SCENE STRUCTURE

By: Patrick Dent

PLACE

Setting is one of the most neglected aspects of fiction; after all, it is merely where the story takes place, right? Right. But every aspect of writing should be carefully considered by the serious writer, in order to take full advantage of it. And setting is a tool a writer can use to great effect.

Because we are trying to convince a reader that our story really happened -- at least for as long as it takes them to read the thing -- having a convincing place for the story to happen in is vital. And consider how differently an deathbed scene would read if it happened in a stark, sterile hospital room compared to a lushly appointed bedroom full of warm candlelight with the smell of baking bread wafting in through the door. The words and actions and characters present could be exactly the same, but the scene becomes very different when it happens in different settings.

TIME

Time as an aspect of setting is something we sometimes overlook. But time is as important as place; New York of 2003 is a very different place from New York of 1723 or 3015. Different time periods have different looks and atmospheres, even if most of the buildings are the same. And even a few years can make a difference -- how has the New York of today changed from the New York of 2000? Not only has the landscape changed, but so has the feeling of being in that city.

Of course, what year it happens to be is not the only temporal aspect of setting to consider. How might the time of year change both the physical setting (snow, ice, less color in the landscape) and the atmosphere (more people are depressed in the winter)? And what about the time of day? Even if it is not necessary to specify these things in the text of your story, you as the writer ought to know. These questions will affect the details you include in your descriptions, the behavior or mood of your characters and various other things. Always consider what the time you've chosen means; what things result from it being that time and not some other time.

Setting is More Than a Place to Happen

The most obvious function of setting is to give your story a place to happen. All settings do that. But we already have some hints about other possible things a setting can do. Settings are doing more than providing a location for events. They are adding atmosphere and mood, they are affecting the characters and maybe even influencing events. Setting can be subtle, but also quite powerful.

The Implications of Invented Settings

If you are writing fantasy or science fiction, you are probably going to be using invented settings, or imaginary worlds, at some point. Because you've made everything up, you have a special task to make sure all aspects of your setting make sense and to consider all the implications of your imaginary world. For example, if you've chosen to give your world a red sun, what might this mean to the people living on the world? For science fiction, you have to consider what a red sun is in astronomical terms and how it would affect the planets and creatures orbiting it. For fantasy you can be a little more playful, but you still need to think things through. How might a red sun affect the way people see color, for example? What magical or fantastical aspects might a red sun have? Would the color red come to have some special significance, perhaps?

In his book Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, Crawford Kilian suggests that writers should think about the metaphorical implications that their choice of setting will have. He divides settings into two broad categories: demonic and paradise. The idea is that a story about a world that is a metaphorical paradise being threatened by a world that is a metaphorical hell has a very different meaning from a story about a demonic, hellish world that is being turned into a paradise. Even if the basic action and plotlines of these two scenarios were essentially the same, the stories would have very different meanings, and what meaning a reader takes from them would largely come from what kind of settings are used. This is only one example of the metaphorical possibilities of created worlds. Can you think of others? If you are going to use invented settings, you should be able to think of many other ways to manipulate the "meaning" of a story by changing the setting in this way.

Possible Functions of Settings

Jack Hodgins lists seven roles for settings in his book A Passion for Narrative. Each makes more use of setting than the last, and the final role is truly the most memorable when it is used by a capable writer.

Generic: The setting is without unique features, implying that the story could happen anywhere. The problem with this is that all real places have their own cultural and physical characteristics and these characteristics influence characters. A generic setting will not seem real and may actually detract from the story.

Backdrop: The setting merely provides us with a way of knowing where we are and, though it may have unique characteristics, it does not affect the characters or action. It is a place, but it doesn't do anything.

Local Color: The story is flavored by attention to the unique details of the setting, which may give the impression that the story could not have happened anywhere else. The writer may be tempted to make the setting entertaining without really giving it any significance.

Atmosphere/Mood: Setting can be used to set the mood or atmosphere for the whole story or novel. In addition, the settings of individual scenes may reflect the state of mind of the characters.

Action and Character: Characters are more real if they have a historical and geographical context; the place where a person grew up will affect their attitudes and behavior for their whole lives. For example, someone raised in a big city will think and act differently from someone raised in a tiny rural village.

