More than a Scene

It’s easy to think of a story’s scene as being about the next struggle or problem, or else touching a different base that hasn’t been mentioned in a while. That sense of “what’s next” may be vital, for the logic that ties the scene to what’s just happened and what’s needed up ahead. But it can also be a trap, to think only of the immediate needs and miss our chance to build larger resonances with the whole story.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

Classic example: we all know what a story’s first couple of scenes (or first minutes in one running scene) will probably cover, as far as the hero goes. They’ll include

• something to give a sense of the character’s regular life, and
• the “establishing incident,” the “call to adventure” that takes it in a different direction.

–Yes there are a lot of variations, like putting the change right in line one and then catching up with “Why shoot at me, I’m just a…”, or someone with a “regular” life that’s already thrilling but still complicated by this new twist. But these are the classic building blocks of a start.

But, how many more layers could you build with them? Everything has a past; there may still be one event that puts things on the story’s course, but how carefully could you set up the road they’d been on until then, so we really feel how sharp (or subtle) the change is?

Consider the start of the manga and anime Monster, by Naoki Urasawa. The story’s tagline is “What if the life you saved became a monster?”–but, the first scenes aren’t simply the good Dr. Tenma performing ordinary surgeries before they wheel in the dying serial killer. Instead, he realizes he’s let his boss keep him away from desperate but poor patients, and so Tenma is actually defying his hospital when he insists on saving that particular fateful life.

Now think about it: how many writers do you know that don’t consider a start or other key moment complete without that kind of ironic spin? Other authors may dislike overt twists like that, but they’ll look around for quieter hints that can make the effect they want. This is hard-hitting, ambitious writing that we can’t do if we think only of the likeliest way to get from A to B. What’s the best way to get there?

And besides the big plot twist itself, when Urasawa chooses an obstacle of human schemes (rather than, say, Tenma being in bad health, or about to go on vacation), he also shows how corrupt the story’s world can be and how Tenma will have to struggle with his naiveté and ideals. Again, it can be too easy to fill a scene with the most obvious form of problem (or solution to it) rather than find the one that adds to the bigger picture.

Think of what could be called the “penultimate, penultimate Harry Potter action scene.” That is, the second-last book’s second-last struggle–a position that of course could make it a key moment for suspense buildup. And even though it’s a movie-trailer favorite as “That Half-Blood Prince moment where a lakeful of zombies get torched,” the real center of the scene is much more specific. Namely, it’s Harry under orders to help his mentor Dumbledore put himself through ultimate agony to complete their mission.

The “fire”fight afterward is a much-appreciated release from that tension, but it only goes so far to relieve our sense of guilt, all amplified by how this is the first time in six books that Dumbledore has openly asked Harry to go into danger. Of all the things J. K. Rawling could have keyed that struggle around (and we know she can think of quite a few), she chose the one that leaves Harry with a deep need to make it up to Dumbledore… and what happens then reminds us the Potter books are so much more than Quidditch chases or good-crushes-evil.

That’s the principle, things resonating from their past or on to the future, and it shows up in many of the more powerful stories and some mediocre ones too. We all know scenes of some hero busy doing one thing while a supporting character shows off his dissent or incompetence; what makes so many of them comic relief is that those conflicts doesn’t go anywhere further, while the other stories actually are laying groundwork for future changes or showing consequences for what’s just happened.

It works for obstacles, and characters, and it works for methods or resources. (In a sense, most of the story is either a method or an obstacle, plus the lessons learned from them; characters are simply the most important things to fit onto those sides.) If the hero has one way of solving a problem, it should be only a matter of time before the story explores how many ways that can go wrong, and how which ways he’s tried build a sense of what he still needs to explore or what he needs to keep his faith in.

One caution: it’s also easy to plan scenes completely from this viewpoint, placing certain things purely as a clue or an echo. This may add a lot to the larger picture, but scenes that also feel like they’re really connected to the story right now come off a lot better than those that whisper “Hold on and take this in, it’ll matter more later.”

All of these are the building blocks of a story. And building anything means being sure one brick fits with the next, but real architecture keeps the whole shape in mind. A scene can be the next thing, but are you choosing it to mesh with what came just before or some larger point?

Why stop at one?

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