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.