The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes - Jack M. Bickham [32]
In a dialogue scene (the most common kind), the maneuvers are verbal. In an action scene, the maneuvers might involve a destroyer crisscrossing over a submarine, trying to hit it with depth charges. In any case, one goal-motivated entity tries something; the other parries and tries something else; the first entity responds with still another stab. And so on, back and forth, no summary, following the rules of stimulus and response.
While this struggle takes place, the readers are bound to worry. While they might worry about a lot of things, the main thing they'll worry about is the scene question.
What's the scene question? It's the inversion of the stated scene goal.
Here's what I mean. If you start a scene by having the destroyer commander say, "We have to sink that sub!" Readers will turn the goal statement into a scene question: "Will they sink the sub?"—and worry about it. If you start your scene with the young woman saying, "Mr. Jones, I have come to ask you for a job," your readers will turn that stated goal into a question, and worry whether the heroine will get the job she wants. Readers are willing to worry about virtually any scene goal, as long as you make clear to them that the goal is vital to the character's story quest.
To put this another way: If the stated scene goal is clearly relevant to the character's story goal, it will be vital to that character's happiness and the outcome of the story. If the scene goal is relevant in this way, readers will see how important the outcome of the scene is going to be and will worry about it.
The conflict portion of the scene draws readers out through a moment-by-moment drama, extending the scene suspense with pleasurable agony.
At some point, of course—after two or six or a dozen pages—the scene must come to an end. If your readers are to feel satisfied, the scene has to end in some dramatic way. Therefore, it can't just stop; it has to provide some new twist or movement for the story.
In addition, the ending of every scene has to be logical; it can't cheat the readers. They have eagerly read the scene, worrying about a question. So to play fair with them, the conclusion of your scene has to answer the question posed by the goal in the first place.
So if the question was whether the destroyer would sink the sub, the end of the scene has to answer that question. If the question was whether the woman would get the job, the end of the scene has to tell whether she did or didn't get the job.
To maintain reader tension, however—which you always want to do—you should seldom provide a happy answer to the scene question. Ideally, to keep readers involved and worried, the scene should answer the question with a bad development.
We call this kind of scene ending a disaster.
How do you create disaster? Whatever your viewpoint character wants, he must not get it at the end of the scene. For if he does, he has suddenly become happy... story tension relaxes... the reader goes to sleep... and your story has failed.
So, again turning to the example about the destroyer, the captain must not clearly see that he has without doubt sunk the submarine. To the question, "Will the destroyer sink the sub?" the answer must not be a simple and unqualified yes. The submarine must escape, or shoot a torpedo through the destroyer before itself sinking, or manage to radio for help. Or possibly the submarine can be sunk, but debris proves it was a friendly sub.
Such dynamic bad news keeps the story rolling forward.
Any time you start to write a scene, you should go through the following process:
1. Decide specifically what main character's immediate goal is.
2. Get this written down clearly in the copy.
3. On a separate note somewhere, write down for yourself, clearly and briefly, what the scene question is. Word this question so it can be answered "yes" or "no."
4. In your story, after the goal has been shown, bring in another character who now states, just as clearly, his opposition.
5. Plan all the