21.29: How to Make a Scene

Introduction

0:00[SPEAKER_01]: This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons and friends. [SPEAKER_01]: If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com slash writing excuses.

0:15[SPEAKER_01]: Season 21, episode 29.

0:19[SPEAKER_03]: This is writing excuses, how to make a scene tools not rules for writers by writers. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Mary Revenant and I'm Aaron and I'm Howard. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm really excited about this particular episode, because I feel like the word scene is, you ever say a word so many times that it loses all meaning and you have no idea what the heck it evening is anymore? [SPEAKER_00]: That's why I feel about the word scene. [SPEAKER_00]: We say it a lot, but I'm not 100% sure, I 100% rock what it is other than sort of a feeling having seen the scene full of scenery.

1:00[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm so sorry, but before we get into how to make a scene, let's go with what the heck a scene first. [SPEAKER_03]: Let me briefly say that I cite scene sequel format a lot and in that terminology scene sequel might better be defined as [SPEAKER_03]: portion of story where stuff is actively happening and portion of story where we are processing what has actively happened. [SPEAKER_03]: Scene sequel, that pattern can happen within a scene.

1:32[SPEAKER_03]: It can happen multiple times within a scene.

Scene vs Beat

1:36[SPEAKER_01]: And when we say within a scene, typically speaking in theater and cinema and other places, the definition of scene is basically a sequence of continuous action.

1:49[SPEAKER_01]: and that's it. [SPEAKER_02]: Do we think of a scene as separate from a beat? [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, because you can have multiple beats within a scene, you can have multiple beats within a sequence of continuous action. [SPEAKER_02]: Can you have multiple scenes within a beat? [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I believe you can also have multiple scenes within a beat, for instance, if one of the your character beats is the longer, you know, the dark night of the soul, that is a character beat that can sometimes, you know, you have the scene where the character is sobbing into their drink in a bar, you have the scene where they are talking to their BFF and they're trying to encourage them to go back out and kill the evil overlord.

2:25[SPEAKER_01]: And then so you can have all of those within a single beat. [SPEAKER_01]: The reason why [SPEAKER_02]: was asking is a really common technique is to lay out the plot of your project, whether screenplay, novel, whatever it is, on note cards. [SPEAKER_02]: And there's two different ways to approach that. [SPEAKER_02]: One is beat by beat, so like dark time at the soul kind of moments or [SPEAKER_02]: They can't conflict moments or things like that. [SPEAKER_02]: And there's other ways to do it that are seen by scene, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And so I was trying to wrap my head around the granular differences between those two things, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think I tend to think of books more in terms of beats rather than scenes, but that makes sense for me coming at it for more 10,000-butth structural views.

3:03[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think that if you think about the beats as a folder that you're putting the scenes into, that brought you by me using Scrivner a lot, that that I think it's easier to kind of wrap your head around how both can happen, but like I don't think, you know, a scene does not require an arc, I don't think it requires a conflict to be a scene, and I think that you can have a scene that is a letter. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, or it's just, it's a sequence of continuous action.

Tabletop Roleplay Scenes

3:33[SPEAKER_03]: That's in tabletop, in like tabletop roleplay, the game master, in some systems I've worked with, we talk about adventure design in terms of scenes, you know, the characters are going to come into the tavern, the tavern, this is going to be a scene.

4:00[SPEAKER_02]: just on that note, you know, I had an interesting challenge this year of I recorded a many, many hours long campaign in basically one session in a week. [SPEAKER_02]: We did a recording camp where we did, you know, 30 some hours of recording. [SPEAKER_02]: And so going into that as the GM, I had to sort of have enough framework that [SPEAKER_02]: On day three, I wouldn't be caught out even though the players would make a lot of decisions that go in different ways. [SPEAKER_02]: And so the way I did that was each session note was a beat to base.

4:30[SPEAKER_02]: I wrote, right, here's the dominant emotion of this session. [SPEAKER_02]: Here's the vibe. [SPEAKER_02]: So it comes with an evocative title like into the wilds or something like that. [SPEAKER_02]: And then I let individual scenes emerge more organically. [SPEAKER_02]: And then think about, okay, what's the next beat emotionally that I want to flow into for the next episode in this campaign?

