LEARNING TO COMPARTMENTALIZE: Scene by Scene by Scene

Writing a novel is a bit like cooking a gourmet meal.

You know you must include your individual ingredients: character, plot, setting, conflict, dialogue, action, etc. But how do you know how to throw them all together? What balance must you strike to achieve the right flavor?

When you cook a meal, you can’t simply walk into the kitchen and magically throw it together. Poof! Voilà! If you’ve never cooked before, why would you expect the meal to turn out exquisite on your first try? Instead, you must ask yourself, is it better to sauté or bake? Is it better to mince or chop? When should you let the sauce simmer at a low heat versus boil rapidly? Most importantly, you must learn to select ingredients, read recipes, slice, dice, brine, marinate, fold, mix, beat, and broil before you can accomplish the more daunting and difficult tasks of making a soufflé, bouillabaisse, or, that Southern favorite, turducken (a duck stuffed into a chicken stuffed into a turkey).

That is, you must learn a bit more about the parts before you are able to create a whole. You must understand how they come together to achieve that sumptuous balance. Then you’re cookin’ with Crisco. Or extra-virgin olive oil, for those with more refined palettes.

After spending a good deal of time outlining your novel, you will most likely have a grasp on the discrete elements of your novel: character, tone, voice, setting, dialogue, plot, conflict, etc. However, how will you put all these elements together in order to shape it? How do you draw out character traits and plot conflicts in a convincing and compelling way? How will you balance these elements to achieve novelistic harmony? The first step toward turning your outline into a first draft in ninety days is acknowledging that novels are written scene by scene (by scene by scene, etc.).

THE SCENE DEFINED

Think of your favorite movie. Or better yet, your favorite book. What was your favorite part? Did you say the part in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer when Tom returns to hilariously watch his own funeral? How about the part in The Lovely Bones, the knockout success by Alice Sebold, when protagonist Susie returns to Earth from Heaven to occupy Ruth’s body and finally kiss Ray Singh, the boy she almost loved when alive? How about the part in Uncle Tom’s Cabin when little Eva — that heavenly angel — passes out locks of her hair before she dies? If you thought of a movie, do you remember the part in the movie Braveheart when William Wallace yells, “Freedom!” to a crowd of astonished onlookers? Or how about the part in Spider-Man when the masked hero first saves the life of Mary Jane? The two then share that famous upside-down kiss when Mary Jane rolls up half of that mask. (The magic here is that it feels relatively normal — for the viewer — to want Mary Jane to kiss a strange man dressed in a full-body spider suit.)

All these “parts” mentioned above are actually just a single scene from each of these works. But what is a scene? How does one define it? Scene writing is often difficult to discuss — for both new and seasoned writers — because a scene combines all elements of fiction in harmony with one another. It isn’t just one aspect of craft — it’s all of them put together, artfully and thoughtfully, to achieve the same kind of balance you hope for in that extravagant dish you prepare for your dinner guests. And how much of any single element (dialogue, setting, description, etc.) you need is going to depend on the particular purpose of the scene within the larger scope of your novel.

Recently, wanting to experiment with a new recipe for saag palak, an Indian dish, I went to my favorite farmer’s market to get the ingredients, carefully selecting them one by one. When I got home, I took off my shoes (I like to cook bare-foot like my ancestors), and I felt the cool tile on my feet. I began cooking, adding the first main ingredients, spinach and tofu. Once I began adding the spices to the dish, I ran into my first obstacle.

“I’m out of coriander!” I yelled to Rob, who was upstairs watching television.

He popped his head around the corner like a curious squirrel and smiled tentatively. He knew what I was going to ask and volunteered before I got the chance to ask it. “I’ll go to the market.” This is not the first time this has happened.

When Rob returned, I grabbed the spice jar in haste and, without looking, dumped in about half the contents. I then looked to the recipe I’d printed out. “Too much!” I say, annoyed with myself.

