Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

by Jack Bickham

  Sometimes it's the thought portion of the sequel you need to interrupt with a scene. In such cases, the intervention of another person clarifies the hero's thinking and he sees, through the insight of the interrupting person, a new line of thinking that leads quickly to a new goal —and forward movement.

  Use of a scene to delay a sequel usually appears on the surface like nothing more than one scene bumping front-to-back with the one that preceded it, no time being allowed for a sequel. But sometimes you the author need to delay the occurrence of a sequel to place it later in a chapter, say, perhaps at the chapter ending, where it will have more impact. In such a case, you intervene dramatically so that something new happens immediately after a scene-ending disaster, and tailor things so that the viewpoint character must deal with the new problem in a new scene —or even several of them —before he literally has time to experience his sequel to the initial scene.

  Suppose, for example, you have a disaster at the end of a scene which calls for a sequel in which your viewpoint character very obviously is going to have to make some decision which will profoundly influence the remainder of the story. But at the same time your plot is so pressurized at this point that new events are going to transpire almost at once. If you were to present your sequel at once, it would necessarily be short, and might even have to be interrupted for credibility's sake by the onrush of additional events. And so the impact of the sequel, important as it is, might be lost in the flood of additional scenes.

  It is in such a situation that the best thing to do is not to try to play the sequel in its proper order at all, but simply to allow the new scene or scenes to interrupt—saving the skipped important sequel until some time later —preferably the end of the chapter—when there is finally time for the character to go through it, and where it will attain greater significance in the reader's eyes because it will stand at the end of the chapter as a hook to future developments.

  My favorite example of this technique in action is one I tend to repeat often in lecture situations. In chapter 4 of John D. MacDonald's A Deadly Shade of Gold, Travis McGee takes a woman to seek out a friend, Sam Taggart. Travis finds Sam, all right—dead in his motel room, his throat slashed from ear to ear.

  Realistically, as the story is set up, Travis can hardly have the luxury of an immediate, developed sequel to this terrible disaster. The woman with him instantly becomes hysterical, and he has to get her somewhere for care; the police must be notified —also at once —and when they arrive, Travis must answer all their questions. All that done, he must return to the place where he left his female companion to make sure she is all right.

  Only after all this has taken place in rapid-fire order does Travis have time to experience his sequel to the death. Heading home in the dead of night, Travis finally experiences the shock and sadness of Sam's murder in a moving passage which begins as follows:

  I walked across to the public beach.. .. The sea and the night sky can make death a small thing. Waves can wash away the most stubborn stains, and the stars do not care one way or the other.

  At the end of the sequel, Travis has decided that this time the unknown killers had taken one of his own —a best friend —and he intends to find them and make them pay. This conclusion to the sequel — having been delayed for quite realistic reasons of time pressure—now falls at the end of a chapter, where it has maximum impact on the reader. Thus an accomplished novelist like MacDonald plays with structure to put the most important single motivating idea of the chapter —the vow for revenge —at the place where it will hit the reader hardest.

  NONVIEWPOINT CHARACTER SCENES

  Scenes started by a nonviewpoint character must occur sometimes in fiction, despite everything that has been said about classic structure. It would seem to be virtually impossible for a scene to start in this way, as we have consistently (up until now) looked only at scenes in which the goal is conceived by a viewpoint character and clearly stated by him upon entering the scene. Thus the implication of everything that has preceded this section of this book has been that the viewpoint character must initiate the scene with his goal. But while ordinarily this is true—and you want to try to a great preponderance of your scenes from the stated goal of the viewpoint character, clearly it cannot always be so: In fiction, as in real life, sometimes someone else walks in with a stated goal, thus initiating the scene.

  Such situations tend to occur more often in the early parts of novels, or at times of a major transition in space. As the story is just getting under way, the central viewpoint character often is acted upon to get him into motion. In such cases, a scene might easily start by someone else walking in, stating a goal, and starting a scene, or by shooting at the hero, for another example, and starting a chase scene. The same tends to be true after the viewpoint character has just made a big space transition, to a new neighborhood, a new town or even a new country; he may still be getting his feet on the ground, but if you are concerned with keeping the story on the boil (as you should be!), you cannot afford to waste pages showing him walking around trying to find a hotel room. Such transitional reorientations often require someone from the hidden story to appear and start the scene sooner than the hero would logically get around to it.

  Here is one example from a manuscript I happen to be working on at the moment. My character, Barton, has concluded a scene in which he received some very bad news about the business failure of a friend. Barton has already decided to call on his friend in the morning, when the friend returns from a trip to Chicago. But at this point my author intention is to introduce another character—and a major subplot.

  Barton can't do it for me by entering into a scene with a goal, because he isn't even aware yet that the other character exists. So, back in his hotel room, after showering, he hears a knock on his door and the following scene begins from the goal-motivation of a character other than the viewpoint character:

  Barton opened the door and looked out at the slender, middle-aged man in the hallway. "Yes?" "Jim Barton?" "Do we know each other?"