4:49[SPEAKER_00]: I hear you, and also, however, when you said a scene as a sequence of continuous events, I thought, you know, life is but a scene. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what makes like my entire life from birth to death? [SPEAKER_00]: Not, I mean, in the sense that it is a sequence of continuous events, something then it feels like continuous [SPEAKER_00]: is the thing that stops one scene, like when one scene stops another one starts, what makes it no longer continuous within the time. [SPEAKER_00]: The time, it's been time and scene.

5:20[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: But this is a really good point that the real life is continuous action. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, from birth to, I mean, yes, sleeping. [SPEAKER_01]: But a scene is a narrative constraint. [SPEAKER_01]: And what it does is it has an artificial beginning and it has an artificial end. [SPEAKER_01]: the characters life continues outside of that scene theoretically. [SPEAKER_01]: What we're doing is that we are we're doing one of two things when we decide where to start and stop. [SPEAKER_01]: We're either using it as a frame or we are using those breaks to move us in time space or change pv.

5:56[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the thing that I was really in some ways asking, which is like, then it sounds like what stops something from being continuous is a shift in time, a shift in person or POV and a shift in or a shift in place. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what means it's no longer continuous. [SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, a scene theoretically has ended at that moment. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but you can also do it as a frame where you break continuous action like the scene where something shocking happens and there's a break and then you come back and you're still in the same moment, but it is a new scene because it's serving as a frame.

6:28[SPEAKER_02]: I would introduce one other frame element that you can use, which is simply a shift in mood or energy. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: So you can have a scene that continues to take place immediately after, but you have a scene break or even a chapter break between those, because some revelation has happened and now you're in consequence rather than a sort of ascending tension. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: So you can have a fight. [SPEAKER_02]: The fight can, you know, there's no time gap, there's no location shift. [SPEAKER_02]: Often shifting those things is very useful as a signal to the reader, but it is possible to do with just an emotional shift.

Framing a Scene

7:00[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: But the thing is, there needs to be some destruction as we're getting it. [SPEAKER_03]: When I was studying music, form an analysis, a bazillion years ago, the instructor was grilling us, and he was hard on us. [SPEAKER_03]: He was grilling us about, you know, where does this next movement begin?

7:20[SPEAKER_03]: And somebody said, well, it begins right here at the at the double bar, and he says, yeah, but you can't hear, [SPEAKER_03]: the double bar you're listening to music as somebody who's reading the music sure you can see that there's a double bar there but what can you hear right raise my hand I said well at the double bar the key changes and the very first note across the bar line is

7:44[SPEAKER_03]: would be an accidental in the previous movement, but now it's part of the new key signature. [SPEAKER_03]: And so the very first note we hear is something that is reflected with that change. [SPEAKER_03]: And that has stuck with me. [SPEAKER_03]: There are things that you do on the page that the way the book might flow in an e-reader won't be noticeable, but the tone of the words that you use. [SPEAKER_03]: can completely change and make it obvious. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, we've changed scenes. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

8:16[SPEAKER_01]: I think that it's what you're talking about there is for me a form of framing because you're saying this is the tone or the mood that we're going to have with this. [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of ways when I think about scenes, I will flag that we are going to talk about transitions in the next episode. [SPEAKER_01]: But when I think about starting a scene, whether it's the scene at the beginning of a

8:38[SPEAKER_01]: I am thinking about what am I setting up here. [SPEAKER_01]: In the same ways that I'm thinking about what promises am I making at the beginning of a story. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a microversion of that. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like here we need to ground you so that you know where you are. [SPEAKER_01]: I need to give you a sense of the mood.

8:55[SPEAKER_01]: And then likewise, at the end of a scene, you also need that frame that helps with understanding. [SPEAKER_01]: So can I do an example?

9:05[SPEAKER_01]: So this is an example of a frame from calculating stars. [SPEAKER_01]: The opening line is, do you remember where you were when the meteor hit? [SPEAKER_01]: And the closing line of that, and it's all one scene straight through. [SPEAKER_01]: is later when I saw where he had been standing, I was amazed that he had been able to speak at all, but of Washington itself, nothing remains. [SPEAKER_01]: So this frames all the action that happens in the scene and it serves to contextualize everything that has happened for the reader and that's one of the things that you can do when you're thinking about these scenes is like, what why am I doing this as a

9:44[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I want to point out that, I mean, we have, we have talked a lot about, you know, defining what a scene is and why scenes exist. [SPEAKER_03]: And it can be daunting at first. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think a lot about when I'm trying to tidy my office. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a million things in here. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a million things you want to put in your book full of ideas. [SPEAKER_03]: And I can't even see how to organize this.

