How to Write A Scene: Ten Minutes of Planning for 2000 Words

How to Write A Scene: Ten Minutes of Planning for 2000 Words

1. Describe the setting. Think about the main impression that you want to generate, and give us a description of that impression at least three times. Try to use at least 20 "senses" words; use each of the five senses at least once.

2. What does your main character want, and why is that important to him? What is his primary emotion at the beginning?

3. What is his opposition in the scene? What does that opponent want, and why? What is his primary emotion? What sort of conflict does the protagonist have to engage in?

4, 5, and 6. Three twists. Each twist is one of:

• find a clue 
• find an item that is useful in the present conflict 
• find an item that will be useful later 
• a countdown starts 
• someone unexpectedly changes sides 
• change in the type of conflct (conversation becomes fight, for instance) 
• reinforcements appear for one side or the other 
• you are given a task that you must complete during the scene 
• you are given a quest; 
• some aspect of the setting becomes dangerous 
• you must give up something valuable to gain what you need. 

7. Resolution: does the scene protagonist succeed or fail in his goal? What emotion does he feel at the end of the scene? How does the resolution raise the stakes and/or make it more difficult to achieve his ultimate goal? What happens to raise the tension in the reader?

8. Aftermath: once the scene is over, what does the scene protagnoist think about what just happened? How does he feel about it, once he has time to stop and reflect? What choice does he have to make in order to move ahead? How much time passes before the next scene?

Eight items, so if you devote 250 words to each item, you have 2000 words.

Writing the Pefect Scene

Notes from a panel with Sean Hoade at SLC ComicCon.

Sean recommended Jack Bickham's Scene and Structure; Bickham was a student of Dwight Swain and covers much of the same ground.

Each scene has a viewpoint character, and that character has a goal, opposition, and a resolution. To clarify the goal in the first draft, you can have the viewpoint character come right out and say "I want to ____", describing what he wants to accomplish during this scene. (You might also add a line about how that scene goal will help him accomplish his overall goal). The four possible resolutions to the character's action are Yes, No, Yes-But, and No-And-Furthermore. The Yes and No options are bland.--they either solve the problem (with a Yes) or at least do nothing to change it (if it's a No). A Yes-But solves this problem but raises a whole new one; the No-And-Furthermore leaves this problem open and makes it worse.

A scene never has conflict which is entirely internal. That goes in a sequel; a sequel is the connective tissue that links one scene to the next. The sequel has four parts: emotion  and expresson; thought and reflection; decision; action. The action is the beginning of the next scene (and the point at which you can change PoV characters, if you need to).

Use the length of your scenes and sequels to vary your pacing. Long sequels with lots of emoting and internal monologues will slow down the action.

On Plotting, Rising Action, and the Try/Fail Cycle

Notes from SLC ComicCon 2014 panel, including Kevin J Anderson, Brandon Sanderson, Dave Farland, Larry Correia, Brandon Mull, Brad Torgersen.

Plotting:
When you're writing an epic, you can't wing it. When you're building a skyscraper, you really need a blueprint. My outline sometimes runs to 100 pages--it gets to be a first draft.

My plot is "What promise am I making the reader, and what steps do I need to take to fulfill that promise?"

I'm a loose outliner. For each character, I know where they're going to end up. I need to know the ending. And I blow something up every forty pages.

I need to look for movement.You never have a static scene--a character is always going up or down. I think about where my protagonist is, and what's the worst thing that I can do to him....

Pantsing is for the daydreaming at the start of the project. Once you've got the ideas, you outline.

I can pants a short story but I need a skeleton for a novel.

If you do pants it, go back and write an outline afterwards, as a post mortem tool.

Try/Fail:
My characters are my friends, but it's an abusive relationship. They can't have it easy.

"Try/Fail" is a diagnostic tool, for finding problems after you've finished. Practice writing and you'll internalize the need to give your characters trouble, although you may not call it "adding a Try Fail cycle" while yoiu're writing it.

Remember that there's not just the one Protagonist/Antagonist Try Fail Cycle. There are other characters and other subplots and they need their own cycles.

The response to "Try" can be "Yes" or "No"--which are boring--or "Yes But" or "No And". The "No And" is what you'd call a Try/Fail"; the "Yes But" isn't  "Fail" but can also be interesting.

Productivity/Writer's Block:
Don't look for perfection. You need to be prolific. The more you make, the better you get. Ask your alpha readers if there are parts they find boring or confusing.

If I get stuck, it's because I made a mistake the day before; but when I figure out how to fix it, I get excited and write even more.

Destress. It's a first draft; you don't have to be perfect.

Set a deadline so you're committed to getting stuff done, rather than thinking I"m A Writer" but not doing any writing.

Sanderson: I'm usually writing one book, planning one or two more, and editing another. I write 500 words per hour, which is low; but I write 8 hours a day, five days a week. If you figure half my time is editing, travel, and other non-writing activity, that's 500words  x 8 hours x 5 days x 26 weeks = 520,000 words per year. One 400,000 word epic and one 120,000 word novel.

Correia: I write 10,000 words per week, every week.

Write what you think is cool--that you'd want to read.

RavenCon: Production Process

The process of producing a book goes:

1. R&D
2. Write
3. Send it to Publisher
4. Substantive Edit
5. Copy Edit (almost always done by freelance)
6. Typeset
7. First Proof
8. Proof and Index (freelance)
9. Print
10. Fold and Gather (book without covers)
11. Print Cover, Bind and Package
12. Deliver

There's an Editor Association where you can find freelancers to look over your book. An editor should ask for a sample from the middle of the book (the beginning and end have had more people look at them and are more likely to be clean). The editor will decide how much work she thinks it needs, and quote a price.

