Narrative Setting: How To Build A World

"You create a story world to express and manifest your characters, especially your hero." John Truby, The Anatomy of Story

John Truby, in The Anatomy of Story, writes: "creating a unique world for the story--and organically connecting it to the characters--is as essential to great storytelling as character, plot, theme, and dialogue."

When I read that passage I knew I couldn't close out my series on narrative setting without talking about how Truby constructs a story world, a narrative setting, one designed specifically for his characters. Truby talks the reader through how to create a story world that characters not only 'hook' into, but which complements the hero's journey and gives it meaning.

Truby writes (and this is something he emphasizes all through "The Anatomy of Story"): just as the interrelations between the characters--especially the protagonist--give meaning to the whole, so it is for settings.

Truby writes: 

"... in good stories, the characters come first, and the writer designs the world to be an infinitely detailed manifestation of those characters."

"The process of translating the story line into a physical story world, which then elicits certain emotions in the audience, is a difficult one. That's because you are really speaking two languages—one of words, the other of images—and matching them exactly over the course of the story."

Here is John Truby's advice for creating a story world rich in meaning:

1. Create The Story Space

1a. Use the story's designing principle to draw the boundaries of your story world.

Begin with the story's designing principle "since this is what holds everything together." The designing principle will tell you where to draw the boundaries, what shape the world should be, what kind of world it should be.

1b. Divide the story world into visual oppositions.

Divide the story world we delineated in step one into "visual oppositions" based on how your characters oppose one another.

2. Three types of setting.

Truby advises us to "detail the world using ... natural settings, artificial spaces, and technology."

3. Connect the story world to the hero's overall development.

When I read this part of Truby's book I knew I had to share this information on my blog. This point is really why I'm doing this post, we're going through steps 1 and 2 because they're prerequisites to get here.

SO. Let's take this one step at a time.

1. Creating The Story Space

1a. Use the story's designing principle to find the boundaries of your story world. 

First, let's quickly discuss the designing principle. This is one of the core concepts of Truby's "The Anatomy of Story" so I'm not going to be able to do it justice here. 

Truby writes:

"The designing principle is what organizes the story as a whole. It is the internal logic of the story, what makes the parts hang together organically so that the story becomes greater than the sum of its parts."

Think of the designing principle as the seed, the idea seed, the nucleus, that a story grows from. Here's one of Truby's examples:

Tootsie:

Designing principle: "Force a male chauvinist to live as a woman."

(Note: Truby also talks about the premise but I'm not going to cover this concept here.)

Finding the boundaries.

What we want to do is develop a one line description of our setting, something that will tie it into the designing principle of our story.

Here's an example from the movie, "Four Weddings and a Funeral":

Designing principle: "A group of friends experiences four Utopias (weddings) and a moment in hell (funeral) as they all look for their right partner in marriage."

Story World: "The Utopian world and rituals of weddings."

John Truby gives many more examples in his book, and I should mention that I'm leaving out an enormous amount of material--the story premise, theme line, and so on.

Anyway, after you write down the designing principle you're equipped to delineate the extent of the story world, to clearly establish its physical boundaries.

Truby writes that the story "arena is the basic space of drama. It is a single, unified place surrounded by some kind of wall. Everything inside the arena is part of the story. Everything outside the arena is not."

Truby goes on to say there are four main ways of creating a story arena that possess enough "variety of place and action" to sustain the events of any story.

i. The Spotted Umbrella

Think of a medieval town surrounded by thick walls. Many inhabitants of the town could have a general overall knowledge of the town and how it's laid out, its various areas, and so on, though a particular individual might spend most of their time in only a few of its many environs.

For example, when I watched the movie "Aliens" I had a general sense of the planet but Ripley only travelled to a few places on its surface. In terms of my analogy, those are the spots within the umbrella.

ii. The Straight Line

This is the basic layout of a journey story.

