For many years (at least twenty), I wanted to write a novel but didn’t know how to go about it. It seemed such a massive undertaking. There were so many things to think about – setting, characters, character development, point of view, plot, theme – and they needed to be combined in an impactful, satisfying way. It felt unwieldy. Overwhelming. Impossible.
Eventually, when my standard excuse of ‘I don’t have enough life experience to say anything’ became less credible, I began to read ‘how-to’ books about novel writing and, slowly, things became clearer. It was about structure. Not just beginning, middle and end, or even chapter by chapter, it was scene by scene.
A scene is a unit, a building block. In a scene, characters do something, talk about something or reflect on something which results in a change – a character’s opinion or feelings alter, a decision is made, a goal is reached, a clue is found, a problem appears, the stakes are raised, the tension is heightened. A scene shows or reveals something about the characters and leaves the reader with a question: what now? how will they react to that? how are they going to resolve that? how are they going to get out of that? The aim, of course, is to move the story forward and draw the reader in.
That’s the theory, anyway.
In practice, this means looking at the rather flimsy outline I’ve sketched out for my fourth novel in the Hanazawa Information Services series and dividing each section (beginning, middle, end) into plot points. Then, I break down the plot points into scenes (I’ll sort out the chapters, which may contain one or several scenes, later).
For each scene, I figure out what will happen and the outcome that I want, for example, by the end of this scene Sam will have had a phone conversation with Cooper, they’ll discuss Yuna’s departure from Tokyo and Sam will feel unsettled. Once I’ve got the outcome(s) sorted, I think about the setting and action for the scene. Where is Sam when he gets the phone call, what time of day is it, and what is he doing before and during the call? How could the setting and action either echo or contrast with the dialogue? What else could happen before or during the call to add to Sam’s uneasy state of mind? When/How will the scene end? I make a brief note of my ideas so I don’t forget my train of thought. However, it’s surprising how often other ideas present themselves as I’m writing.
For the first draft of the novel, I don’t spend much time tinkering with a scene once I’ve written it. If there’s anything I want to add (perhaps alluding to a future plot point) or am not sure about, I write it in square brackets so I can go back to it later.
The rhythm of scenes is also something to consider. If one scene is full of action, conflict and/or emotional turmoil, do I want to keep the dramatic tension going in the next scene, or is it a chance for the characters to catch their breaths, reflect and come to terms with what has happened? Consecutive action scenes can be exhausting for the reader, but too much contemplation might slow things down to the point of sluggishness. Balance is the key, and the challenge.
I still find writing a novel difficult to manage – I can’t keep everything in my head at once, so I draw lots of diagrams and write a lot of notes (and I’ll do lots of editing) – but thinking about the story as a series of scenes makes it feel possible.
Novel word count to date: 12,949 words
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