Often in the early stages and first-draft, we have reams of exciting ideas in our writing, but not so much stuff actually happening on the page. We have swathes of exposition, backstory, info-dumps, and zoomed-out storytelling. That's fine: that's how we capture ideas, in first draft.
But things actually happening, in close-up, in "real time", is what makes stories come alive. So when we rework our first draft, we want to turn all those ideas into Stuff That Happens, in scenes. In this Writing Skill, you're going to play with exactly that: turning ideas into the stuff of story. With options to use this as a starting point, OR with your existing story if you have one. You can do this as a ten-minuter, to try out the principles, or spend longer on it, as you prefer.
First up: an all-important definition.
SCENE: A scene is a section of story where things happen in close-up, in continuous time. It’s often in a single setting (but if the characters move somewhere else in continuous time, it’s still one scene). It usually includes action, dialogue, description, and sometimes character's thoughts.
To practise this, we're using the Random Plot Generator. (NB: That's a generator drawing from a database, not AI.) Click the "Situation" button to get a random situation. (You can add the other things as well, if you want more ideas.) The situation I got is "Someone is leaving prison after 20 years." So, that's my idea. Now I want SCENES.
- Anything we need to know or understand the situation: make that a scene.
- The thing is happening: make that a scene.
- What happens after / as a result: make that a scene.
For example:
- We need to know my character's been in prison for 20 years. So I'll have a scene of them giving a new inmate a tour around the prison.
- The thing is happening: I'll have a scene of them actually being released.
- What happens after: I'll have a scene of them sitting with family, maybe struggling to reintegrate.
For each of your three scenes, brainstorm
- Action: What are they physically doing? If this were filmed, what would you see them doing?
- Dialogue: Who's talking? What are they talking about?
- Description: What's around them? What are they noticing / interacting with? What does stuff look, smell, feel, sound like? How does that add to the scene?
For example, in my first scene, my character is moving from room to room through the prison (I'm assuming they can roam a bit during the day in rec rooms, work rooms, etc) pointing things out. So that's their action. The dialogue is them explaning stuff to the newbie, all of which indicates how long they've been there. "Yeah, that telly broke back in 2011," etc. Description: What they'd notice about the prison, having been there so long, is the changes to stuff, and maybe see some things through fresh eyes, because they're touring people round. The description could also contribute a sense of confinement, as well as familiarity, and set the atmosphere.
Importantly, at no point am I having my character say "I've been here twenty years." That's a) as part of the discipline for this exercise: characters telling each other information is still exposition, and b) to make it more memorable. Readers aren't memorising, so one line might fly over their heads, even if I did include it. If it's important for the reader to know it's been twenty years, I want to create a sense of all that time.
If you’re using this Skill as your starting point
Pick your situation, any other details you want from the generator, and spend ten minutes brainstorming your scene(s)' detail. If you want to spend longer on it, go ahead and write the scenes.
If you’re using your own story
I suggest you do this with the generator first, as a ten-minute exercise, just the brainstorming and mapping-out parts, not the actual writing. You can then apply the same principles to your own story, for any ideas that aren't being acted out in scenes yet.
Scene 1, giving us the info we need to understand, can often be layer into an existing prior scene, rather than have a whole scene just for one snippet of info. That said, if your draft currently has more ideas than events, go ahead and make it a whole scene.
Either way
Have fun brainstorming / scene-mapping, and happy writing!
And if you want to explore more ways to bring your stories alive, the new live evening course is Immersive Fiction: a hands-on eight-week course, taking a deep-dive into the four elements that most make fiction immersive.
You can join online from anywhere (Thurs evenings UK time) OR in person in Oxford (Wed evenings). And it's on early-bird price until 9 April!