10:14[SPEAKER_03]: at the outset. [SPEAKER_03]: It's really not that important to label all of the boxes. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just important to know that I have boxes. [SPEAKER_03]: And I will start putting things into boxes as I go. [SPEAKER_03]: And as I am doing that, it begins to make sense. [SPEAKER_03]: And so in many cases for me, how to make a scene is it starts with

10:41[SPEAKER_03]: look, I don't know the exact shape of this, but I'm going to start putting things into boxes, kind of chronologically, and then halfway through the writing, the organization makes sense. [SPEAKER_03]: And some of these more complex, more fascinating structures emerge, and I get to explore those in an edit. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think one thing that really merges from what you're saying and also kind of going back to marijuana in terms of your framing, this goes back to conversation we had a few episodes ago about microcosm macroncosm because a scene functions with a lot of the same rules that your entire story does in terms of.

11:18[SPEAKER_02]: It needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. [SPEAKER_02]: You need an introduction, and kind of need a conclusion. [SPEAKER_02]: These are very short because it's seen. [SPEAKER_02]: I think you're one line there at the opening in at the end. [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of do that, like essay introduction of like, I'm going to tell you about the thing. [SPEAKER_02]: Here's the thing that we're talking about. [SPEAKER_02]: Here's a topic sentence. [SPEAKER_02]: And then here's what you take away from this, which is DC is gone. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think giving that framing really allows the reader to experience the middle and know very clearly what it was that we were accomplishing by that middle section.

11:51[SPEAKER_00]: And I think as I'm sort of dividing myself, like instinctively between scene and another scene, a lot of it is if I start telling myself the events of my story, like if I'm like, okay, and this happens and that happens, and that happens. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of times I will naturally say like, and then like, [SPEAKER_00]: across town, she did this and this and this or and then after everybody had taken a breath, like I feel like I naturally, that's not the way that I would actually put the scenes together or transition between them in my head, but at some point I feel like, oh, something has changed.

12:24[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Let me mark that in the way that I am explaining to myself, like, what do I actually need to put in this story? [SPEAKER_00]: And each time that I kind of naturally have some sort of [SPEAKER_00]: break in the way that I say it to myself. [SPEAKER_00]: That feels like we're a scene break. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure to go. [SPEAKER_00]: Time to drop it in a different box. [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_00]: And speaking of, it is time for us to take a scene break. [SPEAKER_01]: And then we will be back. [SPEAKER_01]: At JenCon this year, writing excuses is doing a new thing. [SPEAKER_01]: We're hosting something called Network the Gathering, along with the Ray Bradbury Center and Maurice Brottis.

12:57[SPEAKER_01]: This is going to be on Thursday, July 30th at 8 o'clock

13:02[SPEAKER_01]: part of this is something you can participate in. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, besides networking, we're going to have something called lightning readings, which we do on our cruises. [SPEAKER_01]: This is like a sampler pack of readers. [SPEAKER_01]: Each person does a two minute reading, just don't have to get a nice taste. [SPEAKER_01]: Come, listen, network, and then stick around for prizes. [SPEAKER_01]: You can get a ticket in the gincon scheduling system for network the gathering. [SPEAKER_01]: Thursday, July 30th at 8 p.m. in Ballroom 4 at the Mariat.

13:30[SPEAKER_00]: OK, I feel like I now have a good understanding. [SPEAKER_00]: What a scene is. [SPEAKER_03]: Hey, Brad, we straighten that out for you, because it's nice that you'll be able to start writing. [UNKNOWN]: It's nice. [SPEAKER_00]: I feel seen and heard.

13:47[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, boy. [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, it's great to tell.

Making a Scene Work

13:50[SPEAKER_00]: But I now want to know how to make a scene, which we started getting into. [SPEAKER_00]: You started talking a little bit how [SPEAKER_00]: putting things into boxes, but like if you've decided, okay, I think this is the scene. [SPEAKER_00]: I think this is like the frame that I've got, how do you make sure that your reader agrees with you that this is in fact a scene and that it feels like a scene or anything else that's required in making it? [SPEAKER_01]: So I have a series of scene prompts that I use when I'm writing because I run into this, like I will have written down that I've got, you know, that they need to do something like, they go back to the planet and that's, that's all I've got.

