The Steve Laube Agency

In the last post, we looked at the purpose of a scene. We learned that a scene should:

• earn its place
• move the story forward
• reveal character
• increase tension
• change the reader’s understanding
• or set up and pay off something important.

So, how do we make that happen?

Before revising a scene, ask yourself these three basic questions:

What does the character want?
What stands in the way?
What changes by the end?

If you can answer those questions, your scene probably has direction. If you can’t, the scene may have issues.

Let’s look at the first question. It’s fairly simple, right?

What does the character want?

Your character may want to escape a burning building, find a missing child, get a confession, hide a secret, avoid an argument, make a phone call, or survive dinner with her mother.

A scene becomes stronger when the reader understands what the point-of-view character is trying to accomplish. Even if the character doesn’t fully understand her own deeper need, she should want something in that moment.

Without a goal, a scene often becomes a collection of conversations, description, memory, and movement. Things may happen, but the scene lacks drive. And if you have a bunch of those, an editor is liable to label your story episodic.

The second question is:

What stands in the way?

This is where tension comes in. The conflict.

The obstacle may be external: a locked door, a storm, a villain, a deadline, a missing file, a suspicious police officer, a flat tire.

It may be relational: a friend who won’t tell the truth, a love interest who asks the wrong question, a parent who refuses to listen.

It may be internal: fear, pride, grief, guilt, doubt, or the lie the character believes.

Often, the best scenes have more than one obstacle. For example:

• The heroine needs information from the detective, but she doesn’t trust him.
• The hero needs to apologize, but admitting fault may cost him something he can’t afford to lose.
• The witness to the murder wants protection, but telling the truth may put someone else in danger.

The third question is:

What changes by the end?

This may be the most important question.

A scene should not end with everyone emotionally and practically in the same place they were at the beginning. Something should change, such as:

• The character learns new information.
• A relationship warms or splinters.
• The danger increases.
• A choice is made.
• A secret is exposed.
• A plan fails.
• A fear becomes harder to ignore.
• A lie begins to be revealed.

You get the idea. Whatever the case, the change can be small, but it should matter.

Here’s an example:

A woman goes to her brother’s house to ask for help.

Okay, that’s a start, but it needs shape, right? Let’s go to our three questions.

What does she want? She wants him to loan her money.
What stands in the way? He knows she lied about why she needs it.
What changes? He refuses the money but gives her a key to their late father’s storage unit and tells her she can start cleaning that out because he’s tired of paying the monthly payment. He’ll give her some money if she’ll do the work. She agrees and, in the process, finds something she was never meant to see.

Now the scene has movement, tension, and change.

These three questions are not a formula meant to flatten or disrupt your creativity. They’re a diagnostic tool. They help you see whether a scene has a reason to stay in your story.

Next time, we’ll look at why some scenes still feel flat—even when they’re technically well written.

Take a look at your scenes and let me know if these three questions helped you spot something you needed to change—or delete.

 

Leave a Comment