7 Steps to Writing a Story in Scenes

Thanks to WordserveWater Cooler for permission to repost 

 Janalyn Voigt writes with a lyrical style, creating worlds of beauty and danger. Her Tales of Faeraven, epic fantasy series will release in 2012 with Harbourlight Books. In addition, she's working on a western historical romance. Her affiliations include NCWA and ACFW. She lives with her family in a beautiful corner of the Pacific Northwest. In her leisure time, she gardens, reads and explores the natural settings around her.

7 Steps to Writing a Story in Scenes

You’ll notice I didn’t include the word “easy” in the title of this post. There are not seven “easy” steps to writing a story in scenes. It takes hard work. I suspect that's why so many writers substitute narrative summary for scenes.

Of course, when you're not sure of the components that make up a scene, it's harder to write one. If your writing seems flat or passive and you don’t know why, you may have omitted one or more of the following:

Real Time: Even if you’re writing in third person using past-tense verbs, lay out actions in sequential order. As a rule, especially in the beginning of your novel, don’t jump backward or forward in the story. If you do, you’ll interrupt the flow of time and disconcert your reader. For an unusual perspective on time flow in fiction, read Teach Your Writing Voice to Sing.

Characters: This element may seem like a “no-brainer.” (Of course a scene will have characters.) But hear me out. Let’s say you’re writing about a lynch mob ready to hang an outlaw. You could state the bald fact, or you could pick faces from the crowd. Maybe the outlaw killed Jack’s brother, robbed Otis’s store, and held a gun to Chet’s face just for fun. Having these fellows call out their grievances, even as minor characters, makes the incident personal and, therefore, more immediate. For an unique and efficient perspective on creating characters, read Dianne Christner’s Creating Characters With Personality.

Showing: A well-written scene evokes the reader’s senses. You experience the world through your senses. Similarly, for readers to enter your written world, you must draw them through their senses. Labeling emotions is telling. It’s also lazy writing. Instead of stating that Mary is sad, show her reasons for sadness, and then have her react physically and perhaps with introspection. Just don’t do this in a clichéd manner. Maybe she doesn’t weep but instead grows quiet or withdraws. David is angry but rather than punch a hole in the wall he exterminates every weed in his yard. For more tips, watch my video: 5 Ways to Show Rather Than Tell in Fiction Writing.

Setting: New writers often neglect this essential element that should ground every scene in place and time. Using too much or not enough description is a common mistake. With too few setting details the reader will feel curiously weightless, like an astronaut floating in a zero-gravity chamber. Characters will seem like “talking heads” lost somewhere in space. If you overload your reader with description, you’ll weigh them down so badly they’ll barely make progress through the scene. Finding a happy balance takes practice. It helps to have feedback from great critique partners. Sarah Baughman tackles the topic of How To Balance Dialogue and Description.

Action: Something physical happens, with or without dialogue. When actions accompany dialogue, some writers call them “beats.” Using beats instead of tags to identify speakers helps you bring a scene to life. For tips on writing dynamic action scenes, Bryan Thomas Schmidt has you covered with his Write Tip: 10 Tips For Writing Good Action Scenes.

Dialogue: Too many writers neglect dialogue, which is a shame. It’s a vital tool for characterization and for imparting information (provided you don’t try to shoehorn it into your reader). You can even use dialogue to give glimpses of back story in a realistic way that doesn’t disrupt your story’s flow. For more on dialogue, read Sharon Lavy’s Do You Hear The Voices?

Purpose: Every scene must further your plot in some way. If a scene exists merely to dump information on the unsuspecting reader, it has no real purpose and will seem aimless. Cut all such scenes from your plot and work only the information your reader needs to know into the story when your reader needs to know it. Jody Hedlund offers great advice on strategically selecting scenes in How To Make Your Book Play Out Like a Movie.

Telling a cohesive story through scenes is an art that, once mastered, will breathe life into your writing.

What tips do you have to make you scenes even stronger?