14:32[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, I know that they're going back to the planet, but what happens there? [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I know, it's like, they find a bunker. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, okay, great. [SPEAKER_01]: Where do they find it and how? [SPEAKER_01]: So I have these scene prompts, and I'll say right up front that these are not things that you have to have. [SPEAKER_01]: These are just prompts that I use for myself to make sure I'm thinking about stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: The first is, what is the purpose of the scene? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what narrative function is this scene serving? [SPEAKER_01]: Why is it here? [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and often a scene will have more than one narrative function, uh, then I think about what are they doing?

15:05[SPEAKER_01]: So I might have finding a bunker, but what are they doing when they find the bunker? [SPEAKER_01]: Are they actively looking for it? [SPEAKER_01]: Are they searching for sea shells on the beach? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what are they doing? [SPEAKER_01]: I think about who is present? [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think about where we are. [SPEAKER_01]: I think about when we are, um, I think about the mood, um, that I'm trying to evoke for the reader. [SPEAKER_01]: And then sometimes also the characters mood, which is often synonymous, and then what their goal is because their goal is sometimes like not to find the bunker, they need to find it in the scene, but that's not their goal, their goal is to get like the perfect seashell for their grandmother.

15:41[SPEAKER_01]: So what is their goal and what is their action? [SPEAKER_01]: And then sometimes the purpose of the scene is the barrier, the interruption. [SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes their purpose is to find that. [SPEAKER_01]: So I think about these things as a series of prompts. [SPEAKER_01]: And then I have two that I use sometimes, and sometimes not, sometimes they'll use a freight of, like, where is their angst sitting? [SPEAKER_01]: And then sometimes I'll use what are the consequences of this. [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I just said that before I go into the scene and sometimes I just said it later.

16:14[SPEAKER_02]: I love that thing about the plot function of a scene, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that list is incredibly useful in terms of how are we finding our way into that plot function, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Of understanding where this fits in the overall arching narrative. [SPEAKER_02]: One other thing I wanted to bring up in terms of thinking about scenes is this might be a distinction about a difference, but in my head it's like a book has a mood, but a scene has a vibe, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And [SPEAKER_02]: the vibe of the scene does not need to match the mood of your book, right?

16:45[SPEAKER_02]: Your book can be contemplative or spooky or whatever or romantic, but an individual scene can have a vibe of humor, of being scary, of being depressing. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, you can have these moments that are more about what are the characters experiencing, [SPEAKER_02]: in this particular scene, that will overall serve the mood with the entire book. [SPEAKER_02]: But if it is consistent throughout the same vibe from seeing the scene, it's going to feel very flat. [SPEAKER_02]: You want different energy in different moments.

17:15[SPEAKER_02]: Some is like a high energy action beat, some is very scary beat. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, just think about that as terms of like making your scene distinct from the scenes around it. [SPEAKER_02]: My also deciding not just what the plot function is, what's the

17:29[SPEAKER_03]: in cinema and in comics, anytime you change scenes, you, you have to pull the camera back far enough that we can see that we've changed location, so we've changed characters. [SPEAKER_03]: I found this a lot when writing Schluck mercenary is that I couldn't lead with what I called in-set panels. [SPEAKER_03]: Close-ups on faces.

17:59[SPEAKER_03]: I can't begin a scene that way because you don't know where that face is. [SPEAKER_03]: You just have a orange or a red background. [SPEAKER_03]: That's not enough information. [SPEAKER_03]: And so when I think of, when I think of scenes, one of the first things that comes to mind

18:24[SPEAKER_03]: in order to ground the reader in the new mood slash vibe slash beat slash whatever what what do I need to do there and the second thing is because I watch a lot of movies I guess. [SPEAKER_03]: the idea of in-late out early, the idea that I don't want to spend, I don't want to spend a whole page writing my way into a scene before things get moving.

18:55[SPEAKER_03]: I might have to because I don't yet know what's happening. [SPEAKER_03]: But you don't want to read it. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to, I don't want to make you read it. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, my goal is to start things as quickly as possible. [SPEAKER_03]: And so there's, there's those two competing ideas. [SPEAKER_03]: I have to ground you, but I do not want to spend so much time doing it that you feel punished for me having made a scene change. [SPEAKER_01]: And I will say that the rules, I think, are a little bit different on the page because you don't always have to pull the camera back.