Place as Character: One example of this is in the old "man versus nature" plot, where the main struggles the protagonist faces are with the environment. In this situation, the setting itself is the antagonist. In stories of this sort, changing elements of the setting would change the entire story. Can you imagine a story about a woman's struggle to climb a mountain unaided being set on the prairies? That story wouldn't work without a mountain, and so the mountain becomes a central character. The story's plot, then, is largely determined by its setting.

Metaphor/Symbol: The setting becomes symbolic of the theme of the story.

You don't want to spend too much time at first on figuring out exactly how your setting will function in your work. As long as you are aware of the possibilities offered by setting, you'll probably find that you can ignore the technical details while writing a draft or your story or novel. Things like atmosphere and metaphor often emerge spontaneously in the writing, which means you only have to decide what works and what doesn't when you edit. Don't force a role on a setting, but use your editing to make it stronger.

PROSE

"Show, don't tell." That's what they always say. It makes you think that if you always show everything, your writing is sure to be perfect. On one hand, "Show, don't tell" is good advice. If you tell somebody something they may or may not believe you, but if you show it to them they pretty much have to believe. That's why showing a character doing something is much more effective than telling the reader that the character did something. But . . .

"There's always a 'but'." That's another phrase that comes up a lot. Showing is good, but not always. If you showed every smallest event that needs to happen for a story to work, you'd have a awfully long story, and your reader would probably get tired of it. There are times when you need to tell the reader something instead of showing them. That's why there are different types of prose you can use in your fiction. If you must show something, you use scenes and half scenes, both of which make use of dialogue. But for those times you need to explain something or quickly summarize events for the reader you have exposition and narrative.

EXPOSITION

Exposition is any explanatory prose -- passages that explain, define, describe or comment on things. This kind of writing is used to convey necessary information that can't be worked into a scene. A good writer can create passages of exposition that are enjoyable to read, but too much exposition rapidly becomes boring for the reader. In Science Fiction, long expository passages that explain complex things all in one big lump are called "infodump" and are best avoided. Try to keep exposition short and concise and intersperse it with other types of prose to keep the work interesting.

NARRATIVE

The Oxford English Dictionary defines narrative as an "account of connected events in order of happening." In writing circles, it is often called summary narrative because the function of narrative is to summarize events that can't or shouldn't be dramatized as scenes. Sometimes the events simply aren't important enough to be written as scenes, but still contain necessary information; at other times we need to move from one scene to another without getting bogged down in the details of how. These are times when narrative is useful. It is important not to get carried away, however, as narrative is a quicker and much more shallow way to tell a story than scenes, and your readers may feels things are happening to quickly or without enough detail.

DIALOGUE

Dialogue is "a conversation in written form" (Oxford English Dictionary). It is when characters speak to each other and their words are placed in quotation marks so the reader knows which words each character said. Dialogue can have many functions, and a good writer will try to give each piece of dialogue more than one function at a time, if possible. Some of the ways dialogue can be used are:

1. To convey exposition -- in other words, to function the same way as expository prose, but with a character doing the explaining
   
   
2. To show character
   
   
3. To convey sense of place and time -- by including specific phrases or words used in a particular time or place
   
   
4. To develop conflict -- dialogue is a great way to have characters argue, express feelings and opinions and much more

It is vital to remember that, although dialogue represents speech, it is not real speech. Don't try to replicate the way people actually talk in your dialogue. To understand why, write down a conversation word for word and then read it over. Real speech is boring. It's full of "um"s and "ah"s and all kinds of false starts, repetitions and really silly phrases (look out for those clichés!). Writing is art, and so we have to construct dialogue to give the illusion of speech while avoiding all the annoying aspects of actual conversation. Make your dialogue concise instead of rambling; avoid those false starts, repetition and unnecessary words and pauses; use standard spellings (for example, use "yeah" rather than "ya" "yeh" or "yah"); be very careful not to exaggerate dialect or non-standard speech (just the flavor of the way a person speaks is good; don't try to recreate their accent in phonetic spelling); and avoid too few, not enough or too strange dialogue tags (the "she said" part of dialogue). One way to keep dialogue interesting is to make action part of dialogue as well as speech: intersperse sentences describing what a character is doing as they speak.

