Scene Craft by Naomi Hughes

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Today, let’s chat about the most common problems I see at the next stage of editing: scene craft!

Scene craft is something that you can definitely build into your manuscript from draft 1. It’s all about keeping the reader riveted at the scene-by-scene level, even if nothing Big is happening. After the big developmental issues are taken care of, the next round of editing (at least for me) focuses on the story at a more granular level: scenes. Does each scene push at least one element of the plot forward? Can any be combined for greater effect? Cut entirely?

The number-one most common problem I see at the scene level is the unnecessary prologue. Types include:

• bait-and-switch,
• start in Evil Guy’s POV,
• de-escalation,
• misrepresentation, and
• backstory frontload.

Bait-and-switch prologues start out w/ someone who’s NOT a main POV character. We either like them & are then disappointed when they vanish, or we don’t vibe with them and stop reading immediately b/c we don’t want to spend a book with them.

As for prologues that start out in the bad guy’s POV…I usually recommend against them. They tend to be a somewhat lazy characterization shortcut (see, Evil Dude is doing evil things! He’s the villain!), and also a bad 1st impression & turnoff for readers.

De-escalation prologues start with BIG ACTION/EVERYONE’S DYING OMG, and then chapter 1 is all “let me take you back to six months ago, when life was totally normal.” This tends to feel gimmicky & can annoy readers, & usually de-escalates tension rather than building it.

Backstory frontload (& world-building frontload in SFF) commonly happens in prologues but can also happen in the early chapters of any story. We don’t need to know everything about characters & the world to invest in the right-now conflict. Alternatives to frontloading your manuscript w/ backstory or world-building: salt it in at points where it can have an immediate effect on some right-now conflict, or at least help set a relevant tone for the scene at hand. This keeps your story from getting bogged down w/ info. Ex: instead of devoting a prologue to the night the curse was laid 16 years ago, start w/ your MC dealing with its aftermath present-day. Running late, he chops through a maze of briars. This curse isn’t only evil, it’s also annoying, he thinks. Salt in a sentence of backstory.

Problem 2 I see most often at the scene level: scenes that don’t change anything. These are stagnant. Neither the main conflict nor any of the subplots (including character growth) evolve in them. Every scene needs to change at least one important story arc, for better or worse.

Problem 3 I see at the scene level: “and thens.” One of my favorite rules of writing says each scene should connect to the next w/ either “but” or “therefore,” NOT “and then.” This will provide a strong chain of cause-&-effect/action-&-consequence, not disconnected events. The but/therefore rule made my own writing SO MUCH better. It’ll tighten your pacing, build tension, keep the reader hooked.

Here’s a link where its creators (the South Park writers) talk about it: The Importance of “Therefore” and “But”: Writing Advice from South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone

Problem 4 at the scene level: the POV character has no goal. Sometimes they’re even just observing and narrating, contributing no action (of whatever sort) of their own. That’s disengaging for readers. In most cases, the POV character should always have some sort of goal in each scene. Get information, sneak somewhere, etc. I talk a lot about characters needing to have agency for the big-picture story, but they need it at the small-scale level too. If your story has multiple POVs and you’re having a tough time deciding who should be the POV for which scene, a good rule of thumb is that whoever has the most at stake in that scene or is changed the most by it should be its narrator.

Last problem I see most frequently at the scene level: weak or nonexistent hooks. Hooks are events, lines of interiority, dialogue, plot twists, reminders of dangling story questions, just about anything you put at the very end of a scene/chapter to push readers to keep reading. Hooks can be a HUGE tool to make your story feel addictive and un-put-downable. Used wrong, or if you use the exact same kind too frequently, or get too gimmicky (ie, arbitrary or quickly-resolved plot twists), they can work against you though.

That’s it for today, but if you want to dig more deeply into scene craft, here’s an advice thread I did on that a while back: Naomi Hughes Thread on Scene Craft