One of the challenges of writing a cohesive journey story is making all the different areas seem connected. 

What one usually doesn't want is for the reader to feel as though each location is a different story. You want them to feel it's all part of one unified tale.

One way to create "the sense of a single area" is for the terrain the hero travels through to remain fundamentally the same.

For instance, a hero might travel to several different villages located along the same river. Or the hero might travel to several locations in the same desert or country.

Truby gives the movie "Titanic" as an example of a story where the hero travels in a straight line.

iii. The Circle

This approach has much in common with the previous one, with the exception that, at the end, the hero returns home. Truby's example: "The Wizard of Oz."

iv. Fish Out Of Water

The fish out of water story generally utilizes two different worlds.

In one world, the first, the hero is seen to have certain talents (or weaknesses). Then the hero is unceremoniously tossed into a second world--one where the rules are markedly different--and those same talents (or weaknesses) are shown.

Often, whatever the hero did well in one world he will be completely incompetent at in the other. 

Of course, the two worlds aren't necessarily different physical places. Something could happen to so completely alter the social environment of the hero that the change is just as profound as a change of place. For instance, the hero's five older siblings die in a tragic accident and so he goes from completely ignored to being continually doted on.

Truby's examples: "Beverly Hills Cop," "Crocodile Dundee."

Note: Truby writes: "What holds them [the separate locations] together is that the hero uses the same talents in both places ..."

Truby's tip: Don't stay too long in the first area. Truby doesn't like talking about acts, but I'd say, in a three act story, be sure to take the hero into the second world--the special world of the adventure--at the beginning of the second act.

1b. Divide the story world into visual oppositions.

Ask yourself: 

What are the oppositions between my characters? 

What values do they hold?

How do your characters fight each other?

How do their values conflict?

As you ask and answer these questions think about how these oppositions could be symbolized or represented visually.

Truby advises writers to attempt to produce three or four critical, visual, oppositions.

Truby uses the example of "King Kong." The opposition is, in part, between "Carl Denham, and the giant prehistoric beast, Kong. So the main opposition within the story world is the island of New York, the man-made and overly civilized but extremely harsh world where image-maker Denham is "king," versus Skull Island, the extremely harsh state of nature where Kong, master of physical force, is king."

Nice!

2. Three types of setting.

There are three main kinds of settings:

a. Natural settings

b. Man-made settings

c. Tools/Technology

a. Natural settings

i. The ocean.

An ocean has two parts: the surface and the deep, dark, depths.

The surface:

The surface of the ocean gives us a sense of contest, a sense of "a game of life and death played out on the grandest scale."

The deep places: 

- A weightless dream world.

- A terrifying graveyard.

In the deep places sea creatures reach up to grab those on the surface and drag them down to their death in the murky depths.

Also, when I think of the deep places of the ocean, it occurs to me that often bodies of water are used to symbolize the unconscious mind and the creatures/complexes it harbours.

ii. The forest.

The forest is a natural cathedral. "It is the place where contemplative people go and to which lovers sneak away."

The forest is also where children get lost and witches live. There may also be a ghost or two and we wouldn't be surprised to see a hunter stalking his prey.

John Truby talks about many other kinds of natural settings: outer space, jungles, desert and ice, islands, mountains (the mountain vs the plain), plains, rivers, weather. But I'll let you read about those in Truby's excellent book. 

b. Man-made settings

Truby writes that each man-made space "is a physical representation, in microcosm, of the hero and the society in which he lives."

I'm only going to go over one of Truby's examples: the house.

The house.

A house encloses a character and "shapes the growth of the person's mind."

Houses are intimate. They are spaces where your character can express himself without fear of ridicule. 

Question: What might your hero reveal about himself in his house that he wouldn't anywhere else?

The opposites.

Safety vs Adventure

Generally, we think of a house as a place of safety. It's a place for you to relax and take refuge in, it's a place for you to enjoy your friends and family. 

