12/21/2020 How to Write a Great Scene (and Nail It Every Time) | Jericho Writers

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JERICHO
WRITERS
HOW TO WRITE A GREAT Founded by

SCENE writers, for

writers
Enrich your novel, by writing great, vivid and memorable
scenes 
By C M Taylor Jericho Writers
do four things:

We edit
manuscripts
Writing a great scene – or just as
We run writing
importantly, knowing if a scene you have courses
already written stands up – can be We run writing
approached as a process of inquisition. In events

e ect, you ask yourself a number of But the thing

questions to nd out if the scene holds up. that really
excites us is:
One successful writer of my acquaintance has a list of
sixty questions which he asks himself about every scene We are a club
he writes, and while we’re not going to reach that for writers
number, below I have gathered 10 key areas to ask Serious about
questions about when assessing or planning a scene. writing and
If you score ten our of ten, your scene should be good to getting
go. If your score is a lot lower than that, you’ve still got published?
some editing work to do … Then join us.
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WHAT IS THE UNIQUE Learn

PURPOSE OF THE SCENE? more 

 See some of
our success
This is worth asking rst of all, because if you get the stories
wrong answer here, you save yourself the bother of
asking all the other questions as you can just use our
friend the delete key to solve the problem.

Does this scene earn its keep? Is it doing something that

is simply not being done anywhere else in the work? And
if the unique thing that it does was omitted from the
story, would the story have a hole?

Does the scene belong in the story being told? Should

you kill it? What happens? How does it uniquely advance
the plot? Or uniquely establish mood? Or uniquely
deliver character comprehension, or feeling?

Does it advance the work in a way that might be done

more e ectively in any other scene?
MOST POPULAR
If you pass that test, move on to the next question. IN WRITING
How to write a
book
HOW TO WRITE A SCENE IN 8 STEPS: How to get ideas
for a book
How many words
1. Identify its unique purpose
in a book
2. Ensure the scene ts with your theme
and genre How to plot a
3. Create a scene-turning-event novel
4. Identify which point of view you’re Outlining a novel,
using Snow ake
5. Make good use of your location Method
6. Use dialogue to build the scene How to write great
7. Be clear on whether your scene is prose
static or mobile
How to write great
8. Don’t forget where the scene stands
characters
chronologically
Types of editing
First draft revision
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Sense of place

IS THE SCENE THEMATICALLY Writing dialogue

Show don’t tell
CONGRUENT?


MOST POPULAR
If the theme of your work, say, is unrequited love, does IN AGENTS /
your scene angle in to that theme? Does it demonstrate PUBLISHING
a circumstance or a feeling which is associated with
How to get
unrequited love? Or does it demonstrate a circumstance
published
or a feeling about requited love, so as to throw into relief
How to get a
the experience that one of your characters will have
literary agent
about unrequited love?
How to write a
Is your scene about what your book is about? And if it query letter
not but you still need it in because – as above – it’s the
How to write a
vehicle for a unique and irremovable aspect of your
synopsis
story, then how are you going to rewrite the scene so
How to write a
that it ampli es, however distantly, the theme of your
book proposal
story?
Author platform
Manuscript
presentation
HOW DOES THE SCENE TURN? Your elevator
 pitch
UK literary agents
What do I mean by ‘turn’? Well, rst let’s back up… list

People say that without con ict there is no drama. Now, US literary agents
I’m not so sure about that, I think a broader and more list
accurate assessment would be not without con ict but
without change. Without change there is no drama, and
what people mean by con ict is resistance to change.
MOST POPULAR
You could write a scene about a woman digging a tree IN SELF-
PUBLISHING
stump out of the ground that was full of drama, as she
struggled and the tree stump resisted, and she changed How to self-
from being in an optimistic state to an exhausted, publish on
pessimistic state. But would that scene be full of con ict? Amazon KDP
You might say she was in con ict with the tree stump, How to self-
but that to me would be stretching it. Instead it is a publish an ebook
scene where a character tries to change the world and
that change is resisted. UK: +44 (0)345 459 9560   -   US: +1 (646) 974 9060