There is a standard format for setting up dialogue, and sticking to it can help make your writing clear. You really don't want your reader to get confused or frustrated about who is saying what. Dialogue is also one of the key elements of the dramatized scene, covered in the next part of this Guide.

DRAMATIZE!

The basic building block of fiction is the scene, often called the dramatized scene, as it dramatizes important events. Along with narrative and exposition, the scene and half-scene are the elements of which all fiction is composed. This part of the Beginner's Guide will explain what a scene is, what a half-scene is and what they do in fiction.

What is a Scene, Anyway?

Most fiction is composed largely of scenes, so knowing what a scene is and how it works is vital for the fiction writer. In a handout for a course on novel writing he used to teach at the University of Victoria, Jack Hodgins defines a scene as "a unit of continuous prose narrative, taking place in one location, in which we see and hear characters close-up, in order to move the story ahead by showing what is accomplished when one or more characters (or one character and a significant object) come together in a way that someone (perhaps everyone) pursues a goal and either succeeds, fails, or partially succeeds or fails, or lays the groundwork for succeeding (or failing) later." Phew.

Sounds complicated. But here are the essential elements:

1. A unit of continuous prose narrative: This simply means that a scene is a whole and not broken into separate chunks.
   
   
2. Taking place in one location: The scene doesn't jump from one location to another (which isn't to say that a scene can't happen while characters are on the move).
   
   
3. We see and hear characters close-up: A scene is composed of action and dialogue that we "watch" as if it were happening in front of us.
   
   
4. Someone pursues a goal: This is where the drama comes in; you cannot have a scene if no one is trying to accomplish anything.
   
   
5. And either succeeds, fails . . .: Every scene has an outcome, whatever that outcome might be.

The scene is the "show" part of writing in the old saying "Show, don't tell." It shows events happening, usually with accompanying dialogue, and gives a careful representation of words, thoughts, gestures and so on. The reader doesn't need to be able to see every single detail, but they must get a clear picture of what is going on. It is a good idea for you as the writer to know beforehand what each character brings into a scene -- what they want, what their immediate goals are, what they're willing to do to get what they want, what their attitudes are to other characters and so on.

Elements of the Scene

Every scene will contain some combination of the following items. You needn't use every one of these in every scene, although most scenes will have the majority of them. Use whatever you need to make the scene effective. How many of these elements can you identify in the example above?

1. Dialogue (this may have subtext or hidden meaning as well as the obvious meaning)
   
   
2. Dialogue tags (he said/she said)
   
   
3. Actions and gestures
   
   
4. Characters' thoughts
   
   
5. Exposition
   
   
6. Description of setting
   
   
7. Comments or observations by the author or narrator
   
   
8. Transitions from the previous scene or narrative passage and/or into the next one

Functions of the Scene

Contributes to plot: A scene and its outcome move the plot along by having characters make decisions, succeed or fail, make plans, reveal information and more. Every scene must move your characters closer to the resolution of whatever problem they face.

Reveals character: Crawford Kilian says the key to writing a good scene is knowing what you want to show your readers about the character(s). Contributes to theme: Symbolism, metaphors, recurring or striking images, references, allusions and similar things can tie the scene into the larger concerns of the novel.

Relates causally or thematically with events that happened before and events that will happen after: Every scene arises from an earlier scene and gives rise to later scenes, or, as David Gerrold says, "Every scene must make the next scene inevitable."

HALF-SCENE???

A half-scene is kind of like a mini scene in the middle of a summary narrative or passage of exposition. It is a sort of pause to "zoom in" on the action and give a taste of a dialogue exchange or other interaction between characters.

When to Dramatize

It's all very fine to know what a scene is and how it differs from narrative or exposition, but how do you know when to dramatize an event as a scene and when to speed through with narrative? Generally, the most important events, those that are key to plot movement or character development, are the ones you'll want to linger over by writing them as scenes. Less important things, but those it is still necessary for the reader to know about, can be relegated to narrative. Of course, you won't always know which events are going to be the really important ones until you've written the first draft of your story. You'll almost certainly have to expand a few narrative sequences into dramatized scenes or collapse some scenes into summary narrative in later drafts. But don't worry, it's re-writing that turns good writing into art.