I tried first to remove some of the spice, but I saw it had already seeped into the cooking liquid. Then I compensated by adding more cumin. (This is what anyone in my family does instinctively to remedy mistakes. “Got Cumin?” is a marketing slogan found … in only one house in America.) But, in this case, cumin was overwhelming the dish, so I added some cinnamon, then some salt, then pepper. When that didn’t work, I desperately tried to add other ingredients, cream, more spinach, onion, garlic, yogurt, hot sauce, and even some parsley for good measure, even though the recipe hadn’t called for that. I was determined to fix my mistake.

Later that night at dinner, we sat down to the table and took our first bites. Rob looked across the table at me.

“Mmmm,” he tried to say but couldn’t contain a smile. We both put down our forks, and I somehow managed to swallow the ooey, gooey, ill-textured, sour-tasting glob of muck.

“I’ll call for pizza,” I said, defeated, but laughing. The universal judgment on this experiment: failure.

This very short story proves just how difficult achieving balance in a meal can be, but it also demonstrates something else: a scene. The story has characters (me, Rob), a conflict (a desperate attempt to fix a ruined meal), setting (my kitchen), interior thoughts (I’m annoyed with myself), action (Rob runs out for spices), character history (my family loves cumin), dialogue (“I’m out of coriander!”), and resolution (pizza). Though I was not able to find the right balance in my saag palak, I was able to achieve balance in the scene itself, and for this I am thankful.

Consider this excerpt of a scene from a more familiar example, the American classic The Great Gatsby, which has been labeled [in brackets] to show its discrete scene components:

I stayed late that night. [Establishes first-person POV] Gatsby asked me to wait until he was free and I lingered in the garden until the inevitable swimming party had run up, chilled and exalted, from the black beach, until the lights were extinguished in the guest rooms overhead. [Description of setting] When he came down the steps at last the tanned skin was drawn unusually tight on his face, and his eyes were bright and tired. [Character description]

“She didn’t like it,” he said immediately. [Dialogue]

“Of course she did.” [Dialogue]

“She didn’t like it,” he insisted. “She didn’t have a good time.”

He was silent and I guessed at his unutterable depression. [Description of action; Interior or indirect thoughts of narrator; Emotion]

“I feel far away from her,” he said. “It’s hard to make her understand.” [Dialogue that characterizes (Gatsby is sensitive, longs for Daisy); Conflict (Gatsby can’t have Daisy)]

“You mean about the dance?” [Dialogue]

“The dance?” He dismissed all the dances he had given with a snap of his fingers. “Old sport, the dance is unimportant.” [Dialogue, Emotion]

He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: “I never loved you.” After she had obliterated three years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louis-ville and be married from her house — just as if it were five years ago. [Emotion; Interior thoughts; Character history]

In this brief snippet of a scene from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal novel, the reader learns a great deal in a short space about Gatsby’s deep longing for the unattainable Daisy. We learn that he’s trying to impress her with his parties; we learn that he’s failed; we understand the inherent conflict that presents itself at the core of the novel (unrequited love, a desire to return to the past); we learn that the first-person narrator, Nick Carraway, can often only guess at the interior thoughts of the protagonist, Jay Gatsby. And that tells us something, too, about how the novel is narrated to us, the reader. We hear the characters speak, directly from their own mouths; we know a bit about the setting, the plot, and the conflict — and even a bit about the backstory. And all of this, amazingly, in the span of approximately two hundred words! Now that’s the epitome of compartmental, and compact, writing — a delicate balancing act in which Fitzgerald juggles several components of fiction. Bravo, Scotty, you master of the novel.

All scenes must work to do something in your novel. By that, I mean: All scenes must have a distinct function and purpose within the larger narrative arc of your novel. Think of scenes as the individual bricks that comprise the house of your novel. Or as the single pearls that, strung together, form a beautiful necklace. Or how about the individual notes that combine to create a beautiful melody. Or the days that form the month, or the weeks that shape a year. Or … or … We have an endless store of metaphors at our fingertips. Pick one you like.