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Or, you could write a scene where somebody realised How much does it
they had totally misremembered a very important cost to self-
incident from their past and that life in facts was publish
di erent to how they imagined it. The drama would be in Bookbub
the correction of the memory. It would not be a con ict, promotions
instead it would be a swift and signi cant change.
How Instafreebie

So, when I ask, ‘How does the scene turn?’, what I mean works

is, ‘What change does it e ect?’ If all of the characters in Keywords and
the scene are in the same state at the end of the scene categories on
as they were at the beginning of the scene, then no Amazon
change has been a ected and so no drama has How to write book
occurred. descriptions

What is the central change of the scene? What is it that Trad vs self-pub:

turns from one state to another state? Is it one character pros and cons

who turns? Many characters? A situation? Is the turn for

the negative or the positive? Is the character further way
from what they want, or closer?

What are the obstacles facing the character from turning

the scene the way they want to turn the scene? If the
character does not get what they want, change and
drama are still demonstrated as they have failed and so
their emotional state and desperation have increased.
 No change externally does not mean no change
internally.

Change is of course linked to motivation and goals and

desire. Make sure that the change which the scene turns
on directly a ects what your character is trying to
achieve. Make sure their goal and motivation are clear.
Are they closer to their clear goal, or are they further
away?

How your scene turns will be bound up with your cast

list. Does the scene change when a new character
enters? Who is present at the beginning of the scene and
who is present at the end? If a new character enters, is
their entrance memorable and is it their arrival that
turns the scene? If not, why not? In that case you have
introduced a new character without that introduction
having a big impact. Is that what you want? Does it suit

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your plot and their character for them to sidle in? Maybe
it does.

If you want more information on how to create that

scene turning event, then check out our inciting
incidents blog post too.

ARE YOU CLEAR ON YOUR

POINT OF VIEW?


The person to whom the largest change is happening is

often, but not always, the person from whose point of
view we will be seeing the scene. ‘Often, but not always’,
because in ction, unlike in lm, point of view is not an
utterly promiscuous tool, it needs to settle on, usually,
one or just a handful of characters.

So, whose point of view are you telling the scene from? If
it is possible, best do it, but it may not always be possible
to tell it from the point of view of the person to whom
the greatest change is happening.

If you think about how to write a death scene as an

example. The largest change is happening to the person
who is dying, but it is often not right to write the scene
form their perspective as once they’re gone, they’re
gone. In fact, some of the most famous deaths happen
o screen. Take Cordelia in King Lear, or Ophelia in
Hamlet as examples. Both of these deaths are moving,
but both happen o stage – out of point of view.

But take Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich which as the

title suggests is clearly focussed on the biggest change of
all for Ivan and whose death is described as ‘that black

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sack into which an invisible, invincible force was pushing

him’.

So, don’t go chasing the point of view of the person to

whom the biggest change is happening if it mutilates
your novel’s point of view schema. But if you can
describe death from the point of view, then make it as
appropriate to the unique sensibility of the character as
possible.

Similarly, when thinking how to write a sex scene, or if

you are thinking about describing a kiss, point of view is
everything. The unique attributes of the person to whom
the sensation is happening govern how the sensation is
described. How does it map on to their personal history?
What are they not saying? How would their particular
imagination describe what was happening?

Basically, are you in the point of view of the person

having the strongest sensation of change? If you can’t be
in that point of view, make sure the change being
experienced elsewhere emotionally impinges on the
sensations of your point of view character and e ects
their motivations and desires.

DOES YOUR SCENE MAKE

GOOD USE OF LOCATION?


Where does the scene take place? At what time of day or

night? Could another time or location serve to heighten
the impact? Where were the characters before the scene
started? Where are they going after it ends? How do they
move physically across the space? Are you creating a
sense of place?

Some scenes require the claustrophobia of a locked

room. Other require a huge canvas. Location is
particularly important when thinking how to write a
battle scene. For example, the opening scene of Saving
Private Ryan is nothing without the water and the sand,
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while the Battle of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back

would lose so much without the ice world.

