Knowing the Purpose of Every Scene
Posted by annastan on April 12th, 2010. Filed under: Craft, WIP, Writing Rants.Last week, Laura asked a great question in the comments: What is the most recent leap in understanding craft you’ve made? I had to mull this over for a while since I feel like I’m always learning more about craft. But when I thought back to all the revision I’ve been doing lately, one main theme emerged: the importance of knowing the purpose of every scene.
This might sound like obvious advice, but I don’t just mean knowing what happens in the scene (e.g. Suzie has a fight with Adam), I mean really knowing what every moment, every sentence, is contributing to the story. That way, if you wind up cutting out a paragraph, for example, you know exactly what function it was serving in your story and you can determine if that function can be served in some other way.
I came across a perfect example of this in one of my WIPs. As I’ve mentioned before, I had to do some serious cutting from the beginning of a WIP. While it made the pacing work better at the beginning, I realized that it also completely eliminated scenes that established the tight-knit relationship between the main character and his father, and it also took out the introduction of an important secondary character. I went back through the opening chapters and wrote in a short little scene that helped show the relationship between the main character and his father. Then I worked in a mention of the secondary character before we meet her.
When you’re going through your WIP, you need to know exactly what every moment of every scene is giving you. If there are lines, paragraphs, or pages that don’t actually DO anything to further your story (add to character development, advance plot, etc.) you either need to cut them out or you need to give them a reason for being there. It’s this kind of line-by-line precision that will make every word of your story count.
Thanks, Laura, for asking such a thought-provoking question! Okay, now it’s your turn, dear readers: What is the most recent leap in understanding craft you’ve made?
April 12th, 2010 at 7:24 am
This is such a great point, Anna! This is one of the reasons revising can be such a headache. It’s not just about snipping threads here and there. Then you have to painstakingly re-weaved them throughout.
One of my recent epiphanies was that sometimes slowing things down (rather than speeding them up) increases the tension. By slowing things down a bit, we can do a better job of wringing every drop of drama and suspense as we build to a story event. It felt counter-intuitive to me, but now that I’m paying attention, I see how well it can work.
April 12th, 2010 at 8:43 am
For me, it was the full realization of starting scenes later and ending scenes earlier. Heist Society by Ally Carter did a great job of that.
April 12th, 2010 at 10:08 am
Great post. Yes, every bit of dialogue or each paragraph has to somehow further the story. It took me a long time to realize this.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:29 am
The one thing I’ve learned between writing last novel and this one is character motivation. This was a great leap for me. I concentrate on plot first but it does no good if the character motivation isn’t there — until you can figure out WHAT and WHY your character do what they do — I think in my opinion, your story will always be missing something.
April 12th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Robin, that is such a great point about slowing down the pace to increase tension. It makes me think of horror movies – when we know something bad is coming, the pace always slows down to make the tension build even more.
Laura, good point. I think sometimes people feel like they have to “warm up” the audience for a scene, but often that makes things feel drawn out. It’s so important to keep things moving, even in a story that’s not action-driven.
Lydia, it took me a long time to realize this too! I think I theoretically knew it, but it took me a while to really learn how to apply it to my own writing.
Karen, that is so true. A killer plot is great, but if characters are doing and saying things for reasons that aren’t clear, it takes away from the overall story. And even if you (the writer) knows the characters’ motivations, that doesn’t always mean they’re clear to the reader!
April 12th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
This comes at a good time for me. I’m going through all of the completed Jane poems writing short summaries of why they’re important/what they accomplish. I have a poem called “Daily Prayers” that talks about them praying morning and evening, but I’m not sure that poem can stay – still, it makes me aware that I need to address the issue. Although Austen doesn’t talk about it much in her books, the regular practice of Church of England religion was a given part of her daily life. If that poem goes, the topic has to come in some other way.
April 12th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
It’s taken me a long time to realize I write too much dialogue. I think it’s because I came to novels from playwriting. But a lot of beginning writers do it. I just read a story in the New Yorker that has no dialogue at all. Still packed a punch.
April 12th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Definitely the idea that you have to push yourself to write what is no longer comfortable. Otherwise you stagnate and you never grow.
April 13th, 2010 at 4:59 am
I’ve been thinking a lot about scenes lately, too. I like Karen’s point about character motivation, and tying that to the scene – if you know the whys behind the character’s behaviour, it can help focus the scene and make sure all those sentences and words count.
I’ve also learned that thinking about what to write is just as important as writing, even though it doesn’t show up in your daily word count.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:27 am
Kelly, what an interesting project! It sounds like you have a clear idea of what themes need to be included – now it’s just a matter of figuring out which poems should do the job. Good luck!
Anne, I have a playwrighting background too, so it took me a while to learn how to use narrative effectively. Ultimately, though, I think knowing how to write dialogue is SO important, even if we might overuse it sometimes.
Lisa, excellent point! It can be so tempting to stick with what’s comfortable, but I’ve heard others say that you should write projects that scare and intimidate you – that’s the only way you’ll learn.
Andrea, you’re absolutely right that giving yourself time to think and reflect is just as important as actually writing. Our brains are always working on our stories, even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes!
April 13th, 2010 at 7:36 am
For me, purpose is everything and when I’m not focusing on that it shows. Thanks for the reminder.
April 13th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Anna–are you sure you don’t live in my brain? Your topics are always so timely. This is exactly what is on my brain right now. Thanks for the excellent post, and in contradiction to Anne’s comment above–I have to work on more dialogue, less narration. I wish I had the opposite problem…
April 13th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Sheri, I think you’re right that if you lose sight of the purpose of your scenes, it starts to show to your readers. Happy writer!
Heather, maybe I do live in your brain.
I think dialogue is one of those things you have to get in the habit of using; once you train yourself to use it, I think it gets easier.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Fantastic post!