Let's look at an example from William Trevor's novel Felicia's Journey, about a lower-class Irish girl named Felicia on a trip to England. Her plot situation is that she's pregnant and on a journey to meet up with "a friend" (as she tells customs) who is actually Johnny, the father of her child, with whom she hasn't had any contact since their whirlwind dalliance. She doesn't have his address and he doesn't know she's coming, but Felicia, who is desperate to get out of her small-town life, chooses to believe he is going to marry her when he hears the news.
Now, in an early scene, she has arrived in England. Her plot intention is to get Johnny to marry her and provide a father for her baby. Her scene-specific intention—her most immediate need or desire—is to find the lawn-mower factory where Johnny works:
A man in a Volkswagen showroom is patient with her but doesn't know of a lawn-mower factory in the vicinity. Then an afterthought strikes him as she's leaving and he mentions the name of a town that he says is twenty-five or -six miles off. When it occurs to him that she's bewildered by what he's saying he writes the name down on the edge of a brochure. 'Not the full shilling', is an expression her father uses and 'Nineteen and six in the pound': she wonders if the man is thinking that.
So her intention in the excerpt was to find the lawn-mower factory where Johnny works, but since she doesn't know the town or have an address, she goes to a place that is as close to a lawn-mower factory as she can think of: a car dealership. Driven by her overarching plot intention to be with Johnny, her scene-specific intentions are directed by whatever information she obtains that will help her find him. In this case, she receives for her trouble the name of the town the factory may be in.
Her scene-specific intention then quickly becomes complicated, as the town she needs to go to is twenty-six miles away and she has very little money and no form of transportation. Her next scene intention, therefore, is to find transportation to this city (which, of course, leads to more trouble).
The simplest way to put this is: Scene intentions lead to complications, which lead to new scene intentions, and so on, until you begin to resolve your plot toward the end of your narrative.
Intentions give your protagonist a purpose on a large scale (plot) and on a present-moment scale (scene) so that you get to the action at hand and don't leave the reader wondering what is going to happen next. They help you structure your plot and direct your characters. Then, by complicating the intentions through opposition or some other kind of twist, you build tension, drama, and energy, and create new intentions.
INTENTION OPPOSITION
So now hopefully it's clear that intentions are the stage directions for your characters in every scene. Once your character's intention is established and in motion in a scene, you quickly want to come up with ways to thwart the intentions to build tension and keep a sense of urgency alive for the reader. You can do this by:
• Preventing the completion of the intention. Another character intervenes, a rain storm pours down, a car accident happens, etc.
•Throwing in a twist. The protagonist learns that what he intends to do is impossible, illegal, or wrong (and he decides to do it anyway, or he gives up completely).
• Complicating the intentions. Allow your protagonist to set out with one intention in mind, only to have circumstances beyond his control or awareness intervene and change his course of action.
• Creating a new intention. Upon having his original intention thwarted, complicated, or twisted, your protagonist may need to change course altogether and come up with a new intention.
The longer you delay fulfilling your protagonist's desire, the more tension and drama you build. It's useful to delay and oppose intentions for most of a scene, so that the reader is compelled to keep reading to find out when, and how, the intention will finally be achieved—if at all.
INTENTION SUPPORT
Eventually, you will want to provide your protagonist with some support of his intentions along the way. You can't delay a desire forever, or your narrative will end feeling unresolved. At certain junctures along the way, then, you need to give your protagonist allies and assistance in achieving his intentions. Whether these come in the form of friends in high places—like headmaster Albus Dumbledore, who always seems to help Harry Potter out of tight fixes—or simply a kind stranger offering shelter to a weary protagonist who is running from a pursuer, these little acts of assistance will keep your character from getting stuck.
If you only thwart intentions, after all, eventually your protagonist will become completely stymied, and the plot will come to a halt.
Keep in mind that no character should be superhuman in his ability to get through difficult trials. In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Frodo needs his group of companions to get him to Mordor, where he can get rid of the malicious ring for good. Protagonists need friends and supporters, small acts of
kindness, insight and clues that lead them on in their journeys.
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Ultimately, plot intentions will carry over from scene to scene and will be the main driving force of the narrative's action, and the reason for your narrative's existence. These intentions may change slightly over the course of a narrative, once some aspects of the plot get revealed or wrapped up, but they should inform your characters' actions in every scene. Scene-specific intentions, on the other hand, will be directly related to consequences that unravel from the significant situation and can vary and shift from scene to scene as needed to drive your plot forward and to create various effects—including tension and drama—in your characters' lives.
Your first scene is like a window thrown open in a crowded apartment complex at the sound of a scream. Whatever the window opens onto—lovers quarrelling, a murderer fleeing from a body, a strange and beautiful dance— is the significant situation of your plot, and must take place in your first scene (a prologue, by the way, is not your first scene—it's a scene that hints at actions to come).
