In the preface to their recently published writing guide, Writer's Companion, Carlos J Cortés and Renée Miller state, “we set out to compile everything a creative writer needs to write well into a single reference volume.” We are posting “The Nuts & Bolts," the first chapter of the guide, in a series of posts on Open Book.
Check out Carlos and Renée's online writing community, On Fiction Writing, a website that is “dedicated to writers who are serious about improving their craft and helping other writers to do the same.”
CONTEST: To enter our draw to win an e-copy of Writer's Companion, send an email to clelia@openbookontario.com with the subject line “Writer's Companion.” The contest closes on February 29, and is subject to the following Rules<?a>.
Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven and Part Eight of "The Nuts and Bolts."
__________________________________________________________
STRUCTURE / PARTS (continued)
1.5.4.1 Scene Development
The traditional-structure school proposes that a scene must have an opening, middle, and end.
The opening poses a question or introduces a goal. The middle is where the tension grows as the writer works conflict in. The end should build to a conclusion.
This is fine but limited. What if the scene ends on a cliffhanger? Do we start the next scene with another goal?
This problem is solved in the Micro-structure with three possible choices of scene models:
A. Resolved
B. Unresolved
C. Reactive
These three patterns (there are no more) offer the writer two possible choices A or B + C
An example is the easiest way to analyze scene models. Our POV is Mary, a young woman, and the setting is a bathroom with pink tiles.
Opening: Mary has missed two periods. She enters the bathroom, washes her hands, and winks at her reflection in the mirror.
Middle: After removing a stick from its foil wrapper she squats, does her bit, places the stick — window up — on the counter, and waits.
End: A few bars of “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary” later, she peers at the stick. The face in the mirror glows. Positive!
This is a resolved scene, but the reason for its classification has nothing to do with the result of the test but with the POV’s expectations. The scene could also be resolved had the test been negative.
Imagine Mary enters the bathroom looking gloomy. She doesn’t sing. She peers at the stick and her face lights up. Negative! In the first scene, Mary expected a positive result. In the second, she expected the opposite. In both instances, the scene is resolved for the main POV.
We don’t know what Mary will do next. Will she dance, call Peter, call Mom and Aunty Gladys or friends... The next scene can be resolved or unresolved, but never reactive. There’s nothing to react to since Mary has achieved the scene’s goal.
Let’s revisit the last two sentences in our scene, but change two words and the punctuation.
“The face in the mirror sags. Negative.”
Now the scene is unresolved. The POV’s expectations have floundered. This leaves an issue up in the air. The next scene in Mary’s POV must register her reaction, perhaps making an appointment to visit her doctor.
The different classes of scenes have dissimilar inner structures:
The resolved scene has a three-part pattern: goal, conflict, and achievement.
The unresolved scene has a three-part pattern: goal, conflict, and failure.
The reactive scene has a three-part pattern: reaction, impasse, and decision.
Though writers use many other patterns, when boiled down to essentials they fit into one of the three types described above.
Before we analyze the diverse patterns, it’s important to note that resolved scenes must be used with caution and often sparingly. The reason is psychological. When things keep turning out according to the POV’s expectations, tension slacks. This is not bad—if planned—as long as the writer is aware of the danger.
1.5.4.2 Resolved Scene
Goal: These are the POV’s expectations and the drive behind the scene.
The POV enters an elevator, intending to ride the car to the thirtieth floor, where Don Julio awaits to pay him for a successful killing.
This is the goal, which must be explicit and unambiguous. Unless the reader knows the goal, it’s impossible to ratchet the tension.
Conflict:These are the obstacles thrown in the POV’s way to derail his purpose. Without conflict there’s no scene and the reader’s interest will flag.
The POV enters an elevator, pushes a button, and rides without a hitch up to the thirtieth floor.
These actions beg the question: what’s the use of this scene? Perhaps the writer has a fixation with elevators, but that’s no reason for the scene and it should be nixed. We repeat: no conflict, no scene. Let’s rewrite:
Half way up, the elevator shudders before stopping. The lights go off.
This is conflict. Of course, we can push the conflict as high as we want by adding other passengers riding the elevator, say a Buddhist monk, two guys built like linebackers, and a little old lady on crutches.
Achievement: The resolved pattern demands that the POV character achieves his aim. In this instance, the lights return, the car moves once again, and our hero makes it to the thirtieth floor.
We mentioned earlier that resolved scenes should be handled with care. If the hero succeeds at the end of a scene, the reader feels no compunction to turn the page and find out what happens next. Although readers are not writers, they have an uncanny subliminal sense for plot. After the scene in the elevator ends in victory for the hero, the reader will suspect something happened inside the car while the lights were off. Why? Because otherwise the scene doesn’t make any sense and it shouldn’t be there.
This is one of the most difficult issues for a new writer to understand: since every word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, and scene must have a reason. If the reader (or agent or editor) can’t find any, they will get upset (make that “mad”). Readers will not invest in books riddled with bits the writer liked or penned for the hell of it.
A resolved scene is an end in itself; the POV has won. Unless handled with finesse, these scenes can be boring and, after a while, predictable.
1.5.4.3 Unresolved Scene
Goal: The POV’s expectations and the drive behind the scene don’t change.
The POV enters an elevator, intending to ride the car to the thirtieth floor where Don Julio awaits, to pay him for a successful hit.
Conflict: To thwart his purpose we’ve stopped the elevator and added passengers.
The POV enters a crowded elevator. A Buddhist monk, two guys built like linebackers, and a little old lady on crutches shuffle to make room. He checks that the thirtieth floor is not lit up and presses the button. Halfway up, the elevator shudders before stopping. The lights go off.