Scene writing, however, is where writing your novel can get tricky, as the writer must master the art of gazing outward and downward, a bit like a quarterback, who is constantly looking both at his immediate surroundings, peripherally, so that he doesn’t get sacked by the defense, while his eyes are focused downfield for the pass. You, too, must always keep your eyes in two places at once: the micro (the scene) and the macro (the novel). It is essential to constantly consider how each of the “parts” of your novel influences the overall trajectory of your plot and character development.

The poet William Blake unwittingly gives the novelist a bit of advice in his poem “Auguries of Innocence.” The poem’s first line could be speaking directly about the scene itself: “To see the world in a grain of sand.” What Blake means by this is that even something as miniscule as a grain of sand tells us something about the world at large. Or, to put it another way, the part reveals — or at least hints at — the whole. A scene works to accomplish just that; by showing your reader only part of the character, the plot, the action, and the development, you are working to reveal a larger, more intricate picture. Consider, for a moment, our example above from The Great Gatsby. In this brief excerpt, we can intuit what Gatsby is really like as a character. For one, he’s the kind of individual who would use the phrase “old sport,” certainly antiquated now, but clearly situating Gatsby in the 1920s era of the novel. We know that Gatsby is hosting a party; yet he cares only for the one opinion that matters most to him: Daisy’s. With this scene, this small grain of sand, Fitzgerald provides a glimpse of the entire novel, hinting at both Gatsby’s desperation, his romantic nature, his obsessive personality, and, sadly, his ultimate demise.

Another literary master, Ernest “Papa” Hemingway, once famously noted, “If it is any use to know it, I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows.” What Hemingway is talking about here, of course, is subtext. A well-crafted scene shows the reader only a fraction of what he needs to know, and leaves it up to him or her to intuit the rest. We know that Gatsby is a wealthy, 1920s-era fellow because he uses the phrase “old sport.” Fitzgerald didn’t need to tell us this directly. “Old sport” is also a term of endearment that reveals Gatsby’s affection for his young friend Nick. How might Gatsby have been perceived if he called Nick “old buddy, old pal” or “bud” or “Nicky”? In that case, Gatsby certainly wouldn’t be Gatsby, now, would he?

I encourage you to think of each individual scene as an opportunity to reveal to your reader some new aspect of your character or your plot. So, for instance, if in one scene of The Great Gatsby we learn of Jay Gatsby’s lavish, though vacuous, parties, his fancy shirts, and his ornately decorated bachelor pad, in another chapter we may learn that he cares little for these things, instead devoting his emotions fully to Daisy, the one possession his money can’t buy.

With each scene you write, you should be able to answer the following questions:

• What is the goal/purpose for the scene?

• What characters are involved in this scene, and are they all necessary?

• What is at stake for my protagonist in this scene?

• What is the main conflict in this scene?

• How does this scene further develop my novel’s plot?

(Note: You should be able to answer these questions even before you’ve actually written the scene, as we’ll be doing in the following weeks. However, thinking about the purpose of the scene in the initial weeks will save you the task of cutting scenes that aren’t “doing the necessary work” in your novel. This will, in turn, save you valuable days during your ninety-day novel challenge.)

If, as you peruse your outline at the end of the first four weeks, you’re unable to come up with a clear intention of a given scene, you might be wiser to cut that scene or redirect it. Perhaps the conflict is not deep enough. How can you further develop the character and his history? How can you beef up this scene so it’s not just empty calories in the meal that is your novel?

SCENE STRUCTURE

We’ll discuss the structure of your whole novel at length in a later section of this book, but if you recall anything from your high school English classes, those long days when you diagrammed the structure of a novel, you probably remember the simple fact that novels have a beginning, a middle, and an end. (This is often diagrammed to look like an inverted V or the tip of a mountain or an A without the middle connector. You get the point.) All stories and novels have rising action, a climax, and falling action, resulting in a resolution. Characters and plots are introduced, tensions rise, conflicts are confronted, and choices are made, which result in the outcome of the story’s end, be it happy or sad.