19:26[SPEAKER_01]: that often you can start in on a single close detail, but you absolutely have to have it be a grounding detail. [SPEAKER_00]: I think one thing, I love the idea of the vibe because I think I was listening to your listener Robinette and I was like, so organized, much wow, but I'm like meanwhile, in chaos zone, because I think a lot of times I will just

19:50[SPEAKER_00]: I put a new scene in because it feels like the thing that the character kind of wants to do. [SPEAKER_00]: Which is the same thing you're saying. [SPEAKER_00]: Just a lot less, like a lot less organized in my head. [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of that is I go back and do a lot of reverse outlining. [SPEAKER_00]: And figuring out, okay, I guess I made a scene here. [SPEAKER_00]: Is it working for me? [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, I will, I have a piece that I was working on where. [SPEAKER_00]: This woman wants to confront the other woman and like her boyfriend's other girlfriend. [SPEAKER_00]: And so she's in a whole scene being really mad about this girlfriend. [SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, oh, I guess she's like, I'm gonna find her.

20:22[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, okay, well, I guess she probably does that. [SPEAKER_00]: So she's like, I found her. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, okay, so this is that part. [SPEAKER_00]: We find that woman and then stuff happens. [SPEAKER_03]: And you're literally making a scene about someone making a scene. [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_00]: She's going to go and like, scope her out at the bar or whatever she does. [SPEAKER_00]: And that scene didn't work for me. [SPEAKER_00]: As I was going back and re-reading my entire story, I felt like the vibe was off. [SPEAKER_00]: Like this part. [SPEAKER_00]: I was like something about this thing where she finds the other woman is just like,

20:56[SPEAKER_00]: it's like dying on the page like i'm reading it and i don't want to read it and i'm writing it like and i love really love these characters so then i'll i will go back and feel like what i is missing what like what did i really love about this you know like i love the way she centered into the bar and that was really cool but then i don't know the other one's really boring after being built up in her head i feel like she's boring in this scene yeah [SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, okay, let me go back and like when I redo it, I will try to make her more interesting, which then changes scenes down the road because I'm like, if I make her more interesting because this is not true, she is petting a fluffy white cat and cackling.

21:35[SPEAKER_00]: Then she now has a fluffy white cat that I have to account for in scenes down the road. [SPEAKER_03]: We all love a bar cat. [SPEAKER_03]: I have I have run

21:49[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, it wasn't it wasn't a bomb, it wasn't a bomb, the circumstance where I have a scene and important piece of the story that I feel needs to be told and I try to tell it and I don't love it, it breaks the mood, it breaks the vibe, it breaks the flow, it breaks something and I lean into my humor toolbox and the tool I call noise is off. [SPEAKER_03]: which is the story you tell yourself about that scene is gonna be way more interesting in the story. [SPEAKER_03]: I told myself, and so I skipped the scene entirely and have to use your example, you know, she reports back, yep, found her in the bar and she has like, you know, toilet paper in her nose.

22:32[SPEAKER_03]: She got punched in the face. [SPEAKER_03]: And that's all we know, yep, I found her, we talked. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm done had enough and and then we move on with the rest of the story. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, one thing I want to also point out is we've been talking about scenes in a very contained way, right? [SPEAKER_02]: The individual scene is an end of a moment in time of a series of actions that happened in this continuous way. [SPEAKER_02]: There are ways to complicate that. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: There's ways, you know, one other solution you can add to that is like how we're saying skip the scene and then sort of layer in flashback of how the scene at the bar unfolded inside the action on what she's doing after that right so you can mix consequence and.

23:09[SPEAKER_02]: you know, whatever the event was as you're unfolding it, right? [SPEAKER_02]: So you don't have to think, I mean, the spying of the scene is still continuous events, right? [SPEAKER_02]: The spying of the scene is still what is happening moving forward in time, but you can deeply complicate that in different ways as you think about how to construct the scene. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be really problematic for this and say that I actually think that flashbacks are separate scenes within a and and the reason is we'll talk about this when we get to transitions because I think there's a difference between a scene break and what I call a through scene, which is where one scene flows directly into an other scene.

23:46[SPEAKER_02]: question for you. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I know we're digging into semantics, but that's kind of what this episode is in a certain way. [SPEAKER_02]: If you have a moment where she's walking in the street, there's two lines of her walking, three lines of her thinking about what happened at the bar, two lines of her walking, are each of those individual scenes, or do you feel like you have two scenes layered on top of each other that you're cutting in between? [SPEAKER_02]: And that's more of a transition question rather than a scene. [SPEAKER_01]: I think in which, yeah, it's a scene which, uh, yes, I'm going to say.

