to do see her doing this thing, this normal thing. Alive.
Because it strikes such a resounding note of conclusion, this terrific scene ending could easily be the end of the novel. That said, there is, in fact,
much more for Jake, Abby, and Emma to cope with due to all they've been through over the course of the story.
Conclusive scene endings are not the ultimate end of the story or novel, just conclusions to plotlines or events that were set in motion by the significant situation.
In part three, we'll look at ways to end the many different types of scenes that will compose your narrative. Ultimately, though, you will have to choose each scene's ending individually to ensure that it fits the mood, the pace, and the plot.
Imagine entering the chilly, ornate cavern of the Vatican, expecting to be amazed by its historical and artistic beauty, only to find yourself disoriented by all the gilt and marble and the cathedral's sheer size. Imagine you did not know where to look first and immediately got a headache. Unfamiliar surroundings can make us feel unsettled and overwhelmed. This is also true of the fictional surroundings you create in scenes. You must act as the tour guide through each scene, expertly guiding the reader to all the important details,
pointing out only what is necessary and what will help the reader understand what he sees.
The purpose of setting, a core element of the scene, is almost always to support and contain the action of the scene, but rarely to be the star. Still, setting requires careful consideration, because you want to ground the reader.
Though we'll discuss the implications of setting in specific scene types in part three, it's good to absorb the essential types of setting and props you'll eventually be using.
The first element of building the stage for any scene is describing what can be seen. When you create a physical world in each scene, you provide a solid framework to which to affix all the ineffable details to come, like feelings and thoughts. The more clearly you describe what can be seen, the more likely your reader is to feel right at home.
Humans have a funny tendency to look for verisimilitude—elements of real life—in fiction. Though the fun of fiction is that you can make up the world and the characters to your specifications, even fantasy writers know they must develop a believable and rich culture, history, and physical geography to sell the idea that their fantasy world is real. Place is one of the first things that make your story real to the reader.
SETTING THE STAGE
Settings are as varied in fiction as they are in the world: A humid Southern bayou; icy Norwegian fjords; a crumbling Victorian mansion; a stable, pungent with the stench of animals. These are just a few of the infinite number of places in which you might set your characters. Though they may seem like merely the backdrop to the action and drama of your narrative, they are more like the rich soil in which you plant your seeds. Do not forget to set the scene. Unless you have a good reason to set your novel or story in a vacuum, establishing a physical setting is one of the most important and literal ways to ground the reader and keep characters from being floating heads.
There are so many details to consider when writing fiction that setting can seem like the least important, and, therefore, an obligation, something you dread or do only because you have to. Yet you don't have to have the setting perfectly figured out at first. You can begin with a vague idea and flesh it out over further drafts. If you've ever seen or starred in a stage play, you're familiar with the ambiguous visual details that constitute settings and places onstage. Often a vague cut-out outline of a city is meant to represent a sprawling metropolis, or a couple of paper trees, a forest. If you struggle with setting, there is nothing wrong with sketching it out loosely to begin with and then, later, when you have a better feel for it, filling it in.
You can make notes to yourself in your scene, such as: "Set in some kind of park with lots of loud children and a pond," or "They're in some kind of Italian cafe. Research foods and smells for later."
Setting may not come to you all at once, because there are many layers to it. Just make sure your sets are finished before the final draft. Some of the basic setting types you should keep in mind include general geographic location, nature, and homes and buildings.
Geographic Location and Natural Settings
Do you know where in the world your story is set? Is it a world you've made up, like the planet Rakhat in Mary Doria Russell's novel The Sparrow, off in the Alpha Centauri solar system? Or is it Memphis, Tennessee, USA, Earth?
The geographical location is the one thing you need to decide as quickly as possible, as it will have more bearing on your characters than other details of setting. Every location comes with information that is useful to the reader (and to you as a writer) from dialect to politics to climate, and that information bears on the characters who turn up there. A born Southerner, for instance, is likely to feel at home in Alabama, while a character from California might struggle to handle its heat, politics, or racial inequality.
It makes sense for scenes to take place in nature, the most prolific of all natural settings, but remember that cool, snow-piled ski slopes affect characters far differently than scorched desert. If someone takes a drunken spill into a lush garden full of flowers, the results will be different than if that character had tumbled into a wall of cactuses. It is your job to attend to these specifics. The reader cannot be physically transported to the sharp cold of Vail, Colorado, or to the dry heat of the Mojave desert by reading your book, but you want him to feel as though he is. On the other hand, you don't want to have to give a lengthy geological explanation for the formation of mesas in Arizona if your goal is simply to have a character leap off one of them.
