Layering A Scene

I’m in the middle of rewrites for my YA. I’m one of those writers who plow through a very rough draft, getting it down as fast as I can, so that I can get to the good part – the rewrites. For me that’s mostly layering the scenes to add texture and meaning.

 

Why layer? Ultimately writer’s goal is to achieve Maximum Emotional Impact, and layering your scene is one of the tools for increasing emotional hits. Also, how you layer a scene also helps create that elusive thing we call “your voice”.

 

Layering is something you work on after you’ve finished the first draft, primarily because it involves analytical/critical thinking. When you’re drafting, you should be in creative mode and stay in the mode. That means turning off the internal editor. (I have a piece of paper tacked over my computer that says, “I give myself permission to write crap.”) Layering turns the internal editor back on, so it’s best saved for after you’ve finished the first draft, though as you get more comfortable with the things you need to layer in, you’ll find yourself doing some of it automatically as you draft.

 

First some definitions:

 

A “scene” is a continuous piece of action that takes place in a single location and has a specific beginning and end. It covers a distinctive and usually short period of time.

 

A scene is:

 

• Breakfast the first day of school in a household with teens. Teenage daughter comes down inappropriately dressed.
• The entry of the heroine at a Regency ball and the reaction she gets. (That could be a complete scene, depending on how long the ball sequence is.)

 

A “sequence” is several contiguous scenes whose action leads up to a climax or turning point.

 

For example, in my novel The Deadly Peace, one of the sequences is:

 

1. In the armory, the heroine and her companions discuss how to push the heroine’s Regent father into setting a coronation date for her. They formulate a plan, which the heroine doesn’t like because it involves the hero, whom she considers an ally of her father.
2. In the infirmary. They bargain with the hero to help them.
3. In the library. The hero is caught by the father giving help and grilled.
4. In the father’s workroom. The heroine is brought to task for trying to go around her father’s back. The heroine gets an unexpected ally in the hero, whom previously she thought her enemy.

 We’re focusing here on scenes, not sequences. When you’re working on layering, each scene needs to be analysed separately and also for how it contributes to the sequence.

 

I go about layering level-by-level, starting with the highest level, which I call the “Plot Level”. Levels are my own arbitrary term. Working at layering this way helps me to keep my thoughts focused.

 

The Plot Level is about whether the scene is doing its job within the story. Today scenes need to pull a lot of weight. The length of the average single title has gone from 100,000 to 80,000 words. Author Beth Cornelison, in her workshop on sagging middles at the 2010 RWA conference, says that every scene needs to have at least three reasons to be there.

 

If you’re a pantser (a person who gets an idea and, trusting your Muse, starts writing without doing much planning), you’ve probably got scenes that don’t need to be there or that somehow got off track or aren’t pulling their load within the novel. I started as a pantser, but with my WIP Exiled in the Sweet Land of Liberty, I actually outlined the whole book, as I wanted to learn to be more efficient in my writing. As a result, I managed to draft the thing in about 6 weeks. But when I was stuck, I would just say to myself, “Write anything. Just write. You can fix it later.” So there are a number of scenes that have needed first aid.

 

The Plot Level asks the questions, “Do I need this scene? How can I make it work its butt off to move the story forward?”

 

To answer this question, you’ve got to start with the underlying conflict that drives the book. Michael Hague, in his scriptwriting workshops (one of which I took centuries ago when I was a selling playwright), suggests creating a 2 x 2 conflict grid in which you list

• the protagonist and antagonist’s goals in the first column
•  the actions which keep them from achieving their goals in the second column.

 If you’re having trouble visualizing this, Jennifer Cruise has it up on her blog. (The post is full of hints on how to set up the basic conflict, a great place to start if you're struggling with that.)

 

If you’ve got a strong conflict, the actions that keep the protagonist from achieving her/his goals should be the same actions that the antagonist takes to achieve his/her goals, and vice versa.