  "No." A tic leaped near the man's right eye. "I'm Krohner—Frank Krohner. I have to talk to you. Can I come in?"

  Barton hesitated. He was tired and frustrated, and the last thing he needed was a stranger barging in. But Frank Krohner did not look like a kook. His suit was expensive, and so was the diamond ring on his finger. He had a straightforward way about him that Barton instinctively liked; he did not seem like the kind of man who hammered on hotel room doors in the middle of the night without good reason.

  Barton swung the door wider. "Come in. What is it you want?"

  "I want to show you some pictures."

  At which point Barton lets Krohner in, and a scene develops in Barton's viewpoint, but from Krohner's goal motivation.

  In all such situations, the viewpoint character immediately responds to the appearance of another character with some goal by asking or doing something in an attempt to figure out as precisely as possible just what the intruder's scene goal may be. This makes it easy for you to get the other person's goal stated. Now, having gotten the goal stated by the nonviewpoint character, you must make it clear quickly that the viewpoint character does not agree with this goal —thus setting up conflict and getting the major portion of the scene rolling.

  The important difference between this kind of scene and the more normal one is that generally you still want the disaster to befall the viewpoint character. You can see why this should be so in terms of keeping your reader worried; if a disaster befalls a character in opposition to the viewpoint character—even when that other character started the scene with his goal—what would the effect be for the hero? If the disaster were to befall the villain of the story just because he happened to start the scene with his goal, then such a disaster would be a good thing for the hero; and we can't let good things happen for the hero for all the reasons stated as far back as chapter 4.

  So the fundamental difference in the scene started by a nonviewpoint character
is that the disaster must not befall him —he must to some degree attain his scene goal so that the tactical effect will be disastrous for the viewpoint character.

  To put this another way, from the standpoint of the nonviewpoint character, the pattern of the scene is Goal—Conflict—Success. This in turn makes the effect of the structure on the viewpoint character look something like this: Curiosity (as to what the goal is) — Conflict—Disaster.

  Of course there can be a variation even on this internal structure, when you are in multiple viewpoint. The viewpoint in a given segment of the story may be in the story villain, who is having a scene with some minor minion while the story's hero is offstage somewhere. In such a case, the villain as goal-stater in the scene should encounter disaster at the end of the scene only if the disaster will motivate the villain to escalate his war on our hero, the usual viewpoint character. In most such scenes, the villain should experience success at the end of the scene because that's what's bad for the hero whether he knows it or not; the reader will know it, and that's what counts.

  If you think about this, you will realize that most scenes will still have the classic pattern because most scenes will be in the viewpoint of the story hero. Variations from the norm occur when your story tactics require the bad news for the hero to come in the form of good scene news for the antagonist.

  Or to make it as simple as possible: Always end your scenes to make things worse on the hero —even if it means sometimes altering the usual pattern of scene structure.

  FLASHBACK SCENES

  Flashback scenes are a constant concern of many new writers, if one can judge by the number of questions asked at writers' workshops. A fullfledged flashback scene will occur in the thought portion of the sequel 99 times out of every 100 times one occurs. What happens is that the character, trying to review story events and possible new courses of action, may quite credibly remember some earlier life event which seems to have relevance.

  Again, Appendix 5 takes on added relevance here. It would have been possible for me to work in the character Partek's background in other ways, the introduction of secret documents, for example. But by showing Partek in such emotional straits, I was able to have him remember earlier crucial events in some detail, making them more dramatic for the reader.

  I did not present fully developed scenes, beginning to end, as part of the Partek sequel because sufficient information could be gotten across without going to such lengths in a novel that I knew was already running dangerously long —close to the 90,000-word maximum set for me by the publisher. However, if you have the manuscript space, and the past events have enormous dramatic potential, you may elect to have time flashback more fully in a sequel, and play one or more scenes moment by moment, in the classic form, while time stands still in the present sequel.

  Note, however, that this can be dangerous because the reader will — you hope —get totally wrapped up in the old scene or scenes. When you bring him back to the present time in the sequel, he may be badly jarred by the transition. Also, if you get into the habit of doing this too often, your story is going to bog down in a review of old events, rather than moving forward to new ones.

  Often it is more economical in terms of space, and more effective for the reader, if you can avoid the all-out flashback scene and instead summarize it in the sequel form. This in effect can become a sequel-in-asequel, or merely a lengthy internalization during the thought segment. In either case, holding to sequel structure allows summary as well as interpretation by the viewpoint character, and might be the better way to go.

  It's conceivable that a flashback scene —a short one—could play during a profound internalization during a present-action scene. But this trick probably should be avoided. Your reader may have a hard time believing that "time stood still" long enough in the present scene to allow a flashback scene —with its own moment-by-moment development. And if you do this anyway, what do you do with the sequel that should logically follow the scene you just presented in flashback? Where does it end? Again, summary of the character's thoughts and feelings about the old scene, with the briefest description of its course, is an infinitely safer way to go.