No hostile forces are allowed in. 

In this sense, a house is a place of safety.

BUT if the hero remains always in a safe place he will never grow, never achieve anything. He will stagnate. Truby writes that the trick is to use the house as "the strong foundation from which we go out and take on the world."

"Often in stories, the first step of adventure, the longing for it, happens at the window. A character looks through the eyes of a house ..." looks out at the far hills, at the mountaintop or even the jungle, and dreams of what might be, dreams of adventure.

Truby has many other examples, and he talks about various kinds of houses (the warm house, the terrifying house, the cellar versus the attic). Truly, if you have any questions about setting, developing the opposites, how to hook the characters in your story into the landscape/setting, chapter six of "The Anatomy of Story" is definitely worth the read.

3. Connect the story world to the hero's overall development.

THIS--connecting, hooking, the story world (/setting) into the hero's arc, his journey--is really what I've been wanting to talk about. 

We've laid the foundation by formulating our story's designing principle and drawing the boundaries of our world. We've divided this story world into visual oppositions and we've explored the various types of settings (natural, artificial, technology) and how these can help develop the hero's journey.

But since this post is already twice as long as usual, I'll save that for next time.

Good writing!

Photo credit: "almost may" by paul bica under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Michael Connelly And Narrative Setting

Once I begin thinking about something--setting for instance--I'll start to see mention of it everywhere.

Michael Connelly On Setting

For instance, Michael Connelly (he writes, among other things, the fabulous Harry Bosch novels) recently gave an interview to Noah Charney over at The Daily Beast (How I Write: Michael Connelly). Connelly says:

"What has inspired me for going on 40 years is chapter 13 [of Raymond Chandler's book The Little Sister]."

Right there Connelly had me hooked. (Keep in mind this is the first sentence of the interview. Granted, the interviewer arranged the questions, but that's a great first line.) One chapter has inspired Connelly for 40 years.

Anyway, Connelly goes on:

"In that chapter Philip Marlowe, frustrated by the events of the day and the case he's on, takes a ride around Los Angeles. He ruminates a bit on what is going on in his case, but the chapter has little to do with plot, and everything to do with the interplay of character and place."

When I read the above passage I was struck again by the extreme importance and power of the interplay between character and setting (as well as the importance of sequels--but that's a topic for another day). Connelly goes on:

"... he [Chandler] had grabbed the character of place and connected it to the character of his protagonist."

Ah ha!

Yes, while I was reading the article I actually said "ah ha!" and, excited, began scribbling out this blog post. (grin)

What Connelly is talking about here--this is my take on it at least--is setting as character. Also, he highlights the importance of connecting setting (as well as everything else!) back up to the protagonist.

As Dwight V. Swain says, something is significant in a novel to the extent it is significant to the protagonist.

The Neverending Series

I know I said this was going to be the last post in my series about setting but what John Truby says about the subject in his book The Anatomy of Story is just too good not to include.

On Monday I'll talk about creating the, as John Truby puts it, "exterior forms and spaces," of a story. I'll also touch on how these exterior forms are created from, how they are generated by, the essence of the story itself.

Stay tuned!

Photo credit: "Untitled" by Thomas Leuthard under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Narrative Setting: Part Three

Yesterday I mentioned I'd read The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby. 

Well.

Truby has an excellent section on developing your story's setting. Even though I wanted (really really wanted) to finish this series today, I'm going to tack on another article and go into Truby's insights on how to develop a setting that will make any story more engaging. Here's a peek:

Truby writes: 

"To sum up this part of the writing process [developing a setting]: you start with a simple story line (the seven steps) and a set of characters. You then create the exterior forms and spaces that express these story elements, and these forms and spaces have the desired effect in the hearts and minds of your audience."

I'll go into what Truby means by a story line, the seven steps, and so on, in the fourth (and final!) part of this series. (The previous parts can be found here and here.)

