A New Way to Think About Scene Structure

I Found This Amazing Article!

I am following Angela Ackerman on Twitter and she posted this amazing article about how to rethink scene structure.

It’s really helped me to rethink how I’ve written some scenes in my latest books.

You’ll have to read it to really appreciate it, but what she’s saying is that each scene has it’s own question and what happens in the scene is the answer to that question.

Is the baddie hiding something? Yes or no.

Is the prince going to climb into the castle? Yes or no.

I strongly suggest reading the article as it’s rather good and easy to follow.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about my writing too. Why am I writing this scene? What do I want this scene to do to the plot?

Conexion is made up of a lot of different scenes seen from many different points of view. There is just the one plot, however and everything leads to that ending.

In another tip, which I’m sorry I can’t remember where I read it, they said to think of each scene as a short story so that it could stand alone. Obviously, not introducing the characters or the setting each time, but treating each chapter as it has a beginning, middle and end, that it answers a question, that it deals with some conflict. There’s a dilema, a decision, a goal, conflict, a reaction. There’s so much to remember!

So, to put it simply, have a question that is asked by each scene, answer it with conflict, disaster, reaction, dilema, decision and goal and make it a self contained story in itself.

On the plus side, if you want to cut out any scenes, you could always use them as short stories for articles or free samples of your novels if starting out (like me).