Last week, we talked about transition scenes. We talked about how the resolution of one event takes us to a linking point that takes us further into the story. We talked about how, without transition scenes to link them, moments in time appear random, as if they don’t go together. They push the plot forward. Action, transition, action, transition—this is pacing.
But how do we recognize when a moment of action has true dramatic potential? We try to inject action and emotion into our scenes, but some dramatic events don’t advance the story.
- How do we recognize when an action scene is not crucial, not central to the overall plot arc?
I find that my writing group is essential in helping me eliminate the scenes that don’t move the plot forward, even though they might be engaging stories within the story.
It’s easy to be so attached to a particular scene that we don’t notice that it’s a side quest to nowhere.
If that happens to you, don’t throw it out! Save it in a file labeled “outtakes,” and with a few minor changes, you can reuse that idea elsewhere. A side quest might slow down the pacing of one story. But that quest, with different characters and places, could be the seed of an entirely different story.
Recognizing where the real drama begins is tricky. Let’s have a look at the novel Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt (pen name of the late Dame Antonia Susan Duffy DBE), winner of the 1990 Booker Prize.
The story details two complex relationships viewed across time. The modern relationship begins in an unexpected way. The novel opens in a library, a place of silence and solitude where one would think the only opportunity for drama is within the pages of the tomes lining the shelves.
But Byatt saw the potential for real drama in that quiet, dusty place. Her protagonist, Roland Michell, a scholar and professional man of high morals, commits a crime. There isn’t anything exciting about a professor sitting in a library and researching the lives of dead poets—that is, until he pockets the original drafts of letters he has come across in his research.
A person unfamiliar with academic research might not understand how such a small, seemingly inconsequential theft could possibly have a dire outcome.
- This is the moment that has the potential of ruining his career, destroying everything he has worked for.
- The consequences of this act hang over him to the end.
About the book, via Wikipedia:
The novel follows two modern-day academics as they research the paper trail around the previously unknown love life between famous fictional poets Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte. Possession is set both in the present day and the Victorian era, contrasting the two time periods, as well as echoing similarities and satirizing modern academia and mating rituals. The structure of the novel incorporates many different styles, including fictional diary entries, letters and poetry, and uses these styles and other devices to explore the postmodern concerns of the authority of textual narratives. The title Possession highlights many of the major themes in the novel: questions of ownership and independence between lovers; the practice of collecting historically significant cultural artifacts; and the possession that biographers feel toward their subjects.
AS. Byatt, in part, wrote Possession in response to John Fowles‘ novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman(1969). In an essay in Byatt’s nonfiction book, On Histories and Stories, she wrote:
“Fowles has said that the nineteenth-century narrator was assuming the omniscience of a god. I think rather the opposite is the case—this kind of fictive narrator can creep closer to the feelings and inner life of characters—as well as providing a Greek chorus—than any first-person mimicry. In ‘Possession’ I used this kind of narrator deliberately three times in the historical narrative—always to tell what the historians and biographers of my fiction never discovered, always to heighten the reader’s imaginative entry into the world of the text.” [1]
So, Byatt changes narrative point of view in this tale when necessary, as a means to better explore an aspect of the story. That is a neat trick, if done right, which she does. (Done wrong, it has the potential of adding chaos to the narrative.)
I admire the audacity of having Michell, a protagonist who considers his professional reputation as his most prized possession, commit such a catastrophic action as stealing those original letters. It proves there is potential for drama in the least likely places.
I have been known to spend months writing the wrong story.
Instead of following the original outline, I took the plot off on a tangent and wrote myself into a corner. Then, once I admitted to myself that there was no rescuing it, I moved on to something else.
Most writers don’t see where they’ve gone awry until someone else points it out, or they step away from it for a while.
Once I give up and set a work that is stalled aside for a month or two, these things are easier to see. In the case of one novel, I cut it back to the 20,000-word mark and made a new, more logical outline. Writing went well after that, and so far, I’m getting good, useable feedback.
Creators see their work the way parents see their children. We tend to think every scene is golden. Unfortunately, some events I might believe are necessary—aren’t.
In reality, they lead the story nowhere.
courtesy Office 360 graphics
But I love my children, even the unruly ones. Nothing is a waste of time, and those scenes become the basis of novellas and short stories.
The ability to recognize the potential for a crucial dramatic moment is a matter of perspective. It is the ability to see the story arc as a whole before it is fully formed.
It is also the knack of knowing what kind of drama the story needs and where it should fit within the plot arc.
Credits and Attributions:
[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Possession (Byatt novel),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Possession_(Byatt_novel)&oldid=1189753614 (accessed March 19, 2024).
I’m not a Romance writer, but I do write about relationships. Readers expecting a standard romance would be disappointed in my work which is solidly fantasy. The people in my tales fall in love, and while they don’t always have a happily ever after, most do. The other aspect that would disappoint a Romance reader is the shortage of smut.
In his book 
When a beta reader tells me the relationship seems forced, I go back to the basics and make an outline of how that relationship should progress from page one through each chapter. I make a detailed note of what their status should be at the end. This gives me jumping-off points so that I don’t suffer from brain freeze when trying to show the scenes.
I think our characters have to be a little clueless about Romance, even if they are older. They need to doubt, need to worry. They need to fear they don’t have a chance, either to complete their quest or to find love.
But the scenes themselves are pictures within the larger picture of the story arc. Think of the story arc as a blank wall. We place the scenes on that blank wall in the order we want them, but without transition scenes, these moments in time appear random, as if they don’t go together.
Our bookend scenes are not empty words. They should reveal something and push us toward something unknown. They lay the groundwork for what comes next.
One of my favorite authors sometimes has chapters of only five or six hundred words, keeping each character thread separate and flowing well. A hard scene break with a new chapter is my preferred way to end a nice, satisfying fade-to-black.
The second draft is where the real work begins. I set the first draft aside for several weeks and then go back to it. I look at my outline to make sure the events fall in the proper order. At that point, I can see how to write the transitions to ensure each scene flows naturally into the next.
In a novel or story, each scene occurs within the framework of the environment.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 