Story Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Great Scenes

There is nothing more critical to the success of a story, especially a long-form story like a novel, than the writer’s ability to create compelling scenes.

In this article, we’ll discuss scene structure, execution, and how to tell if you’ve written an effective scene or a dud.

Scenes either work or they don’t.

The truth is that the mechanics of scenes are specific and essential. If the writer ignores these mechanics or fails to learn them, their stories will fail to work at their most basic level.

This is because long-form stories are built on collections of scenes. Sometimes each chapter is a single scene, while other authors group multiple scenes together in one chapter.

Either way, the reader’s satisfaction with the story depends on how well these scenes advance the external and internal narratives.

For a scene to work, it needs the following…

Scene structure mirrors story structure.

Scene Structure

Remember the essential components of plot structure from my article on that topic? Here’s a brief refresher, but I recommend reading that post before continuing with this one.

The story opens with the inciting incident, which changes the status quo to the extent that the protagonist must take action. Complications arise in the middle build, giving us twists and turns and driving the story forward with continuous change and progressively rising stakes.

The crisis occurs when the stakes are so high that the protagonist faces a choice between two bad options. When they act on their decision, we have the climax, in which we see how their choice plays out. Finally, the resolution concludes the narrative and shows us how the character and/or circumstances have evolved.

Scenes are just mini-stories.

Every scene follows the same structure that your story does.

Each one should open with an action or a coincidence (as you’ll recall from the section on inciting incidents in the plot structure post). That incident should prompt the character(s) to do something, which will begin the events of the scene.

Complications in the middle should act as small turning points that gradually raise the stakes and the pressure on the characters.

The pressure builds until a character (your protagonist or point of view character) must make a choice at the end of the scene. This is the crisis.

We then see the climax, as they take action based on their choice.

For the vast majority of scenes, you’ll want the resolution to end on a cliffhanger that motivates the reader to continue to the next scene. This is most commonly associated with commercial page-turners, but it applies to all genres and styles of fiction.

Scenes must follow this structure in order to work. Without an inciting incident, middle complications, a crisis, a climax, and a resolution, your scenes won’t resonate with readers.

A question of polarity.

Scenes must also turn. That is, there must be a shift in your protagonist’s quest to get what they consciously want (the external narrative) or what they subconsciously need (the internal narrative).

This is also called a shift in polarity. If the overall state of your character’s journey is positive at the beginning of a scene, the polarity must shift to a negative or a double positive. If it is negative, it means the scene introduces a new setback that prevents the character from achieving their goals. A double positive does the opposite.

Likewise, if the scene opens on a negative polarity, it must shift to a positive or to a double negative. The state of the conflict must improve or get even worse.

If a scene does not include a change in polarity—a turn—it is not a scene. There is no advancement of the story in a passage that does not turn, making it ineffective.

To write an engaging scene, the external and/or internal narratives must progress in some way, either positively or negatively, from where they were at the beginning of the scene.

For more information on external and internal narratives, read my article on them.

Editing your scenes.

When I edit a manuscript (and before I send a manuscript to my editor) I spend most of my time analyzing every scene in the novel.

I ensure that they follow the structure that will make them engaging for the reader. I check that there is a polarity shift by writing a sign (+, -, ++, or –) at the beginning of the scene and a different sign at the end. Finally, I evaluate how the external and internal narratives develop in each one.

Once in awhile, I’ll come across a passage I’ve written that I can’t seem to fix. It won’t turn, I can’t find a polarity shift that leaves an impact on the story, and the scene is ultimately boring.

What do you do when that happens?

You cut the scene.

You wouldn’t build a castle out of stones that have massive cracks in them. The place would come crumbling down. Scenes are the building blocks of stories. They must be solid as well.

Summary.

Okay, let’s review:

The success of a story depends on the writer’s ability to write great scenes.
Scenes either work or they don’t, with little wiggle room. Writers MUST understand the mechanics of scenes.
Scenes are mini-stories that follow the same structure as the overall plot.
Scenes must turn, meaning that there must be a polarity shift from positive to negative, positive to double positive, negative to positive, or negative to double negative.
When editing, cut any scene that you can’t fix. It likely isn’t important to the story if you can’t make it turn.

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