 

Once you’ve got that grid, look at your scene and ask how does the scene advance the conflict?

 

For example, in the sequence from The Deadly Peace I described above, my heroine’s overall goal is to be crowned as the Queen of Rhyged, King Arthur’s largest subkingdom. There’s a ticking clock on this, as an old prophesy says that if the Heiress isn’t crowned by her eighteenth birthday, she never will be. My heroine’s father, the Regent, wants the crown for himself and his sons (traditionally it passes down through the female line, but the times, they are a-changing). So he has done nothing about the coronation. My heroine’s goal for this sequence is to get the date set for the coronation. The first scene sets up the problem, presents a possible solution – go around her father’s back and set the date herself – along with complications, and reveals the heroine’s character flaw (more on this in my next blog.) In other words, it sets the heroine on the first step of her journey to get her crown. It advances the plot.

 

In the example of breakfast scene with the single mom trying to get her kids off to school, the appearance of the inappropriately dressed teen daughter could send the story off in a number of ways:

 

1) Argument over clothes. Mother fails to assert herself and teen wins. If Mom is the heroine of a romance, this could set up a whole book in which Mom’s failing to assert herself leads to unhappiness and disaster.

 

2) The phone rings in the middle of the argument. It’s Mom’s father who says in a tense, frightened voice, “Don’t send the kids to school. Put them in the car and get out of town. Don’t pack. Don’t do anything. Just go.” Before he can explain, there’s a horrible sound at the end of the line that sounds like something’s happened to him. Now the argument with the teen is forgotten. And Mom is thrown into an adventure in which she and her kids are running for their lives – or she is struggling to find and save her father. Or both.

 

3) Argument over clothes. Mother wins. Daughter changes. Kids get off to school on time. Ho hum. Yes, there’s conflict, but this scene isn’t pulling its weight. Unless you can figure out a way to tie it to the overriding conflict of the book, this is a scene to cut. And don’t tell me you’re just trying to show the protagonist’s Ordinary World. In today’s novels, that can be incorporated into the Inciting Action – the event that sets off the conflict and puts the heroine on her journey.

 

If you’re waffling back and forth and really don’t want to kill that darling, here’s a tip: I never hit the delete button when I cut a scene. I cut and paste it into a separate file and put it into my Outtakes folder. I may want it back. Or possibly I might use it as bonus material on my website when the book gets published.

 

Rhay Cristou (her YA novel Color of Truth made it to the semi finals of the Amazon Breakthrough competition in 2010 and her current WIP Bliss is in the 2011 semi finals) sent me this titbit that helps me focus on whether the scene is advancing the plot:

 

“One of the questions that my advisor Norma Fox Mazer always asked me in grad school: "Rhay what does your character want and how does this scene move her/him to or away from obtaining that want?" I know it's a basic question but one that I think we often forget to ask ourselves when living our stories. Once you keep asking yourself that question-- What does she want and more importantly how does this scene move the character to that (and yep you have to be able to write out that answer) -- then you'll know if these scenes are really doing the job you want them to do.”

 

“What does your character want?” leads to the next level of layering a scene: the Character Arc Level. Which is the topic of next week’s blog post.

 

 

 

 

More Thoughts on Developing a Character Arc

Last week I blogged on my method for developing a character arc. This method, by the way, works for any genre of fiction, not just romance. Just eliminate one of the character columns. The big difference is that in any other genre of fiction, the character arc centers around the internal issue that keeps the character from achieving her/his goal. In a romance, having a happily ever after ending with the love interest IS the goal. In a well-crafted romance, the same issue that keeps the characters apart, also keeps the protagonist from achieving his/her non-romance story goal.


Ari Thatcher commented, “One chart I use asks for the epiphany - what the character needs to realize to deserve their happy ending. I think that equates to your "What causes them to take a chance" but it makes me think about their mental processes rather than something that happens to them.” I like that and will add it to my chart. I think, though, that the moment of epiphany is actually a two-step process. First, some external circumstance or event shakes up the character enough that she/he has to rethink his/her actions or way of doing things. Then the character goes through a mental and emotional process that leads to committing to the new way of doing things.