What you look for in an editor:

• experience in the genre
• experience in a publishing house, vs only as freelance
• compatibility and trust
• compatible technology--you need something with Track Changes, and preferably MS Word.

What the editor will want:

• word count
• sample pages
• time limits, whether "required delivery date" or "will be away from email from X to Y"
• don't make changes once you've sent the manuscript
• make note of fictional or foreign terms
• put everything in writing

A copy editor is more expensive to hire than a proof reader; but a copy editor's changes are made at the MS Word stage, whereas a proofreader's changes mean changing DTP and layout. 

The most frequent criticism is "show, don't tell". You will find it helpful to have a writer's group.

Find out what style manual your publisher wants to conform to.

Part of what a publisher looks at is whether you have a blog and a Facebook presence.

RavenCon: Writing Believable Magic

Your magic system has to have something to do with the plot. Establish it early so it's not a deus ex machina.

It has to be consistent, and it has to have a cost or limitation. Limitations reduce the ramifications. If you can call down fire, but only within 50ft and only while you concentrate, then that will influence your worldbuilding a lot less than if you can call down fire on a whim, anywhere in the world.

It should have an element of the unknown. It's not technology, it's not a case of "anyone can understand it if they study", and you're not just calling an engineer.

Do you reward "ability to plan ahead" or "ability to extemporize"? (Or maybe both--sorcerors extemporize, wizards plan).

How does magic affect the world? If there's a domestic dispute involving a caster, does she turn him into a chicken, or banish him to another plane, or cause teporary baldness?

RavenCon: Airships and Zeppelins

Notes from a presentation by Iver Cooper--not exactly about Writing, more about the amount of research that may go into writing. "Zep" and "airship" are used interchangably her.

Airships had a length/width ration of 3:1 up to 11:1; the ratio 4:1 is about as efficient as anything.

Zep R38 broke in half due to turning too tightly.

Always land and takeoff upwind. This leads to having a floating hanger, on a lake, so you can turn the whole hanger to face upwind.

Zeps mostly used gasoline of coal gas. One exotic means of propulsion powered the Aereon, invented by Solomon Andrews. The Aereon cycles between positive and negative buioyancy, instead of remaining neutral; the rise and fall caused air to move over inclined plane airfoils, which allowed the pilot to glide (or "porpoise") without power.

An airship in 1852 might have a speed of 5-10 mph.

A non-rigid needs nose battens so you don't have your ship's nose collapse due to higher (external) pressure against the nose as you fly forward.  Rigids typically had multiple cells; non rigids usuall had just one.

The gas cells will expand with altitude increase; you put air ballonets inside the hull to take up spare volume and they can contract (or get squeezed) as the gas bags expand.

Hydrogen is flammable when it's 40-75% of the mix, with the rest air. So if you had 90% hydrogren, you'd be fine--as long as there were no leaks or diffusion.

Sources of gas bag ignition might be the engine, static electricity, or lightning.

RavenCon: Agile Writer

A story abstract can be pared down to one setence: "A [person] who wants [goal] and learns [development]". An abstract is dynamic; it can change as you go through the writing process.

The hero has a life, which is interrupted by the inciting incident.  And the hero must have a Missing Internal Quality. "Her greatest fear" is not the Missing Internal Quality; the Fear is something she should face near the climax.

The protagonist should have three goals:

• Objective: "destroy the Death Star" -- this is clear and tanglible.
• Personal: "win the approval of teh Princess"
• Internal: "put your faith in the Force"

The Agile method is similar to the Snowflake method--write something short and complete, then a longer version, and keep expending it. 

RavenCon: Writing a Believable Villain

Heroes generally have most of these characteristics: Smart, Resilient, Inspiring, Strong, Reliable, Charismastic, Selfless,and Caring. Good villains generally also have most of those, except "Selfless" and "Caring".

A hero will do whatever it takes to get what he wants at his own expense. A villain will do the same, except at others' expense.

A villain is a hero whose goals are not compatible with yours.

In the Hero Journey, the hero faces a choice and chooses to overcome his weakness. The villain doesn't make that choice. (Note: I don't necessarily agree with that one; the hero might instead decide "to stick to his morals"; the difference being that "morals" aren't generally seen as "weakness").

The best villains believe they are heroes, and that what they do is justified. He may have lines he won't cross--he might kill your whole family but not hurt a puppy.

A villain does a bad thing for good reasons; an anti-hero does a good thing for bad reasons. (Alternately: an antiero is a villain seen as protagonist).

Anatomy of a Scene

When you set out to write a scene, you should know:

• POV: who has the spotlight?
• Goal: what does the POV character want to accomplish?
• Motivation: why is it important that he accomplish it?
• Conflict: what is blocking him from getting it?
• Resolution: the resolution is normally either No-and-Furthermore, or Yes-But. Increase the stakes.
• Setting: where is this taking pace? What makes it more interesting than a blank sound stage?
• Senses: what senses do we engage? Three senses per page, or about every 300 words. 
• The scene should be about 1000-1500 words; "a crisis every thousand words", as John Ringo says.

GMing

"The art of being a GM is figuring out what could go wrong, and making that happen, so the characters can deal with it." Writers should do much the same.

Plot Writing

"Plot-writing is primarily about stringing together fun and logically-connected scenes"
--K. Newton