Here’s something you may not have considered, however: Individual scenes, too, must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s a simple lesson, but one worth discussing in advance of any scene writing so your scenes feel like finished snapshots and not half-developed Polaroid pictures. It’s an easy and common mistake to create a scene that hasn’t been fully developed — that has no clear ending, no discernable middle, or a hastily scrawled start. In other words, a scene that has no point. These types of scenes often leave readers scratching their heads, wondering, “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Scenes are mini modules, a single unit of your novel. However, each unit must still stand as a cohesive whole. That is, if you took each scene out of your novel, it should be able to stand alone — perhaps not as complete as a story itself, but as a mini story that leaves your reader feeling like they’ve learned something about the characters involved or about the unraveling plot. Did the scene above from The Great Gatsby reveal anything new or interesting about the characters? Did the scene help forward the plot? The answers are yes and yes. This snapshot emphasizes Gatsby’s unalterable fixation on Daisy. Everything he does, he does for her. Everything. Including, one might add, moving to West Egg, setting up house across the lake from the green light of Daisy’s dock, and throwing lavish parties to impress her. What else might he do in the name of this obsessive love? Keep reading and find out, the novel suggests.

Beginnings, middles, and endings each hold a particular function within the scene. It’s important to recognize the importance of scene structure before penning a single word of your novel.

The Beginning of a Scene

You should aim to begin a majority of your scenes in medias res, or, in the middle of the action. When a reader starts reading a scene, she should feel already immersed in the action — she should feel as though she has to keep reading in order to catch up with the plot that is evolving before her eyes. Though you may choose to begin some scenes with description of the setting or, perhaps, the philosophical musing of the narrator, you should introduce your character by the second or third paragraph of each scene — otherwise you risk losing the interest of your reader. Yes, the Red Rocks of Arizona might be beautiful — I know, I’ve been there! — but your reader will find the beauty only lackluster without the necessary characters to populate the scene. Have you ever had a friend share with you his photos from a vacation he had taken? You might remember, then, how you had to feign interest as he showed you photo after photo after photo of the landscapes, the foliage, the wildlife, the flowers. Where are you in these pictures, you might ask him. Good question. A scene without characters is not really a scene at all. Engage the interest of your reader by connecting them immediately to your characters. People, quite simply, are very interested in reading about other people.

The Middle of a Scene

All characters must want something within an individual scene, and in your scene middle you must complicate the attainment of this “something.” What is standing in the way of what your character wants? Scene middles are the territory of conflict.

Fiction writer Anne Lamott wrote, “You are going to love some of your characters, because they are you or some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason. But no matter what, you are probably going to have to let bad things happen to some of the characters you love or you won’t have much of a story. Bad things happen to good characters, because our actions have consequences, and we do not behave perfectly all the time.” Simply stated, scene middles are the place for bad things to happen to your characters — for something to get in the way of what they want, for conflict to arise, and for them to face this conflict and respond to it in a way that is emblematic of their character. In some scenes this conflict will be obvious (e.g., “I need to get to the other side of the cliff, but the bridge is broken”) and in other scenes, the conflict will be more subtle, (e.g., “I’m going to my high school reunion and I’m nervous to see my ex, who doesn’t know I’m divorced”). Whether your conflict is large or small, the scene middle is where your character confronts and reacts. This process of acting and reacting is what will propel your scene, and therefore your plot, forward.

The End of a Scene

The ending for each scene need not be a definitive ending, unless it’s one of the final scenes of your novel. You may choose to end some scenes with a plot cliff-hanger, an unspoken “To be continued …” clause that encourages your reader to keep turning the page. Or, perhaps, like a filmmaker, you might zoom in to the character’s head as he contemplates the events that have just unfolded before him. Conversely, you may choose to end by focusing on a particularly symbolic metaphor. As you zoom out of the scene, perhaps the silhouette of a bird flies away in the distance, which might allude to the loneliness of your protagonist. Think of scene endings as “breathers” for your reader — a paragraph or two that allows him to take in and process, along with your characters, what just happened in the scene.

But here’s a caveat: Unless you know the purpose or goal of your scene, you may not know how to end it properly. If you, the writer, don’t clearly understand the intention of your scene, you can confidently bet your reader won’t either. Readers don’t like to guess at the point of a scene, nor should they have to — and there’s a clear difference between not giving away too much in one scene and being downright ambiguous. Be sure you can distinguish between the two.