The passengers are not “color” or “background.” If the writer intended transparency, he would have written “other passengers shifted to make room.” Any reader will zero on the description of the passengers and mull (however subliminally) that there must be a reason why the writer chose these characters and not transparent others. We can imagine the reader sliding toward the edge of his seat.
A feeble emergency light illuminates the car. The hulks reach for their pieces. The hero ducks and freezes when the little old lady beats them to the draw. When she’s finished, both men are dead. Then her gun seeks him. With a deafening shriek and a flap of saffron robes, the Buddhist monk leaps high into the air and kicks the little old lady’s head. A sickening crunch and she collapses in a flurry of crutches. The monk bows and cradles his hands into a stirrup for the hero to reach the service hatch.
Though this plot is a farce, it doesn’t take much imagination to assume the reader won’t leave the scene at this point. What, with the Buddhist monk peering at the hero’s climbing figure from a car strewn with corpses and hardware? No way.
Failure: The unresolved pattern demands that the POV character fails to achieve his goal.
The hero climbs the elevator cables, his gaze on a service opening with a door ten feet over his head. When he draws level, he leaps, and his foot misses its mark. With lightning reflexes his fingers catch the lower edge of the opening. A whine, lights, and the elevator starts moving again in the wrong direction: up.
Our hero’s plans are in disarray. Not only did he not make it to the thirtieth floor and Don Julio, but he’s hanging on for his life while an elevator barrels in his direction.
An unresolved scene implies a sequel, a continuation, a reactive scene to have another shot at the goal.
The reactive scene doesn’t need to be at the turn of the page. The writer may have cunningly structured his plot to keep the reader on edge and shift to another scene, perhaps in the monk’s or Don Julio’s POV. Of course, these unresolved scenes must also be handled with care. Distance is important lest the reader forgets our hero’s predicament. If not right away, the reactive scene must follow at a reasonable distance.
1.5.4.4 Reactive Scene
The purpose of a reactive scene is to follow and tidy up an unresolved one. If the hero sought a goal and encountered a setback, he shouldn’t try anything new until the problem at hand has been solved, or replaced with a new problem.
What if the reactive scene doesn’t resolve its goal? Can there be a reactive-positive and reactive-negative scenes? One could envisage a scene where the hero fails many times to achieve his goal. No?
No. A reactive scene’s goal is to react to a failure. A novel may consist of many scenes trying to reach the goal outlined on page one, but each will have its own goal (or mini-goal in the large scheme of things) or react to an unachieved goal.
The reactive scene has three parts: reaction, impasse, and resolution, and each is critical for its overall success.
Reaction: A reaction is the emotional follow-through to a failure. If disaster strikes — following the initial rush of adrenaline — the character struggles, off-balance, until he gathers his wits. POV characters must react to failure and adjust to change, submit to a new ball-game. This is a boon for any writer, the opportunity to add deep characterization because character surfaces in extreme moments. In the end, the POV needs to take stock and look for options and their alternatives.
The car races upward, threatening to crush him. The hero flexes his muscles and pulls himself up, squeezing into the narrow ledge as the elevator trundles past.
Of course, the best scenes are those where the POV has no escape, no options left. These tax the writer because there must be an option, however hidden, and it must be a clever or imaginative one the hero might have overlooked—or a reckless one born of despair.
Impasse: After a good old failure, there aren’t any good choices. If there are, it wasn’t much of a disaster. The POV must be in a bind with no good obvious alternatives. In our silly plot, the hero is as we would colloquially describe: shafted.
Fighting for balance on a ten-inch ledge, his fingers explore the door. It’s unlocked. As the hero steps through the door, he halts. The opening is an access communicating two elevator shafts. As he compares the two voids, elevators dash past in both directions at breakneck speed. One must still carry the corpses.
Now what? The reader will wonder what can happen next because the hero’s choices are one shaft or the next. Not good. The reader will turn the page.
Decision: To decide is to make a choice. Here, the POV must work through his choices, however illusory or wild these may be. As he sifts through the options, he will take the one that offers the greatest chance of success. Even if it means choosing a harrowing one, the choice must be reasoned. Otherwise, the reader will get the impression the POV has been lucky, and that’s a sign of careless writing. Intelligent readers believe in probabilities, not luck. The reader must respect the POV’s decision and perhaps nod in agreement. “Yup, I would have done the same.” Or cringe in awe at the POV’s choice, an avenue so crazy — despite a slim chance of success — the reader had not considered it.
The elevator he escaped now stops. The corpses must have been discovered. (How the monk got away is another matter.)When the elevator in the new shaft halts on the floor below, the hero makes a split-second decision and jumps. He crashes through its roof, and lands next to another little old lady. This time, the hero doesn’t take any chances. He picks himself from the floor, socks the lady, presses all the buttons, and as soon as the car stops on the next floor, he bolts toward the fire escape.
In this scene, the character has not resolved any goal. Rather, he has simply reacted to his failed attempt in the previous scene.
What happens now? Who knows? The hero may reach the fire escape. There, the writer will concoct another scene with a new goal, perhaps to get away from the building in one piece. The reader will follow to find out the next goal of the POV.
The important mechanism to understand is the interrelation of scenes and their inner structure with reference to the story. A novel is a sequence with a few resolved and many unresolved scenes. These are followed by reactive scenes that, in turn, open the door to another scene.
The magic of plotting a novel in scenes is this action-reaction continuum; one scene leads to another until the cycle breaks at THE END.
"The Nuts & Bolts" is an excerpt from Writer's Companion (2011) by Carlos J Cortés and Renée Miller. Reprinted with permission.
Post new comment