  This brings us logically to scene fragmentation. For often you see only a fragment of a scene —sometimes as little as a single, vital dialogue exchange—inside a present scene internalization or in the thought portion of a sequel.

  Suppose, for example, you are in the middle of a scene in which your hero is trying to dissuade a friend from bungee-jumping from a bridge. A portion of the present scene might benefit from a scene fragment out of the past like the following. We're in the middle of an ongoing scene.

  "Don't do it, Bill!" Richard pleaded.

  Bill grinned and continued to strap himself into the bungee harness.

  "Don't be ridiculous. People do this every day. What can go wrong?"

  Richard froze. The words ripped him out of the present time and back to that high, windy mountainside five years earlier. Then it had been Gina on the ramp, tying herself into the hang glider.

  "Gina, please don't do this."

  Gina laughed at him. The strong, gusty wind tossed her dark hair. She had never looked more beautiful. "Just because you're a big scaredy-cat, darling, don't expect me to be one."

  "It's too gusty today!"

  She pointed out over the abyss to the soaring hang glider that had just launched. "Does it look like she's having any trouble? You're just being silly. What can go wrong?"

  Then she had launched, and the wind had tipped her wings almost instantly, and she had fallen like a bird shot out of the sky.

  Now here was Bill, taking a similar risk, using the identical words: "What can go wrong?"

  The hope in all such cases where you use a scene fragment is that thrusting the reader directly back to the pivotal moment in earlier time will intensify his understanding of the character's present strong emotion or motivation, or both. It's a good device if not overdone because it does so show exactly why the character is presently so deeply involved.

  ALL-DIALOGUE SCENES

  So-called all-dialogue scenes are very common in today's fiction, and as a matter of fact nearly all the scene examples used in this book have imagined scenes in which the conflict was played out primarily in dialogue. The point to be made, however, is that so-called all-dialogue scenes must have elements other than dialogue in them to make them credible to the reader.

  Obviously they must have attributions —she said's and he said's liberally sprinkled through the copy to help the reader keep straight on who is saying what. But in addition, the all-dialogue scene will probably have some internalization in it, and it will also have a certain amount of description as well as some character movement or stage action.

  In keeping the reader reminded where the viewpoint is, you will use constructions such as "he saw" and "she heard," as discussed earlier in the book. Such statements throughout an all-dialogue scene will also necessarily inject some description of the scene setting, but most importantly the changes that take place in the opposing character's face. Some such descriptions can also show observation of the stage actions going on, like this:

  Joe saw Adam's jaw tighten with anger, and then watched as the big man got up from his desk, started to speak, clenched hisjaw as he apparently thought better of it, and then walked to the far side of the office. . . .

  Such observations are vital to what is often called the all-dialogue scene. Without them, the dialogue itself can quickly become abstract: The reader not only forgets who is saying what to whom, but he also loses his ability to visualize what's going on. It's a paradox, but the all-dialogue scene sometimes takes greater care in description and viewpoint reinforcement than does a more action-oriented one. That's because it's absolutely necessary, but the fast flow of stimulus-and-response dialogue leaves you the author little space or time to work in just the right small amount.

  In similar fashion, there are scenes which are all action in terms of the play
ing out of the conflict. The classic car chase is a good example wherein the viewpoint character is either chasing or being chased by another car, and he's quite alone, and dialogue is impossible. A high percentage of such an action scene is pure stimulus and response. But, as in the all-dialogue scene, continued dependence on nothing but one method of getting the point across can lose the reader; he needs something to tell him for sure what's at stake and how things are going.

  How can this be accomplished? I'm sure you've already thought of the mechanism which provides the solution. A chase, say, or physical fight of some kind will be replete with give-and-take, many strong stimuli as the opponents battle. Thus it's a natural situation for internalizations to take place in response to some of the bad stimuli. It is in these brief internalizations that the viewpoint character must keep the reader oriented by giving his interpretation of how things are going, what his options appear to be, and what he must try next. Thus internalizations—brief as they must be to be credible in an action scene—repeat the scene goal, show secondary goals as they may develop, and show the viewpoint character's idea of how things are going, and how he feels about it.

  You might wish to study examples of published fiction involving scenes that are "all action." Dip into any of Jack Higgins's novels, for example, or most westerns. Paperback war novels also tend to stress action above everything else. It may surprise you as you read such authors to see how often the author has dipped into the character's mind for the purpose of keeping the reader oriented and understanding the scene's progression of events.

  The maneuver scene against an unseen opponent usually takes place in action-adventure fiction. It's very similar to the all-action scene just described, the difference obviously being that there can't be the same kind of give-and-take because the opponent is invisible.