When I am reading, I become invested in the characters and their problems. The authors I like best use the environment to highlight the characters’ moods and darken or lighten the atmosphere. Their worldbuilding conveys a perception of drama with minimal exposition.
In a novel or story, each scene occurs within the framework of the environment.
I think of the written narrative as a camera and visualize my narrative as a movie. The challenge of writing for me is discovering how to best use the set dressing to underscore the drama.
Scene framing is a necessary skill for writers of all stripes. Directors will tell you they focus the scenery so it frames the action. Their intent is that viewer’s attention is drawn to the subtext the director wants to convey.
An example of how this works in literature is one I’ve used before, a pivotal scene from Anne McCaffrey’s 1988 novel Dragonsdawn.
The Dragonriders of Pern series is considered science fiction because McCaffrey made clear at the outset that the star (Rukbat) and its planetary system had been colonized two millennia before, and the protagonists were their descendants.
Some elements of the narrative are considered fantasy because they feature dragons and telepathy.
The early novels detail the gradual rediscovery of lost technology and the revelation of their forgotten history. The stand-alone novel I’m discussing today, Dragonsdawn, is a how-it-all-began novel, and it reinforces the science fiction nature of the series.
- It explains the science behind McCaffrey’s dragons and why they were genetically engineered to be what they are.
The story follows several POV characters, giving us a comprehensive view of the colony’s successes and failures. For the first ten years, the planet Pern seemed a paradise to its new colonists, who were seeking to return to a less technologically centered, agrarian-based way of life. They believe Pern is the place where they can leave their recent wars and troubles behind.
A decade after arriving on the planet, however, a new threat appears. It is a deadly, unstoppable spore that periodically rains from the skies in the form of a silvery Thread that mindlessly devours every carbon-based thing it touches.
The scenes we are looking at today have two distinct environments to frame them. In both settings, the surroundings do the dramatic heavy lifting. This chapter is filled with emotion, high stakes, and rising dread for the sure and inevitable tragedy that we hope will be averted.
- While there is high drama in Sallah Telgar‘s direct interaction with Avril Bitra, the visuals and sensory elements of each environment reinforce the perception of impending doom.
The story at this point: We are at the halfway point of the book. Before the advent of Thread, Avril disappeared, gathering resources and intending to leave the planet with as much treasure as she can carry. She has been pretty much forgotten by the others but has an agenda and refuses to be thwarted.
In the first scene of this chapter, we are focused on Sallah, one of our protagonists. We see her leaving her children at the daycare. Such a common, ordinary thing, dropping off your children on your way to work.
The focus zooms out, and we see Kenjo, the pilot, putting the last of the precious fuel into the only working shuttle, the Mariposa. This shuttle has been refitted for one last science expedition: to discover the source of the deadly Threads. He is to retrieve a sample, knowing that if this mission fails, there will be no other.
The focus returns to Sallah, who observes a woman she recognizes as Avril Bitra slipping through the abandoned shuttles on the landing grid.
Sallah wonders what Avril is up to. The view widens again as we see Avril following the pilot, Kenjo, who vanishes. We then see her entering the Mariposa alone.
Sallah makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to follow Avril to see what she’s up to. This plot point is an example of a point of no return, which we discussed last week,
Here is where the sparse visual mentions of the environment become crucial as they emphasize the stark reality of Sallah’s situation.
Sallah enters the shuttle just as the airlock door closes, catching and crushing her heel. She manages to pull it out so that she isn’t trapped, but she is severely injured.
Later, the dark, abandoned interior of the Yokohama reinforces Sallah’s gut-wrenching realization that her five children will grow up without a mother.
Something we haven’t talked about is subtext.
Subtext is what lies below the surface. It is the hidden story, the hints and allegations, the secret reasoning we infer from the narrative. It’s conveyed by the images we place in the environment and how the setting influences our perception of the mood and atmosphere.
Subtext supports the dialogue and gives purpose to the personal events.
Scene framing is the way we stage the people and visual objects. What furnishings, sounds, and odors are the visual necessities for that scene?
Whatever you mention of the environment focuses the reader’s attention when the characters enter the frame.
- In this chapter of Dragonsdawn, we see the junk and scrap on the grid and the decaying shuttles.
- Two shuttles have been dismantled and parted out. Their components are crucial in keeping the few cargo sleds that have been converted to Thread-fighting gunships in working order.
- Only one shuttle remains in usable condition.
- On the Yokohama, it is dark and frigid, and the interior has been partially gutted. Anything that could be carried away has been taken to the ground and repurposed.
Sensory details are vital, showing how the environment affects or is affected by the characters.
- Conversely, not mentioning the scenery during a conversation brings the camera in for a close-up, focusing solely on the speaker or thinker.
A balance must be struck in how your characters are framed in each scene. We flow from wide-angle, seeing Salla floating in freefall, blood pooling in her boot. The camera moves in, a close-up showing Avril’s rage at the fact that she can’t control the course of the Mariposa, which is programmed to dock at the Yokohama.
We are there when Avril taunts Sallah for her matronly body. A feeling of helplessness comes over us as Avril ties a cord to Sallah’s crushed foot and forces her to make the navigational calculations for Avril’s escape. The camera moves in, and we hear the interaction.