The first scene in your narrative bears the greatest burden of all, because it must do all of the following:
• Hatch your plot in the form of your significant situation
• Introduce your protagonist and provide a brief glance into his inner or outer struggles
• Establish a distinct, rich setting and subtly evoke the senses without being overbearing
• Set up a feeling of dramatic tension that hints at complications and conflict to come
First scenes are most successful when they begin with an air of mystery, a question or situation that needs an answer, or a crisis from which the protagonist needs to be extricated. The first scene should be compelling
enough—with enough action and plot information—that the reader does not need any backstory or expository summary in order to keep reading without getting confused.
Throughout the rest of the narrative, the first scene should resonate in the reader's mind like a haunting tune he can't shake. It is, after all, the point of no return.
INTRODUCING THE SIGNIFICANT SITUATION AND YOUR PROTAGONIST
Burn these words into your consciousness now and forever more: Plot and character cannot be separated. Your significant situation is the something bad, difficult, mysterious, or tragic that happens to your protagonist in real-time action—in other words, it feels as though it is happening at the moment the reader reads it because it isn't narrated in exposition and it isn't a flashback scene. The action is happening now! This monumental event is what sets your story in motion, what compels your character to take action, because, after all, the problem belongs to your protagonist first and foremost. Through other plot twists and complications, the significant situation may lead to a whole host of trouble for other characters, but not at page one. The opening scene belongs to your main character.
Your significant situation should happen within the first couple of paragraphs. If you force the reader to wait too long for the event that they hope is coming, you stand to lose them before ever getting to it.
For example, in Lynn Freed's novel House of Women, the first scene opens with a beguiling description of a man called only "the Syrian," as seen through the first-person point of view of Thea, a seventeen-year-old girl with a protective mother. It is quickly established, through the lyrical way that Thea describes the man, and then herself, that she is a romantic girl who feels smothered by her mother. The significant situation and the protagonist are introduced simultaneously: The Syrian—a friend of her father's—has come to take her to live with her father against her mother's wishes:
The Syrian stands on the terrace, staring down into the bay. His head and shoulders are caught in the last of the light, massive, like a centaur's. He could be Apollo on his chariot with his hair blown back like that. Or Poseidon. Or Prometheus. He is the darkest white man I have ever seen. It is sort of a gilded darkness, gleaming and beautiful. Even an old man can look like a god, I think.
But of course, he isn't old. He is just older than I am, much older. I am seventeen and a half and have just lost twelve pounds at the slimming salon. My body is curved and firm and brown. Until now, I have been plain, as my mother is plain, but in a different way. My mother is slim and elegant and plain. I have been sallow and lumpy and awkward, and too clever by half, as she says.
Since I lost weight she has become more watchful than ever. If a boy whistles at me on the street, she says he is common rubbish, he wants one thing and one thing only, and if I give in, I will be his forever. The result is that every night I dream of common rubbish. ...
The Syrian turns. He shades his eyes against the sun and smiles. "Join me?" he says, holding up his whiskey and soda.
Thea, being naive, has no idea of the consequences of what joining him on the terrace will bring. That she will have to marry the much older man, for starters. That she will become a young mother who is isolated and just as trapped in her new life as she felt with her mother.
When you kick off your significant situation, be sure that it directly involves your protagonist and reveals something about her character—wheth-er you only show her actions, or you let us into her interior world. Remember, though, that your situation should challenge your protagonist's status quo. Plot and character are bound together and one without the other will cause your first scene to flop.
In your first scene you aren't going to focus too much on character development; your goal is to introduce your protagonist as quickly and with as much intrigue as possible while getting your story started and hooking the reader. So, what does your first scene need to be successful? The following, for starters:
• A significant situation that challenges your protagonist's status quo.
The Syrian's appearance as the messenger to bring Thea to her father is the significant situation that starts the plot and challenges Thea's character, future, and innocence.
• A catalyst with whom the protagonist can interact. At this point, the Syrian is a catalyst—because of him, Thea will take actions she might not have otherwise. Though Thea's mother, Nalia, is not present physically in the scene, her mother's wishes for her are, so in this first scene, Nalia is the antagonist—the person who wants to thwart Thea's goal of leaving. Later on, the Syrian will become an antagonist too.
• A quick introduction to your protagonist's immediate intentions.
Thea's intention is to leave her mother and go to her father. To do this, she makes the choice to trust this strange man, the Syrian.
• A glimpse of your protagonist's personal history and personality, which should shed further light on her motivation. The reader gets a quick glimpse into Thea's life: her overprotective mother; her father, who has other children and rarely visits; and her repressed curiosity about the opposite gender. She feels stifled by her mother, and this leads to an urge to change.