Today, though, let's get back on track and talk about how setting can introduce, and increase, story conflict.

3. The setting of a story can be used to introduce, and increase, conflict.

Let's look at what conflict is. Simply stated, I think of conflict as what results when a character's efforts to attain a goal are opposed/frustrated.

Many times what opposes a character's efforts to attain their goal is another character. But the environment can do this as well.

For instance, perhaps your protagonist, Hank, is a teenager and his goal is to win the prestigious Sunnyside Surfing Competition but he can't win unless he trains for it.

Big problem! Hanks family recently moved from the sunny, sandy, beaches of Sunnyside to Montreal ... and it's winter! Hank can't train for the competition so he's sure to lose. 

That sets up a problem, an obstacle Hank must solve, and all because of a change of setting.

Many times I forget to take advantage of opportunities to introduce, or increase, conflict the setting could provide. 

An example of using setting to increase conflict

Have you ever watched Mr. Monk? That show was fabulous at using setting to introduce conflict.

In the third episode of season one, Monk is introduced to the police commissioner--an important person and someone he will have to impress with his detective skills if he is ever to get back on the force, and getting back on the force is Monk's great overriding goal.

Monk's desire: to be on his best behavior, appear normal, and impress the man.

Problem/obstacle/complication: the commissioner has a few crumbs on his jacket.

Conflict: Monk wants to brush the crumbs off but he knows that's not a good idea.

Outcome: Monk can't help himself and brushes the crumbs off anyway.

Here the crumbs were used to provoke an action that not only shows Monk's obsessive-compulsive disorder but it also introduces conflict. 

Here's another example, one you've probably seen countless times in movies and on TV: a waiter stumbles, spilling scalding coffee into the protagonist's lap when he needs to be on his best behavior. How he handles this situation will reveal his/her character and could introduce conflict.

Does he turn it into a joke? Is he gracious? Arrogant? Condescending? If it happens just before a job interview how does he explain the stain to the interviewer? Does it fluster him? Does he shrug it off? Does it make him so distracted he can't complete the interview? Does it make him so angry he makes a terrible impression?

The trick is to always be on the lookout for opportunities to use setting to introduce, or increase, conflict.

Example: How setting can affect mood

Here's another example. Let's say we're writing a horror story. What mood do we wish to evoke in our readers? We wish to horrify them. What evokes horror?

In a sense, fear is acknowledgement of, or recognition of, the imminence of danger.

So, what evokes horror?

- Recognition of the imminence of death. Your death as well as the deaths of those you love.

- Recognition of the imminence of pain.

- Recognition of the imminence of the unknown.

- Recognition of the imminence of disfigurement. (Think of slasher films like Saw. Gorn.)

- Recognition of the imminence of confinement, of imprisonment. Of being at the mercy of an imaginative and well-equipped sadist.

- Recognition of the imminence of disillusionment. The imminence of destructive revelation.

What sort of setting would help communicate these sort of feelings/thoughts to the reader? 

The Dark

The dark hides things. It makes the familiar alien. It manufactures the unknown.

Isolation

The isolation of the hero means no outside help. They are stranded, all alone. If the hero wins and escapes the horrors, they will have to do it relying on only what is within them.

Monster

I think the best monsters--(for me) the scariest--are normal things that have been twisted in some way. I haven't been the same since I watched Pet Sematary! 

Speaking of the twisted, just yesterday, +John Ward sent out a link to this article about creepypasta. Here's an example of twisting a familiar setting to create horror:

‘Daddy, I had a bad dream.’

You blink your eyes and pull up on your elbows. Your clock glows red in the darkness — it’s 3:23. ‘Do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?’

‘No, Daddy.’

The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter’s pale form in the darkness of your room. ‘Why not, sweetie?’

‘Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy’s skin sat up.’

For a moment, you feel paralysed; you can’t take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift.

Gah!

By the way, that's also an excellent use of the seldom used second person POV!

