I’ve been on the phone a lot this summer, helping my clients brainstorm scenes. One of the biggest issues I see in ACT 2 is the struggle to set up a scene correctly and create reasonable tension to drive a reader through the scene.
Last week we talked about how to set up a scene. Today, we’re going to talk about how to use the combination of Goals against External and Internal Obstacles to create tension.
In Act 2, it’s essential that each scene have tension. Many people confuse tension with obstacles. Obstacles do not cause tension unless they stand in the way of something someone WANTS for a Very Good Reason.
My son just got back from football camp, so we have football fever around here. Which means it’s time for a football metaphor. The push FORWARD of the offense is the WANT (motivation) and GOAL (a first down!) of the character.
The Defensive line is/are the obstacles that push BACK against the character. You must have both to create tension.
YOU MUST HAVE A GOAL
I repeat: You MUST have a scene goal for your character in order to create tension in a scene. This is the #1 problem that I see with new authors – their characters have no scene goals, and thus, they can not create tension. *obstacles do not create tension! Only the combination of goal pushing against an obstacle creates tension.*
This applies to Action Scenes and ReAction Scenes.
YOU MUST HAVE OBSTACLES
External Obstacles: These are easy to find – they’re the Person, Place or Thing that will ll stand in the way of your character achieving this goal. When you’re crafting those Act 2 scenes, you need to start with Story Obstacles.
Since it’s 4th of July Week, we’ll use some Patriotic Movies as examples:
In The Patriot, the external obstacle is Col. Tavington, who has it in for Martin’s militia group. However, he is also a fantastic tool to create internal obstacles (which we’ll get to in a moment).
In Independence Day, the external obstacle is the alien force, and most specifically the force field that is created.
In Pearl Harbor, there are actually 2 movies – in Party One: the external obstacle is actually the anti-hero, Danny, who stands in the way of Rafe and Evelyn’s Happy Ever After. The events of war are simply the backdrop. In the second half of the movie, however, the external obstacles are the challenges of bombing Japan.
In Saving Private Ryan, the external obstacle is the challenge of getting to Private Ryan, fighting the Germans as the troupe presses inland.
However, with each of these movies, there are also INTERNAL obstacles. Internal Obstacles aren’t only the internal reasons that keep us from pushing forward, but are more specific and create something called Inner Dissonance, or the tension produced when two equally worthy choices push against each other.
In The Patriot, Benjamin Martin must choose between justice (killing the man who killed his sons) and honor (leading the militia).
In Independence Day, the heroes much choose between their families and sure death as they attack the alien mother ship.
In Pearl Harbor, the inner dissonance is embodied in choosing dashing Rafe, or dependable Danny.
In Saving Private Ryan, the choice between saving the man versus saving the one embeds the story goals and motivations.
And that is the key to creating powerful Act 2 tension – knowing the internal dissonance that embeds the story and forms the goals and motivations, and the external obstacles that both thwart the goals and causes twists and turns.
Once you understand the Story Obstacles, you can boil these down into scenes.
For example, let’s take a look at Pearl Harbor:
Scene 1: Rafe shows up back from the dead and surprises Evelyn. She’s surprised – and kisses Rafe. But, she’s just found out that she’s pregnant with Danny’s baby. Who should she choose – her true love, or the man who “rescued” her? Inner Dissonance.
Scene 2: After Rafe and Danny get into a fight at a bar, they wake up in a car – to the sound of bombs. Their job is to get to the airfield and defeat the enemy. The “war” serves as the external obstacles to achieving their goal.
When you’re crafting an Act 2 scene, first ask: What kind of obstacles will I be using?
Option One: External Obstacles – If you’re using primarily external obstacles, then they need be stronger than the goal pushing toward them and offer significant peril (stakes) if they are defeated. (for example, Danny and Rafe’s nearly impossible task of getting planes in the air to defeat the enemy bombing the airfield.)
Option Two: Internal Obstacles – If you’re using primarily internal obstacles, then each choice needs to have the same value or weight – if one is easier to choose than the other, then there is no real dissonance. We all wanted Evelyn to choose Rafe, because he was her true love, but Danny is her current lover, and the father of her child.
The truth is, however, every scene has an element of internal dissonance because it requires your character to choose his/her goal – which is driven by a value. If you have two strong, but different values driving the story, they’ll have to grapple with these every time they have a Y in the road, or turning point in the story.
How do you fix a saggy scene?
Ask: What is my character’s GOAL?
Then ASK: What obstacles do I have in the scene?
If they’re external – are they strong enough to defeat the hero?
If they’re internal – are they both compelling enough for the hero to choose either? (and, is there sufficient sympathy for the character for the reader to agree with the decision, even if they don’t like it?)
Offensive versus Defense…let them collide and you’ll solve your saggy scenes!
Go! Write something Brilliant!
Susie May
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