• A course of action or a decision on the part of the protagonist that leads immediately to more complications. Undoubtedly, life gets more complicated for Thea by scene's end, as she is now about to leave her old life with a questionable stranger.
THE CORE ELEMENTS AND THE FIRST SCENE
Now that we've explored the all-important combination of significant situation and character, let's look at how all the other core elements come into play. Getting the balance right is crucial, because too much or too little of any one element can throw off the symmetry of the entire scene. For instance, too much setting description can slow your pace to a crawl, bore the reader, and stall your story before it's even begun.
Setting
It's tempting to paint a dramatic canvas of setting in the first scene, but be careful not to let setting absorb the attention of your scene. Notice how in the first scene of House of Women the setting is elicited by the sparest of physical details. The Syrian "stands on the terrace." He is "staring down into the bay." His head and shoulders are caught "in the last of the light"—so the reader knows that it is nearing evening. In two tiny sentences the reader also gets an image of a porch that overlooks a body of water, and a description of a man who is as charismatic and powerful to look at as a mythical god. By mere suggestion the reader learns that Thea is on the verandah at her mother's home. These are subtle details. The scene is intimate and doesn't require a larger picture with more specific setting. That's a good light touch.
In your first scene, setting should be lightly drawn unless the setting itself is part of your significant situation in some dramatic way (like if your protagonist is lost in a wild jungle or scaling a mountain).
Let's look at how another author infuses her first scene with setting in a manner that also furthers the development of her significant situation. In the novel The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the significant situation is a radical shift in government that takes away women's freedom overnight. One day protagonist Offred has a normal life with her husband and daughter, then it is stripped away. In this first scene, she is nothing more than a slave kept by the new ruling class for the sake of reproduction. Atwood uses setting to create tension and unease from the very first sentence. She describes a familiar setting—that of a high school gymnasium—but there's something wrong with the whole picture. Why are the protagonist and these others sleeping there in the first place? Who are these "Aunts" that patrol the room with "cattle prods slung on thongs from leather belts"?
Though Atwood has a matter-of-fact style of writing, by using a normal setting in an abnormal way, she creates an aura of fear and uncertainty that immediately drives her plot forward.
We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that
were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in miniskirts, then pants, then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair. .
We had flannelette sheets, like children's, and army-issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S. We folded our clothes neatly and laid them on the stools at the ends of the beds. The lights were turned down but not out. Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts.
Notice how the first line makes you feel nervous and curious and how the careful descriptions of a gymnasium and the characters' few belongings— "flannelette sheets, like children's, and army-issue blankets"—add up to a feeling that something bad has happened and that worse things (complications!) are to come. The protagonist also describes the setting with a keen note of nostalgia, suggesting that this familiar place is no longer used for a normal or familiar activity. Atwood unbalances our sense of what is normal.
You too can unbalance the reader's sense of normalcy in your writing by having your significant situation take place in a familiar setting in an unexpected way. For instance,
a murder could take place in a domestically cozy little cottage; or against the backdrop of a dingy back alley where homeless people sleep, a man could propose marriage to a woman.
Unbalancing normalcy with setting is a great way to start your scene off with a visual and emotional pitch.
Subtext and Dramatic Tension
Subtext, as discussed earlier, foreshadows aspects of your plot through the strategic placement of thematic imagery, subtle indications of character behavior, and by showing parallel actions in the background of the scene. Not all genres need as much subtext. Action-driven narratives such as thrillers and mysteries, for example, often bypass the subtle for action, while literary fiction often relies upon more subtext, since the genre emphasizes lyrical language, slower pacing, and richer character development.
Freed does not disappoint when it comes to subtext. Looking back to our earlier House of Women example, there's an undeniably erotic subtext to the first scene. Thea describes the Syrian as "gleaming and beautiful"—terms of admiration bordering on the sexual. Thea desires him, or something from him, and as the text points out, her mother has made a point to warn her that boys only want "one thing and one thing only" from her. At seventeen, she is of an age to be naturally curious about men, and without using any telling language, the subtext points to this.
Her subtext also points to the theme of the inequality between men and women. Comparing the Syrian to mythical gods like Prometheus and Apollo makes him larger than life. Thea has been taught to see men as strange and powerful, since she has never lived with her father, and been raised only by her mother. This is an important subtext for how naive Thea is to the ways of men, because if she better understood them, she would probably not have gone with the Syrian.
The subtext in your first scene sets a tone for the rest of the narrative and creates a trail of bread crumbs leading the reader to believe that a certain direction is in store for your protagonist. In your first scene's subtext you want to develop a mood, foreshadow your protagonist's plot direction, and plant thematic images in the reader's mind.
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