Author Arundhati Roy uses natural settings in her novel The God of Small Things, which is set in India. There, the weather and nature—in particular the constant activity of monsoon rains—have a profound influence on the characters.
Heaven opened and the water hammered down, reviving the reluctant old well, greenmossing the pigless pigsty, carpet bombing still, tea-colored puddles the way memory bombs still, tea-colored minds. The grass looked wetgreen and pleased. Happy earthworms frolicked purple in the slush.
In this small paragraph, Roy creates a feeling for what it's like to experience a monsoon rain in India (with wonderful descriptions, no less). Imagine having to set your schedule around these torrential rains, and how this might shape your characters' relationship to natural forces, and each other.
Houses, Buildings, and Rooms
In the course of a novel, characters might live in houses, huts, and yurts; they might enter and exit bathrooms, mad scientists' laboratories, and hospitals; they might gather in restaurants, bars, and bedrooms. Rooms and homes must be real, because these are the most essential of living and gathering spaces, and most people are familiar with them, whether they live in shacks or large estates, eat at gourmet establishments or bring home pizza. These spaces are telling and should reveal details about characters.
You've heard the old adage that seeing is believing? Well, how will the reader know for sure that a bedroom bears a woman's touch unless a character in the scene sees perfume and lingerie and lovely flowers on the window-sill? How will he know a home is homey unless he can see the fire burning in the hearth and feel the soft rugs beneath his fingers?
Houses are often representative of the characters that live in them. By describing the state of a house, you can also speak to the soul of a character. Lonely characters often live in lonely quarters. Passionate characters often have a taste for the flamboyant, the colorful, or the warm. Use your rooms, buildings, and houses to add to your scenes, not just to serve as flat backdrops.
SETTING DETAILS
Every setting type comes with its own unique setting details that are just as important as basic physical details for creating a vivid and believable environment in which to situate your protagonist. From the historical period to cultural references, settings are more than just the way things appear—they comprise values and mores that you can work into your narrative to create a truly vivid, believable world for the reader to become deeply involved in.
Time in History
It's important not to forget when your novel takes place, because this also has a major influence on your setting. Medieval England will provide a setting completely different from that of 1960s Congo, Africa.
When you pick a particularly memorable time in recent history, say the Free Love and anti-government movement of the 1960s in the United States, remember that there are people out there who lived during these times and who will have strong feelings about the accuracy of your portrayal of that time period. Not only will your details need to be especially accurate, but the time period itself, whether you intend it or not, will make a comment on its people and events.
If you choose a historically benign year or decade (if such a thing is possible), or at least one that has seen fewer dramatic events, you may have more room to sketch details broadly. Depending on how important the time period is to your storyline, you might be able to get away with generalities like "the early nineties," or "the middle of the nineteenth century."
Cultural References
Culture defines how people beha
ve and what their beliefs are; the West Coast of the U.S. differs in many significant ways from the East Coast, from accent and manner of speech to political values. Cultures come with icons of worship, social and religious traditions—or lack thereof—and language patterns. If your characters are living in a culture that you personally have never lived in, you will be in the position of having to do some research to get details right. If it's a culture you know well, then you have the bonus of being able to draw on rich material that will authenticate your scenes.
A good example comes from Michelle Richmond's lyrical novel Dream of the Blue Room. In it, protagonist Jenny is on a cruise down the Yangtze River in China in a last-ditch attempt to save her failing marriage and to say goodbye to her deceased friend Amanda Ruth, who wanted her ashes sprinkled there. Richmond builds a gorgeous and surreal mood out of these foreign elements with descriptions and images, but she does so in a way that renders the scene accessible and authentic. It is easy to believe you are there on that boat, cruising down this mysterious river in China:
In the night the river turns silver, the mountains shine down upon it, the air goes cool and wet. This is the China Amanda Ruth wanted, her moonlit landscape, her Land of the Dragon. The villages we pass become magical in darkness, carnival-like and throbbing, though in the day they seem filthy, overcrowded, rubbed raw by industry. Apartment rows crouch like creatures gone dumb with hunger, and in the air there is a stench of coal. The mist mingles with black ash and factory smoke. It takes all of my energy just to breathe.
You do not have to become an expert and present a brief history or cultural overview of the territory of your novel or story, but you do need to provide enough information, description, and cultural detail to allow the reader to believe they are really there in that country, even if it is on another planet. When in doubt, try to lean into the senses, rendering the foreign land and its culture visible, audible, and even smellable.
Make A Scene Page 4