Sallah pretends to do as Avril asks. But really, she sets her enemy’s doom in action. The camera moves to the wider view again, seeing her at the controls in the dark, using the last of her energy. Worst of all, we know she is dying, and she understands there is no rescue for her.
- We hear the interaction with her frantic husband on the ground.
This is an incredibly emotional scene: we are caught up in her determination to seize this only chance, using her last breaths to get the information about the thread spores to the scientists on the ground.
We learn how to write from reading the masters. We learn by observing how others use the setting to support and reinforce the subtext of the conversations and events.
Scene framing is a cornerstone of worldbuilding, and when it is done right, it can make a scene feel powerful.
Next up: Transitions
So, let’s take a look at theme, the thread that binds emotions and points of no return together. It’s time to take another look at how 
Saunders gives us the character of Ray Abnesti, a scientist developing pharmaceuticals and using convicted felons as guinea pigs as part of the justice system. The wider world has forgotten about those whose crimes deserve punishment, whose fate goes unknown and unlamented.
Then there is the theme of compassion. Abnesti explores love vs. lust for his own amusement. The different drugs Jeff is given prove that both are illusionary and fleeting. Yet Saunders implies that the truth of love is compassion. Jeff’s final action shows us that he is a man of compassion.
A common theme in science fiction is the use of drugs to alter people’s behavior and control them emotionally. That theme is explored in detail here, ostensibly as a means to do away with prisons and reform prisoners. But really, these experiments are for Abnesti, a psychopath, to exercise his passion for the perverse and inhumane and for him to have power over the helpless.
This short story was as powerful as any novel I’ve ever read, proving that a good story stays with the reader long after the final words have been read, no matter the length. His questions resonate, asking us to think about our true motives.
But what happens when a few insignificant cracks appear in that construction? What is the point of no return for the people living downstream?
We must identify this plot point, and by mentioning it in passing, we make it subtly clear to the reader that this moment in time will have far-reaching consequences. Knowing something might be wrong and seeing the workers unaware of a problem ratchets up the tension.
Nick Carraway, the 
Fitzgerald is deliberately unclear if this act is deliberate or accidental—the murkiness of Daisy’s intent and the chaos of that incident lend an atmosphere of uncertainty to the narrative. If Nick had turned back at any of the above-listed points, Daisy wouldn’t have been driving Gatsby’s yellow Rolls Royce and wouldn’t have killed Myrtle in a hit-and-run accident.
When I am writing a first draft, the crucial turning points don’t always make themselves apparent. It’s only when I have begun revisions that I see the opportunities for mayhem that my subconscious mind has embedded in the narrative.
Artist: Anders Zorn (1860–1920)
Then, there’s hunting down and killing the trash and recycling so that we don’t live in a slum, alongside the unlovely side-quest for a clean bathroom. I do these tasks, but they don’t “bring me joy.” I do them so I can get to the good stuff, the best part of the day—which is writing.
Motivations drive emotions, and emotions drive the plot. People have reasons for their actions, and I needed to give my bad guy a good one. Now I know why he must go there.
Sometimes, the story demands a death, and 99% of the time, it can’t be the protagonist. But death must mean something, wring emotion from us as we write it. Since the characters we have invested most of our time into are the antagonist and protagonist, we must allow a beloved side character to die.
Motivations add fuel to emotions. Emotions drive the scene forward.
Characters aren’t fully formed when you first lay pen to paper. They evolve as you go, growing out of the experiences you write for them. Sometimes, these changes take the story in an entirely different direction than was planned, which involves a great deal of rewriting. It helps me remain consistent if I note those changes on my outline because then I don’t forget them.
I highly recommend the 
At any gathering of authors, a determined group will proclaim that thoughts should not be italicized under any circumstances. While I disagree with that view, I do see their point.
In a good story, bad things have happened, pushing the characters out of their comfortable rut. They must become creative and work hard to acquire or accomplish their desired goals.
Artist: Jakub Schikaneder (1855–1924)
Mood is long-term, a feeling residing in the background, going almost unnoticed. Mood shapes (and is shaped by) the emotions evoked within the story.
Robert McKee tells us that emotion is the experience of transition, of the characters moving between a state of positivity and negativity. 
These visuals can easily be shown. Grief manifests in many ways and can become a thread running through the entire narrative. That theme of intense, subliminal emotion is the underlying mood and it shapes the story:
This is part of the inferential layer, as the audience must infer (deduce) the experience. You can’t tell a reader how to feel. They must experience and understand (infer) what drives the character on a human level.
As we read, the atmosphere that is shown within the pages colors and intensifies our emotions, and at that point, they feel organic. Think about a genuinely gothic tale: the mood and atmosphere 
However, there is an accessible viewpoint just at the entrance, and we can go there and just absorb the peace. Several years ago, I shot this photo from that platform.
Action and interaction – we know how the surface of a pond is affected by the breeze that stirs it. In the case of our novel, the breeze that stirs things up is made of motion and emotion. These two elements shape and affect the structural events that form the plot arc.
So, how can we use the surface elements to convey a message or to poke fun at a social norm? In other words, how can we get our books banned in some parts of this fractured world?
Creating depth in our story requires thought and rewriting. The first draft of our novel gives us the surface, the world that is the backdrop.
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 