I thought that piece of microfiction nicely illustrated how important setting is to evoking emotion. 

The setting used in the above story is familiar. Intimate. Would the story have the same impact if it was morning, rather than the witching hour, and the exchange took place while the child's parents were busy preparing for work? I don't think so.

Surprise & Disorientation

Surprise and disorientation are used to generate a feeling of horror and, often, setting is instrumental in this. The dark, the isolation, the monster under the bed. Think of the last part of Alien when Sigourney Weaver makes her way to the shuttle, running down the twisting hallways, expecting danger at every turn. For me, it was the most suspenseful part of the movie.

By the way, IMHO, a movie that did a terrific job of using setting to communicate mood, and using both mood and setting to demonstrate character, was Pi.

Okay, that's it for now. Good writing!

Photo credit: "2014-006 blue monday morning" by Robert Couse-Baker under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Narrative Setting: Part Two

This is part two of a three part series about narrative setting. In part one (Narrative Setting) I talked about what setting is. Today, in part two, I'll go over how setting can be used to develop character. In part three I'll focus on how setting can be used to introduce--and increase--conflict.

Before I talk about setting and character, let me tie up a loose end from my Narrative Setting post and talk briefly about how setting can affect the mood of a story.

Setting And Mood

"Mood creates an emotional setting that envelops the reader." 

The key point here is that mood is something that is created in the reader. (Tone, on the other hand, has to do with the voice of the narrator.) Recall that since our goal in telling a story is to evoke certain emotions in the reader, creating the right sort of mood is important.

I'll be talking a bit more about mood in my third post when I discuss examples.

All right! On to the topic of todays blog post: how a good setting helps us develop our characters' character.

Ways In Which Setting Can Be Used To Develop Character

1. Setting is essential to bring the story world to life through the senses: smell, taste, sight, touch, hearing.

2. Setting is essential for situating the character in--not just surroundings--but a society, a culture.

3. The setting of a story can be used to introduce, and increase, conflict.

Let's take these point by point.

1. Setting is essential to bring the world of the story to life through the senses: smell, taste, sight, touch, hearing.

The following is from Dwight V. Swain's excellent book, "Techniques of the Selling Writer":

"... How do you bring a setting to life?

"The answer, of course, lies in the human animal himself. His world is a sensory world—a world of green grass and white houses . . . purring kittens and thundering trucks . . . Chanel No. 5 and curling wood smoke . . . fresh cold orange juice and hot crisp bacon . . . silk’s rich smoothness and the harsh grit of volcanic ash.

"So, you build your story world of these same sensory impressions—the seen, the heard, the smelled, the touched, the tasted. Emphasis is on the vivid image and the impactful figure of speech."

A trick I sometimes use--I suppose it's not really a trick, more like a practise or a habit--is to keep lists of sensory words close at hand and review them periodically. 

Also, if I come across a particularly vivid turn of phrase--for instance, "curling wood smoke"--I write it down. And, as I write, I say it aloud. Picture it. For me, "curling wood smoke," that phrase, gives a certain feeling, it conveys a certain mood. It invokes memories of campfires and long warm nights up at my parents' place. Think how you could describe something else and invoke the same, or a similar, memory/feeling.

Here are a few links to lists of words that evoke the senses:

Smell

Smell, Sound, Taste, Touch

Smell

Smell

Taste

Taste

Describing taste and flavor

150 descriptive words for food

Sound

Words commonly used to describe sounds

Loud and noisy sounds

Sound, Smell, Taste

55 Words to Describe Someone’s Voice

Touch

209 Words To Describe Touch

400 Words To Describe Texture

Words that describe touch and feel (+)

List of Descriptive Words and Adjectives for Touch and Feel

Sight

List of Descriptive Words for Appearance (+)

All

Sense Words

Sensory Words

Sensory Word List

Sensory Words

Sensory Words

Misc

Lists of adjectives

2. Developing a milieu is essential for situating the character in--not just surroundings--but a society, a culture.

I talked a bit about this last time. This advice is from Dwight V. Swain and appears in his book "Creating Characters." He writes:

"Milieu is a word I like. Because while, technically, it’s defined as environment or surroundings, it implies a great deal more.