SCENE VARIETY

Scene writing will be fundamental to developing and drafting your novel, and the more attention you pay during the drafting stages to establishing strong, complete scenes that have a specific purpose within your novel, the less time you’ll have to spend later with your old pal, the delete key. But it’s also important to identify the various types of scenes that will be useful to you as you work through your novel.

Perhaps it seems obvious, but no two scenes can accomplish the same task in exactly the same way. Unless you want to bore your reader, you’ll need to vary the types of scenes you use. For instance, in one scene, your plot might need to be forwarded with a dramatic action; another scene might be needed to show the interiority of your protagonist. Yet another scene might be needed to show characters interacting and discussing events in their own words; you’ll also need to include a scene or two revealing the emotional core of your character — or to cast the drama in a different light. Other scenes might use the setting to reveal the tone or mood of your character.

We will explore these types of scenes as we continue throughout the ninety-day challenge, but for now, I’d like to categorize these scenes as internal and external scenes. Of course, these are somewhat fluid, overlapping categories, but for the sake of definition, internal scenes are primarily focused on what is going on inside your character’s head, whereas in external scenes your characters are engaging with the world at large. There can be an internal portion of an external scene, or vice versa. However, a primary internal scene works to reveal an aspect of character while a primary external scene works to unravel an element of plot.

Internal Scenes

Much of our life happens in our heads. Today, for instance, I went to the grocery store, and as I walked by the spice aisle I sneezed (the pepper, no doubt), which reminded me of an article I read about how blueberries are a superfood, which sent me down the organic section looking for blue-berries. But before I got there, I knocked my cart into a cereal display, which sent the pyramid of boxes crashing to the floor. I was so mad at myself. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I was thinking. The employee who kindly reset the display resembled a younger version of this boy I once dated in college. I wondered what he is doing now. He was always good at science.

To my loved ones at the end of the day, I might simply report: I went to the grocery store. My day involved much more complexity than that, however. My internal world was a veritable roller coaster. I bet yours was, too, if you consider the thoughts inside your head. I just made you think this thought inside your head, by the way. Gotcha. And I don’t even know you. See how a bit of internal thinking can work? Powerful stuff.

All novels need glimpses into the character’s internal worlds. Without these hints at a character’s thoughts and emotions, novel reading would be about as passionate as kissing the Blarney Stone.

Setting: Contemplative Scenes

In these scenes, setting becomes almost a character itself, reflecting the mood, values, and mind-set of your character. For instance, if your character feels empty, numb, or emotionless, a desert setting might be used to convey these thoughts. When a person feels in good spirits, he sees blue skies, hears chirping birds, and feels a refreshing cool breeze on his skin. When a person is in a bad mood, he’ll likely notice negative things: carpet stains, cracks in the gray sidewalk, crumbling brick buildings.

Emotional Scenes

Emotional scenes do just what you think they do: reveal a character’s emotions. Here’s a general rule for dealing with emotions in fiction: Never explicitly state the emotion. Do not write, “He was sad” or “He felt happy.” I’m sure you’ve heard the rule: Show, don’t tell. Readers do not like to be told how they’re supposed to read a scene. Instead, readers relate to emotions through physical sensations. If you use an emotional scene to reveal Kevin’s anger at having learned his bar, Milton’s, was robbed, don’t write: “Kevin was mad.” Instead, show it: “Kevin’s hands balled up into fists that turned red and then white. His face felt hot, like a tea kettle about to explode with steam. He bit the inside of his cheek and tasted blood, warm and metallic….”

Indirect Thought/Interior Monologue Scenes

A good way to know what your character is thinking is to simply let your reader inside your character’s head. This becomes especially interesting and useful when what your character thinks is different than how your character acts (or what he says directly). Let your character ramble a little bit — it’s a novel, you’ve got some wiggle room — but be sure that her ramblings are related to the plot of the novel. That is, it’s more useful to “hear” Sally reflect on her husband’s affair with the deli girl than it is to hear Sally pontificate about how she hates to wear panty hose. (That is, unless the restrictiveness of control-top panty hose is in some ways a metaphor for her restrictive relationship with her husband. Or her longing for Spanx reveals self-image problems that foreshadow later issues with Twinkies.)

