Yesterday we talked about the difference between a scene and a sequel. Today, let’s briefly touch on what to accentuate in a scene, regardless of what kind it is. (And from now on, I’ll be using the word Scene to refer to both kinds of scenes!)

When my daughter Sarah was younger, she had long beautiful blonde hair. The Russians had this cool technique where they would tie a ribbon at the top of a braid, and weave it through the hair, and tie a huge bow at the end. I loved to do this to Sarah’s hair, seeing the blue or green or red ribbon threading through her hair.

Writing a story is like Braiding Hair: Ideally, your plot will have many different threads – an action thread, with external goals, an emotional thread with internal goals, and a spiritual thread. Putting all three of these threads equally into every scene will cause the book to become cumbersome, and even overwhelming. The key is to weave each of these threads through the book, some appearing in one scene, others appearing in other scenes, so the book is woven together in a beautiful pattern. Weaving threads through the story is about asking what is the most important plot point you will expose or step you will take in this scene.

Ask yourself: Why is this scene important? What needs to happen in this scene that will move one of these three plot points forward? Another way to put it (in a term coined by Brandilyn Collins in her book: Getting into Character) is asking what your ACTION OBJECTIVES are for each scene, or a list of the things you want to accomplish. I use the term Story Thread: as in “What Story Thread will I bring to the front?”

Of course, you’ll want to consider the threads you wove into the previous scene, because you don’t want to weave the threads too close together.

Sometimes I even make a graph, with the chapters running down the left hand columns, and the three threads at the top. Then, I mark what scenes will have what elements of each thread, giving me a visual map of the entire book.

For example your first scene will probably be mainly focused on the action. You’ll want to jump start the story with the inciting incident, with perhaps only the hint at an emotional or spiritual thread.

However, in the next scene, a sequel scene, you might weave in the emotional thread, giving us reasons why our hero will continue the journey, (remember: Reaction, Dilemma, Decision).

Then, perhaps you may have another have action plot thread scene, followed by a spiritual sequel scene.

Not every plot action scene needs to be a SCENE – you could have a mystery, and detective is hashing over the facts, keeping the action plot thread thick in the scene, but making a sequel scene. Or, you might have an emotionally strong scene that acts as a SCENE (not a sequel). (Okay, we clearly need to come up with some different terminology here! Arrgh)

If you’re a Seat of the Pants writer, it’s simply a matter of standing at the beginning of your high dive into your scene and asking, why do I need this scene, and what will I accomplish as I weave my story?

It’s a rhythm you’ll soon catch onto. Just like braiding hair.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the rhythm of a scene – fast, slow, introspective, explosive, etc…and the kinds of words to put into a scene to capture that rhythm. See you tomorrow!