At it’s simplistic form, a novel is merely an opening scene, followed by scenes of rising action to a climax, followed by scenes of falling action to a conclusion. That’s it. But what constitutes a scene? Well writing friends, I’m about to break it down for you in a formulaic template that will keep your readers engaged to the words The End.

Overview

For the purpose of this post, we’re going to keep scenes very simplistic. Not all scenes will fit these two categories, but most will. We’re going to call them Action Scenes and Reaction Scenes.

Action Scene

In an action scene, we have our protagonist pursing a goal. Obstacles stand in their way and they either achieve their goal or they fail.

The template is:

1. Goal: Character is pursuing a goal (agency).
2. Obstacles: Obstacles are in the way (antagonistic forces) of the protagonist pursing their goal.
3. Outcome: Either they accomplish their goal or they fail.

S.E. Reed’s MY HEART IS HURTING in the first scene we find the protagonist, Jinny Buffett, harassed at her home by one of her well meaning teachers who’s excited about Jinny’s fresh summer-arrived test scores. Jinny works her hardest to avoid this teacher’s upbeat demeanor and forcefulness for Jinny starting school club. Even through Jinny’s attempts to avoid agreeing, in the end, the teacher wins. Jinny’s starting a club. So this looks like:

1. Goal: Jinny does NOT want to engage with Ms. Fleming or entertain her idea at starting a club.
2. Obstacles: Ms. Fleming is persistent and doesn’t give up.
3. Outcome: Jinny fails at her attempts to avoid Ms. Fleming and ends up agreeing to form a club.

Reaction Scene

In a reaction scene, we have our main character reacting to the outcome of the previous either success or failure and regrouping to move forward.

The template is:

1. Reaction: Main character reacts to the outcome of the previous scene.
2. Options: Main character reflects on options moving forward.
3. New Goal: Main character makes a new goal.

Continuing to use My Heart is Hurting as an example, in Chapter 2, Jinny’s mama is not happy Ms. Fleming came around. Jinny’s goal is to deflect her mother from her irritation about the teacher and convince her mother to give her money for new school clothes, which she does.

1. Reaction: Jinny’s mother is irritated the teacher has invaded her space and Jinny goes into defense mode to minimize the interaction.
2. Options: Jinny balances the line between deflecting the teacher’s motive and faking that she wants to learn her mother’s workout routines.
3. New Goal: Jinny coaxes her mother into giving her some money for new school clothes.

Closing

Each scene in your manuscript won’t fit these two templates. And that’s okay. And even in these two examples a TON more of character-building and plot-forward momentum happens. The goal of this is to just get you to thinking about the anatomy of each scene in your story and to hopefully help you build scenes that feature character agency, obstacles and outcomes so your readers keep turning those pages!

Every scene should be able to answer three questions: Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don’t get it? Why now?

David Mamat