"Specifically, it captures the feeling not just of setting or landscape, but of a society; a social as well as a physical locale. Growing up in San Francisco implies more than just the Golden Gate, Pacific Park, and Union Square. Life in the Mississippi Delta is one thing; that in a Pennsylvania Amish community, another. And double that in spades for a past in the slums of Juarez, the singles bars of New York’s Upper West Side, or a French convent.

"Such social settings reach out to embrace people as well as geography. They mold the various strata of society that fix standards, for mutually accepted norms and rules are the glue that bonds any group or class together. Shared customs, which clothes are acceptable for which occasions, and how to behave in church or mosque or synagogue are what create a society."

Dwight V. Swain continues on to say that writers must know at least these two things regarding a character in a society:

1. "[...] know the rules and conduct patterns that govern behavior in that particular setting;"

2. "[...] know the degree to which Character follows these rules;"

This presents the writer with three questions:

a) What are the rules of your particular society (or societies)?

b) Does your character know the rules? (Did he grow up in this society or is he a stranger?)

c) Does your character follow the rules?

That's it! Next time we'll finish off this series by looking at how to use setting to increase conflict. 

Update: Here's the link to Narrative Setting: Part Three.

Stay tuned. Good writing!

Photo credit: "2014-009 - dry folsom" by Robert Couse-Baker under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Narrative Setting

I've wanted to write an article about setting for what seems like ages. I've wanted to talk about what setting is and how it can be used to increase character identification and, as a result, narrative drive (/suspense). 

I wanted this to be one article--I really really did!--but it grew into two. In the first part, here, I talk about what narrative drive is and why we, writers, should care. In the second part, I talk about how to use setting to hook into a character and help make them three-dimensional.

What Is Setting?

For the purposes of this article, here's how I define setting:

The setting of a story concerns the time, place and circumstances of the narrative.

That definition comes from tvtropes.org, Settings.

I looked at a few different definitions, but that one came closest to how I think of it. Also, it's simple. Simple is good (but often not easy).

Before I go any further, I'd like to take a quick look at something I'm going to revisit toward the end of this article: Why should a writer care about setting? What does it do in a story? What is its function, its role? How does it help the writer accomplish his/her ends/goal of evoking emotion in readers?

The Goal of Storytelling

The goal of storytelling--this is what I think--is to invoke, or possibly provoke, emotions in an audience. In the case of writers, these are our readers.

How does narrative setting help a writer reach this goal? In other words, what is its function?

The Functions of Setting

1. The setting helps establish the mood of the story.

2. The setting reflects the theme.

3. The setting aids in character explication and reader identification.

Before we can explore each of these aspects of setting--how a writer can exploit setting to aid in character identification--we need to take a closer look at what setting is.

The Elements of Setting

Time:

- Historical epoch: Does the story take place in the past? During what we now call the industrial revolution? At the height of the Roman Empire? At some point in the undreamt of future? Or perhaps the story is a strange, twisted, far-earth scenario?

- Seasons: What time of year is it? Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter? If this is a fictional world, does it have seasons?

- Day: What time of day is it? Day? Night? Twilight? The witching hour?

- Flow of time: Is there anything unusual about the flow of time in your narrative? Is your story written as a stream of consciousness? Does your novel employ time-jumps to convey the story? 

Place:

Where does your story take place?

- Location: 

If your world is fictional, what is its geography? Is it an unexplored wilderness or is it well populated? If your world is not one great wilderness, does the story take place in a town? A city? A jungle? A forest? Is the place barren? Lush? Isolated? Densely populated?

