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*****
Sally was waiting for me as I walked into the coffee shop. The fallen leaves chased me inside and Kathy handed me a spicy pumpkin latte, with whip and a layer of caramel. I sat down at the table and couldn’t help note the frown on Sally’s face.
“What?”
“It’s just boring.” Her hand rested on a stack of printed manuscript papers. “I mean, the story is good…in my head. But it seems to lack…well, let’s put it this way; my husband fell asleep somewhere between page 87 and 103.”
“Oh my,” I said, sipping the latte. Just the right balance of whipped crème sweetness and pumpkin pie spice. “So, what do you think is the problem?”
“He says I have a great story, with great storyworld and fun dialogue and even good emotional layering. It’s just…well, he says the scenes are boring.”
“This can be fixed, Sally, don’t despair. What you have is the right ingredients to the second layer of a scene: storyworld, emotional layering, dialogue and even metaphors. However, none of these matter if you haven’t built the first layer, or the foundation of the scene: the scene tension.”
“You mean what we talked about last week. The Scene Equation.”
“Right. You have to understand what drives a scene before you can create the actual scene. Let’s review just a bit: The scene equation is:
Sympathetic Character + Stakes + Goals + Obstacles + Fear of Failure.
“If any of these are missing, you don’t have tension and are simply decorating the house before its finished. Only after you build a solid foundation can you add the gleaming details that make your scene stand out. (storyworld, dialogue, emotional layering, wordsmithing. emotions, metaphors and even a great hook.)
“Let’s go a bit deeper and explore each of these pieces of the equation:
“Sympathetic Characters: Building Sympathy isn’t just about putting our characters in sympathetic situations – it’s about seeing ourselves in our characters. What situation is your character in that we can understand or identify with? Or, what common emotion do we share with the character that helps us sympathize. Consider this: When have you felt the same way your character feels? Can you build in either this situation, or actions that help us connect?
“Here’s an example: In my book, You Don’t Know Me, my heroine, Annalise, is in the WitSec program. However, she’s never told a soul – including her husband and family. She is leading a normal life…until her WitSec Agent appears in her world and unravels it. Although most of us haven’t been in the WitSec program, we do have situations where we fear a secret might emerge. It’s this feeling I built into the scene where her past shows up. I created a scene in a coffee shop with all of Annalise’s friends and community around her – including her husband – and made her stumble to keep her secret and composure in the face of this awkward situation.
“Goals: What does POV want? Emotionally, physically? What do they need? Why? Answering these questions gives the character a purpose for the scene – something that pushes them forward. Your character must have a goal for every Action Scene. (and a dilemma to solve for every ReAction scene).
“Obstacles: These can be People or Situations, (weather, or machines, or even government) – but at the end, they are the conflicts that stand in the way of the character reaching her/her goals. Tension is created by the use of these external and internal obstacles.
“Stakes: What will happen if the character doesn’t meet their goal? What fear hovers over the scene? Both the character and the reader must see what might go wrong in the scene to create tension. This involves using the Push-Pull rhythm, a MBT technique for creating the right motivation. (in short, it’s the PUSH away from something negative, and the PULL toward something positive.)
“Fear of Failure: This is the secret ingredient to keeping tension taut in a scene. Without this fear, and this believe that it could happen, the scene is flat. If we know the outcome is a sure thing, then why bother? Even if the tension is only inner dissonance, it’s that fear of losing themselves that keeps the tension high.
“Sally, go through every scene and ask: Why should I care about this character and this scene? What’s at stake? What are the Goals and Obstacles, and finally, do I fear the character might fail? Answering these questions for every single scene will help you reshape your story into something that won’t put your husband to sleep.”
“It might have been the Vikings game, and the way they crumbled after the first quarter.”
“Yes, that was painful. I would have rather been sleeping.”
Truth: Wordsmithing can only get you so far in a story; if you don’t have tension, your book will suffer the “put it down in the middle” syndrome.
Dare: Analyze every scene and build in the right foundation before you add in the riveting details.
Go! Write Something Brilliant!
Susie May
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“I was so excited to see that Conversations with a Writing Coach contains the lessons and writing aids that took me from being an unpublished writer to published with a multi-book contract. Susan’s talent for teaching the craft of writing is phenomenal. The lessons are easy to understand and will help beginning writers understand and develop their characters, plots and settings. And not just beginning writers—the workbook is a great refresher course for me as I begin my 5th book in two years. Patricia Bradley, author of the Logan Point series”