Form versus Structure

Form can refer to two slightly different things in writing. When you are talking about the form of a piece of writing, you may say it is a poem, a work of prose, a play or something else. Form can also be used in a more specific sense to talk about the way a fictional work is written: a piece of fiction may be in the form of a letter ("Mary" by Edna O'Brien) or a journal (parts of Bram Stoker's Dracula, it may be a series of emails between characters (Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson), or it may even be in verse (Eugene Onegin by Alexander Puskin).

Structure, on the other hand, has more to do with the frame of the fiction. In other words, the structure may involve a single incident or many incidents, there may be a couple of setbacks for the characters or there may be many of them, the climax may be reached early on or later in the piece, there may be a lengthy dénouement after the conflict has been resolved or there may be no dénouement at all, and so on. The work could be a single long third-person narrative, or a series of very short first-person passages from the point of view of different characters, or many other possibilities. These things refer to structure.

Most fiction is categorized as short stories or novels, with some mid-length work classed as novellas, but what do these words mean? Primarily, these categories refer to length, but they can also indicate differences in structure. In the following discussion I will describe short stories, novellas and novels in terms of both length and structure. Keep in mind that these are generalizations used to conveniently class fiction; all of these categories can overlap in number of words and in structure.

The Short Story

Edgar Allan Poe said a short story should be short enough to read in one sitting. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has defined a short story as prose fiction up to 7,499 words for the purposes of their Nebula Award criteria. Other sources say it is usually no more than 15,000 words. Generally, a short story is short, or at least shorter than a novel.

Once upon a time, the lead-in to a story was much longer, introducing the reader to the main character, setting the scene and so on. These days, though, writers like to start a story as close as possible to whatever happens that changes the status quo -- one professor of mine called this the "precipitating incident," the thing that makes the story happen. Whatever the precipitating incident is, it changes the normal flow of events for the main character and begins the rising action, the main body of the story that leads up to the climax. The climax itself is where the protagonist must face his or her problems, whether those problems are natural events, an antagonist or something within the character him/herself. After the climax is the falling action or the resolution, in which things return to normal, the dénouement.

Most short stories have a simple structure like this. They focus on the life of a single character, or perhaps a couple of characters. They are centered on a single incident, usually a very significant one. A short story could have more characters or more events or other complications, but they tend not to simply because of their length. If you have too much that needs to happen, by the time you finish writing you'll have something longer than a short story.

Short Short Stories and Flash Fiction

Very very short stories are often known as short shorts or flash fiction. These stories are usually under 1000 words, more often less than 500. Because of their extremely short length, short short stories make good use of allusions -- references to things outside the work itself -- to increase their impact. Allusions bring other connections and connotations to mind for the reader, and thus reduce the number of words a writer has to use in the story itself.

The Novel

A novel is a long piece of fiction. The actual length can vary greatly, but the SFWA/Nebula Award criteria specifies a length of 40,000 words and up. Novels tend to be much more complex in structure than short stories or novellas.
The actual number of reversals and almost-climaxes, setbacks and events can vary greatly. A novel may be only slightly more complicated than a short story (in fact, it is possible for a novel to have a structure identical to the short story diagram above, though it is unusual) or it may be far more complicated than this diagram. There may be only a few characters or there may be many; there are usually more characters than in a short story, as there is more room in a novel to explore them, but there don't have to be. The falling action/dénouement tends to be a little longer than in a short story as well; with all those complications it can take longer for the writer to get the characters back to normal and show the results of the climax.

How Do You Know?

How do you know which of these structures is appropriate to the story you want to tell? One way is to simply write the thing and see what it turns out as. On the other hand, it can be helpful to have some idea of the shape a story will take before you start writing. So consider what sort of story you are telling. Is it a simple tale of a significant event that happens to one character to somehow change that character's life? Perhaps it would make a good short story, especially if you feel it won't take many pages to tell. Is the story very complicated, with many events and lots of characters and all kinds of obstacles to overcome? Perhaps it would be best as a novel, then. Also think about the period of time covered in the story. There's no saying that something that happens in one night must be a short story and something that happens over years must be a novel, but if you want to cover many years in some detail, you might not be able to fit the story into a shorter structure. The best thing to do is simply experiment until you get used to the way your stories tend to work out (and don't stop experimenting even then).

Courtesy of www.fiction-writing-tips.com