24:14[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I think it's a scene which. [SPEAKER_03]: Do we need to transition into another episode about transitions? [SPEAKER_01]: Not just yet, because I've one person more thing, but go with the scene which. [SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted to distinguish between memories and flashbacks. [SPEAKER_01]: So memory is she's thinking about it. [SPEAKER_01]: That is part of that continuous action. [SPEAKER_01]: It is part of what is happening in that moment. [SPEAKER_01]: Versus a flashback. [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes you see them go into a tile like sometimes it's just like where the character, there's a separate thing that happens that is a moment to continue its action.

24:49[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, those are two scenes that are happening simultaneously that you're cutting back and forth between. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: And I guess I was thinking more about memory in this case, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Memory in this part of the story. [SPEAKER_02]: I guess all I'm saying is you can play with time in inside this the an individual scene and sort of whether or not it's a sandwich or an individual scene. [SPEAKER_02]: I think it is useful to think about, but also in some ways, is a reminder that you can use character interiority to complicate what a scene can feel like

25:23[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is kind of pulling back from the scene, which sadly for the moment, but I think one of the things that I will do in figuring out what should be in the scene is somewhat similar to your to your listener, Robinette, but I am a simple woman and so I will I only use the scene on bet that I don't use that list all the time. [SPEAKER_03]: This is a point where the narrator cuts in and says, no, she's in.

25:49[SPEAKER_03]: Not as long. [SPEAKER_00]: But I'll just go with my like who what when we're why and how, which is like it kind of what you're talking about, but I will say like what is off, because a lot of times if I'm thinking about a scene, it's because I don't like it. [SPEAKER_00]: If I like it, I don't think about it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just like it's part of the story. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I will think like where is the issue? [SPEAKER_00]: Like I was saying in that scene, the who was the issue, the who was boring, therefore I needed to change. [SPEAKER_00]: maybe what they were doing to make the whom we're interested. [SPEAKER_03]: And in the interest of tools, not rules, the tool there is a lot of the structure that we're talking about with regard to scenes is a troubleshooting tool for you.

26:28[SPEAKER_03]: You only run into it when your brain tells you there's something wrong with what I just wrote. [SPEAKER_02]: I think what's really interesting is the scene is such an elemental building block of what a story is that each of us individually have expressed very core ideas of how we approach things, you know, meravonate, you have a lot of structure here, you know, I'm I'm vibe forward, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, I just want to stress that I have a lot of structure sometimes, like that is the toolbox that I told well specifically, I am going to call this out specifically that toolbox is something that I

27:01[SPEAKER_01]: on good brain days, I'm just going on vibes and following the story, but on bad brain days, or when I'm trying to do pre-planning and I don't know the story, yet that's a toolbox, and I don't, even there, I will sometimes use it as a troubleshooting thing later. [SPEAKER_01]: I just need to [SPEAKER_02]: No, 100% of the time I'm personally making a joke here, but I do think there's also something interesting about that there's something so deeply rooted about what a scene is that we're sort of very much leaning on very internal structures of how we think about our approach to creating things.

27:33[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't want people to think I'm organized.

27:38[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want people to think

27:42[SPEAKER_00]: Well, with that, now that we have judged ourselves thoroughly, it is time for your homework. [SPEAKER_00]: And what I want you to do is to sort of take that index card, do a little bit of looking at scenes in something that you have written. [SPEAKER_00]: However you just find scenes is really up to you because I can't see what you're doing. [SPEAKER_00]: So take a scene or two and then look at what sort of are the [SPEAKER_00]: Take through the list that Mayor Robinette had, do who what, where, when, why, how, mark the vibe, take everything you possibly can and write it out about those scenes.

28:18[SPEAKER_00]: And then change something. [SPEAKER_00]: Look at those. [SPEAKER_00]: And when you look at it, say, is there something in here that I can change and rewrite that scene? [SPEAKER_01]: This has been writing excuses. [SPEAKER_01]: You're out of excuses. [SPEAKER_01]: Now go right.

28:35[SPEAKER_01]: Writing excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons and friends. [SPEAKER_01]: For this episode, your hosts were Mary Robinette Koal, Dong Wan Song, Erin Roberts and Howard Taylor. [SPEAKER_01]: This episode was engineered by Marshall Card Jr., mastered by Alex Jackson, and produced by Emma Reynolds. [SPEAKER_01]: For more information, visit writing excuses.com.