External Scenes

One of the biggest mistakes of first-time novel writers (and second-, third-, and fourth-time novel writers, too) is creating a novel that is entirely too internal. That is, writers often develop intriguing and complex characters, yet fail to engage them with other characters in their fictional worlds. Boredom is the result.

Stop reading for a moment and make a quick list of all the people you’ve come into contact with today. Your list might look something like this:

Coffee-shop barista
Newspaper-stand guy
Doorman at office building
Various coworkers
Manicurist
Doctor
People at bus stop
Other patrons of the bar
Little old lady who dropped her grocery bag

Every day, you come into contact with dozens of people, if you’re not a hermit, and some of these meetings and connections are more significant than others. Your protagonist, too, should interact with the world at large. Not all the “contacts” you’ve listed are major players in your life, but even minor characters can reveal something about you as an individual. (Charles Dickens famously populated his novels with dozens of characters, some fairly insignificant, but fun to meet.) For instance, when the little old lady dropped her groceries, did you walk on by or did you stop and help her pick up her scattered goods? The takeaway point is this: You need to allow your characters to engage with a cast of characters, for each interaction gives your readers another piece of your novel’s puzzle. Good novels thrive on a diverse and varied ensemble. In external scenes, characters confront characters.

Dialogue Scenes

Allowing your character to speak — in her own words — is vital to your novel. We learn a lot about a character when she talks. First, how does she talk? Does she have a lilt to her voice? A Southern drawl? A New Jersey accent? Does she use an elevated vocabulary: “I love the anthropomorphism of a character such as Bambi.” Or does she speak in short, choppy sentences: “It’s weird that Bambi is a talking deer.” These details will all help crystallize your character in the mind of your reader. Consider, too, when what a character says differs from what he thinks. Have you ever given a false compliment? “I just loved looking at all your landscape photos from your recent vacation out West! Who needs people in their pictures anyway?” you might have told your friend, while in truth you were bored out of your gourd. Scenes involving large portions of dialogue, if done well, can draw out conflict, reveal tensions, and unearth hidden sentiments. Another benefit of a dialogue scene is that it can quicken the pace of your novel and keep the reader turning pages. What will they say next?

Action Scenes

These scenes narrate plot-forwarding action, and the pacing of these scenes, like the action itself, should be quick. As such, it’s important to begin these scenes in medias res in order to get the reader immediately hooked by the action. Be sure to use as many sensory details as possible in these types of scenes: What does your character see, hear, smell, feel? And, to be clear, don’t be totally fooled by the term action scene. An action scene is just as much about the action or plot point itself as it is about the reaction of the character to the events that are unfolding before them. Sometimes it’s best to let your characters act first, then think later. F. Scott Fitzgerald said it best: “There is no ‘safety first’ in Art!” Having your characters deal with the fallout as it occurs is a good way to build tension in your work because they’ll have to deal with consequences later.

Dramatic scenes

Creating drama — though not melodrama! — is important to any work of fiction. Dramatic scenes are like action scenes; however, the pacing is a bit slower, and the focus is a bit more internal. An example of a dramatic scene in The Great Gatsby might be when Tom Buchanan drives by the scene of his lover’s accident. Tom quickly hops out of his car and learns, or believes, that Gatsby has hit and killed Myrtle going sixty miles an hour, never stopping. The reader understands, in this moment, Tom’s emotional connection to Myrtle and his deep hatred for Gatsby: Tears roll down his face as he leaves the gruesome scene, cursing Gatsby as a coward. Dramatic scenes precariously balance action, discovery, and emotion. And they can add tantalizing bits of conflict for later consumption.

Now that we’ve reviewed some of the fundamentals of outlines and scene writing, buckle your seatbelt, set your start date, sign your contract, and get ready to do some writing. The first day of your ninety-day novel starts as soon as you’re ready.