- Geography:

Is there much water nearby? Is the air dry or wet? Is there snow at Christmas time? Does it matter? What sports or hobbies could a person easily engage in given the features of the area? Snowboarding? Skiing? Swimming? Surfing? What sports couldn't your characters do? (Could your characters swim without risking hypothermia in December?)

Setting as it relates to each scene

I've touched on some of this information, above, but now we get specific.

Time:

- What time of day is it? Is it day? Night? Twilight? The witching hour? Lunch? Dinner? What associations do the main characters have about this time? What memories might it provoke? For instance, a character might wake during the witching hour and remember a nightmare they had as a child.

Place:

- Indoors? Outdoors?

- Outdoors: What's the weather like? Is the sun hidden behind clouds making it dark as night? Is it nighttime, yet lightning flashes make the landscape bright as day? Is it snowing? Raining? Sunny with the unbearable heat of the desert beating down? Are your characters in the Antarctic? Are they isolated by the distance and the unbearable, bitter, cold?

- Indoors: What are the characters' surroundings like? Are they lavish? Poor? Shabby? Ostentatious? Is it a human-made structure or natural, something like a cave. If man-made, were they invited here? Does the character find the place comfortable? 

The room could be lavish and yet uncomfortable if the character is too worried about ruining expensive furnishings to use them. This would be one way to show character, to demonstrate what kind of environment they were used to.

That's it! Stay tuned for part two where I'll talk about how to use narrative setting to make characters more interesting.

Update: Here's a link to Narrative Setting: Part Two.

Photo credit: "Catwoman Dark" by JD Hancock under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writing: The Starburst Method, Part 6: Developing Scenes

Welcome to Part 6 of the Starburst Method! It's hard to believe we're at Part 6 already. Today we're going to be developing scenes. This part of the Starburst Method builds on work done in the first 5 sections, so I've included links to those at the bottom of this article.

Okay, let's do this!

Working from the five page synopsis you developed last week determine what scenes you need in your story. I posted the first page of my five page summary last week so this week I'll use that as an example of what I'm talking about.

Story vs Plot
Before we start creating our scenes, though, let's say a word about the difference between story and plot. I know the distinction between the two is second nature for many of you, but sometimes people think about these things differently, so let's roll up our sleeves and talk terms.

Rather than have me ramble on about this, here's what other writers have to say. In Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, Janet Burroway writes:

A story is a series of events recorded in their chronological order.
A plot is a series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance.

Jack Hodgins, in A Passion for Narrative, writes:

We can ... think of the traditional plot as a series of causally related events, involving some sort of conflict (or tension), leading (probably) to a climax and (possibly) to a resolution.

For instance, often a novel will open with a scene that occurs in the future, perhaps just before the finale of the book when the hero or heroine is in her darkest hour and all seems lost. This is an element of plot. If, on the other hand, I were telling the story, I would start at the beginning and continue till I reached the end, relating the events of the story as they occurred in time.

I find that one of the hardest things about writing a story is breaking it into scenes and overlaying it with the structure of plot. In fact, one of the reasons I developed the Starburst Method was to help me do this!

Scenes
Scenes are the building blocks of plot. In every scene there should be a goal and something preventing the protagonist attaining the goal. Usually, also, there's a twist and the protagonist will neither completely succeed or fail to attain her goal but will come a bit closer -- or perhaps fall father away. Usually only in the Dark Night of the Soul, just before the Finale, does the goal appear completely unattainable.

I think of scenes as the atoms of plot. That is, they are the smallest parts/chunks that a plot can be broken into a still make sense. Please keep in mind, though, that this is NOT coming from a screenwriter. I think that screenwriters may think of scenes a bit differently. If you're interested in screenwriting, or in how screenwriters think of scenes, I recommend getting a good book on screenwriting such as Save The Cat! by Blake Snyder.

