Plotting Scenes

Novels, just like movies, are comprised of small scenes that combine to tell a larger story. Scenes are what happen in a book to move the plot forward and help readers to understand who your characters are and what they need. While writing your book it can be useful to think of it as a tower. Within that tower, each scene is a building block. Without strong scenes your larger story will be unsteady, or not stand at all. Authors need to write the most compelling scenes possible to keep readers engaged, and to move the plot of a novel forward. But what ingredients go into writing a good scene?

 

 Scenes can involve action, dialogue, or a flashback to a prior event. A scene needs to have a purpose for being in your book and communicate important information to your readers about who your characters are or what is happening in the story. Scenes can also establish a sense of time and place for the book. In this case, you might focus on setting detail in a scene for the purpose of grounding your readers in where geographically or historically your book is taking place. For speculative fiction or fantasy books, scenes can also be important components of worldbuilding to help readers understand the rules, realities, and norms of the world you are creating. 

 

Although a scene is a complete micro-story, not all scenes are going to be the same length. There is no right or wrong answer about the length of a scene; it depends on the book. If you are writing an especially complicated moment in your novel the scene might stretch the length of an entire chapter. On the other hand, you might write scenes that are short. In that case a chapter will consist of multiple scenes. Longer isn’t always better when it comes to scenes. In fact, sometimes the most impactful scenes are short and intense. 

 

 

While you are writing your novel, one outlining strategy–especially if you are a plotter as opposed to a pantser–is to make a list of different scenes that need to be part of the larger story. Once you have a scene list, you can start to order them chronologically for your story before you begin writing. The strongest scenes are going to read like a complete story within a story. This means that they will have a full but small plot arc: a beginning, a middle where the action is taking place, and then a wrap up. Scenes can intensify the conflict through action or reaction, establish a setting, or be part of character development. As you look at the list of scenes that need to be in your book, consider making note of what the scene is going to accomplish and what needs to happen in each scene. That way, when you sit down to write you have a map for knowing what needs to be included in each micro-story/scene. 

 

 

Scene editing is one of the most important steps for authors. Because scenes are the building blocks of the entire novel, each should serve a purpose in the plot of your book. As you edit, go scene-by-scene through the book and assess first if the scene belongs in the book, and then if it is in the correct place in the book. Ultimately, you may have to remove a scene that is fun, or that you just like because it just doesn’t help progress the plot of your novel. As you are editing, ask yourself: does this scene contribute something meaningful? Does this scene help readers learn about the setting or location? Does this scene help my main characters learn something important? Unfortunately, just because you enjoyed writing a scene, doesn’t mean it will have a place in the final book. Being able to make these kinds of hard editorial decisions will improve the pacing of your plot and can increase your reader’s engagement and enjoyment of the novel when it’s finished.