In those instances, the type of battle you can have is

heavily de ned by the location. The combatants’
experience of the battle will be similarly de ned. And of
course if you lter the character’s experience of battle
through that physical reality (sand in the eyes, struggling
to keep the ri e’s magazine out of the salt water …), you
will end up with a much more vivid and intense scene
than you’d have without that level of detail.

IS YOUR SCENE
COMMENSURATE WITH YOUR
GENRE?


Let’s say for example that you are thinking about how to
write a ght scene. If you are writing a work of historical
ction, say set amongst the samurai of feudal Japan,
then you will make the ght scene a di erent scale and
tone and pace to if you were writing a work of science
ction.

And again, for example, the tone of a sword ght set in

feudal Japan, which might be bound up with honour and
stoic, wordless masculinity, would be very di erent to
say the sword ght scene we get in the fantasy comedy
The Princess Bride where Inigo Montoya is given
humorous dialogue as sharp as his rapier to utter as he
ghts.

Any scene must be attuned to the feeling tone of the

genre in which it is placed.

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HOW DO YOU MAKE USE OF

DIALOGUE?


Does the dialogue re ect character? Is it natural? Forced?

Can you cover up the name of the person who is

speaking and know who they are just from the sound
and pattern of their words? Do they have unique speech
patterns? Or if they all have the same accent, is it your
conscious and correct decision to make them all sound
the same? How is your dialect rendered?

And then feed those thoughts back into the ones about
location, and genre, and theme. These things all feed o
themselves, of course. So your dialogue may naturally
include observations about the location. (“Damn sand!”
or “Hell, my ri e’s soaked.”) Those genre / thematic
issues will smuggle their way into the dialogue too. And
that in ltration is an entirely good thing, of course. It’s
part of making your work feel integrated and alive.

IS YOUR SCENE STATIC OR

MOBILE?


Do your characters have something to do? Is there

something going on? An activity they are engaged in? If
two characters are talking about their love lives what
would they be doing as they spoke? In screenwriting
they call this ‘interference’ – an action that characters
take part in which can mirror how the scene is
developing emotionally. Are they playing tennis? Putting
up an Ikea shelf?

Let’s say it’s tennis, their game can improve as they talk
con dently about their love life, or degenerate as they
talk neurotically about their love life. If they are putting
up a shelf, they can drill through a pipe just as they are
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told bad news. Give your characters props to enact their

feelings.

Of course, some scenes are physically static and internal.

No problem. Make the energy internal. Don’t let their
emotions be static. Let the reactions rather than the
actions carry the kinetic power of the scene.

HOW DOES YOUR SCENE DEAL

WITH TIME?


Narrative art is intrinsically about the passage of time.

Change can’t happen without it. Be absolutely sure
where the scene stands in the work’s overall chronology.
How much time has elapsed since the last scene? Is it
clear to the reader how much time has elapsed?

If we are moving into the future or the past, had you

better make that very clear to the reader or are they
okay to surf the time waves?

Think about continuity. Is your characters hair long one

week after it has been short? If your scene takes place in
a very di erent time are their physical characteristics
about the character you can employ to imply this
passage of time and give a sense of time passing?

AND FINALLY – IS YOUR SCENE

ANY DAMN GOOD?


Be honest. You can probably nd a way to start your

scene later, to get out of it earlier, to push up more on
the felt drama of your point of view character, and to
clarify and a ect your turn more dramatically. Don’t just
go through all these points once, go through them again.

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Scenes are not brought to their sharpest point in one

pass.

If you found this helpful, then you’ll de nitely nd this

article on spicing up your writing and this one on chapter
lengths useful – especially when you come to writing that
great scene.

Don’t forget to let us know how you’re getting on at the

Jericho Townhouse, we’d love to hear from you!

About the author

C M Taylor has been nominated for the British Science

Fiction book of the year and published a number of
novels, including Staying On, (Duckworth
2018), Premiership Psycho (Corsair 2011) and the
Amazon best-selling Group of Death (Corsair 2012). He’s
also co-written a thriller movie script, Writers Retreat,
which premiered at the Sitges International Film Festival.
C M Taylor also works with Jericho Writers as a book
editor.

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