Okay, so, we've touched on the difference between story and plot and talked a bit about what scenes are. Why did we do this? Here's why: The summary I completed in Part 5 was a summary of my story, not my plot. Although I've made sure to end each section with a cliff-hanger, I haven't completely plotted out the story. That's what we're going to do right after we break everything up into scenes.

Breaking our story up into scenes
I don't know about you, but this is one of the more difficult things for me. It's at this point I often become discouraged and want to chuck the whole thing. But we're not going to do that! We're in this together.

The elements of a scene:
- Date/time of year
- Setting: inside or outside & time of day
- Which characters are in the scene

Clear as mud? Keep in mind this is my first draft of the Starburst Method, so if anyone would like something explained at greater depth, leave a comment or write to me (go to the contact tab at the top right of this page).

Here's my first scene:

Date: I don't know the exact date yet, but I think my story will happen sometime in June. I want the weather to be hot but not stifling.

Time of day: High noon. This is going to be a showdown of sorts. Mr. Henry Winthrop, skeptic, against the beliefs of the townspeople about a death curse. Or perhaps it's Winthrop versus the curse.

Setting: The action begins outside and then moves inside the Mohan Mansion. The town is somewhere in the state of New York.

Characters: Mr. Henry Winthrop, his friend and producer of the TV series, his daughter, the local herbalist/crackpot, the architectural historian and miscellaneous members of the crew. The best friend of the recently deceased owner of the house and her niece. A reporter from the town's only newspaper.

Scene Summary:
Mr. Winthrop and crew are outside the Mohan Mansion. There is a buzz of excitement in the air. Most of the town has come out to see the filming but is being kept at a distance by the crew. Winthrop's face is flushed with excitement, the man is no doubt having the time of his life. He learnt about the Mohan Mansion when he was a boy and ever since has wanted to explore its mysteries. Now, finally, his dream is becoming a reality.

Filming begins. Winthrop talks to the camera and slowly walks up the steps toward the house when a shout rings out, "No!". It is the last owner's best friend -- she is elderly and is accompanied by her niece. The niece looks mortified. The elderly woman warns Winthrop that he must not enter the house because as soon as he sets foot inside the curse will be triggered. If he doesn't care about his life, he should think of those the other people he is putting at risk.

Winthrop finds it impossible to take her seriously but is every inch the gentlemen and instructs members of the crew to help take her home but the elderly woman fixes him with a withering glare, turns her back on them all, and slowly shuffles away, followed by her red cheeked and profusely apologizing niece.

The cameras haven't stopped rolling and Winthrop turns around and heads up the steps followed closely by the financier, the financier's niece, the historian from the metropolitan museum of history and the local historian/herbalist.

The front door has been cleared of lumber but hasn't been opened. Winthrop pauses in front of it as though suddenly unsure but then reaches out and wrenches the huge oaken door open. It creaks, wails really, giving Mr. Winthrop the shivers, despite his strict disbelief in anything beyond the material world. He quickly shakes off whatever presentiments of doom he may have felt and enters the dusty cool of the lobby. Moments later he gasps and falls to the ground, clutching his chest.

Chaos reigns. Paramedics rush toward him and an ambulance is called but it is too late. Mr. Henry Winthrop is dead.

That was a rather long summary! I have a feeling that I'll be breaking that scene up into smaller scenes. For instance, the exchange between Winthrop and the elderly woman/spinster will probably be a scene all its own.

Good luck on breaking your story up into scenes! Next week we'll be writing our rough draft.

The Starburst Method, Part 1: Creating a one sentence summary
The Starburst Method, Part 2: Developing our one sentence summary
The Starburst Method, Part 3: Creating a five paragraph summary
The Starburst Method, Part 4: Developing characters
The Starburst Method, Part 5: Creating a five page summary
The Starburst Method, Part 6: Developing scenes
The Starburst Method, Part 7: The character grid
The Starburst Method, Part 8: The rough draft and narrative drive

Related articles:
Character Archetypes


Photo Credit: SoundProof