I’m having my own epiphany, by the way. I’ve been getting a lot of praise from my critique partners on Exiled in the Sweet Land of Liberty, my YA set on Long Island during the post-McCarthy Era. Their comments were that I’d really hit hard with the emotions of a teen going through the pain of being left out. When I think about it, I was writing from my own pain as a young teen. It wasn’t hard to show Sophie’s pain because I’d been there, done that. That was me sitting outside the guidance counsellor’s door.

What I need to do with Me and the Alpha Jerk is find that same pain (well, a different pain but just as painful). Dig into my teenage years and find it.

Not hard. Being a teenager is like walking around with an open wound.

Not that any of this comes as a big revelation to me. Nor should it to any writer. We’re constantly being told to dig inside ourselves and translate that into our character’s pain.

A marvelous RWA on-line workshop given by TJ Bennet a couple of years ago, titled “The Black Moment” asked the participants to imagine the worst thing that could possible happen to ourselves and describe how we would feel. I did the exercise, but didn’t get much out of it. I now know why. I was answering the wrong question. Because, for me, the worst has already happened. I’ve lived though putting a cherished aunt in a nursing home, being fired, having cancer, learning a boy friend was gay, near bankruptcy, having a beloved parent die just as we were growing close. For me, when I look at the future, I can’t imagine anything worse than what I’ve already experienced. The best is to come…

But I can dig into what I felt then. In fact, my best stories have come from that. So what I need to do with Me and the Alpha Jerk is find the link between Emily and me, and let her live through my pain. 

Getting back to my planning chart, that pain is linked somehow to her Mistaken World View.  Interestingly, the Mistaken World View is a result of pain, but also causes more.  Because it's not the right response.

Lots of opportunities for some good writing here.  And Em is becoming real under my fingertips.

Tips for Creating a Character Arc

I’ve been plotting my new novel, “Me and the Alpha Jerk”. It’s a contemporary YA set in Arizona. My main characters are an animal rights activist from the East and a young rodeo cowboy, the son of a rodeo stock contractor.

This is the first time I’ve created something totally from scratch, without having either a legend to build it around, as my Arthurian trilogy, or an incident from real life, as in my dramas produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Company and Exiled in the Sweet Land of Liberty. By now I’ve learned quite a bit about novel writing, which includes building the plot around a character arc. I thought I’d share my experiences and what I’ve learned. Hopefully, if you’re struggling with character development, this might give you a few ideas.

Basically, a character arc is the change in the character from the beginning to the end of the novel. Any novel worth its salt has it. Novels, in fact, are about character change. The plot provides the incentive and opportunity to change.

In the past, my stories have been plot driven. I’ve said to myself, “OK, here’s what happens. Now what kind of character would get involved in this kind of situation and how would it cause her/him to change?”

Because the idea for “Me and the Alpha Jerk” came from the title, the book basically started with the characters, not the plot. An alpha male and a woman who can’t stand alpha males. Since I’m experimenting with YA’s, I’ve made them teens.

Now I need a teen alpha male. And not your usual football jock. Well, there’s only one alpha male who’s more alpha than a football jock. A rodeo cowboy. And as I happen to love rodeo, I’ve got the perfect setting, one I know a lot about, even though I’m now here in New Zealand.

But novels are about conflict. I’ve read over and over again that the best way to create conflict between your hero and heroine is to make them exact opposites.

So what kind of woman is likely to hate rodeo cowboys? Ding! An animal rights activist. Make her from the East, so she looks down on “rednecks” from the West. Make her a horse lover, too, but one who does dressage. No, even better, one who does Combined Driving, my favorite sport, something else I know a lot about.

At this point I’ve got two static characters. The thing that gives the plot life is their growth. Now, I could just say, “OK. She changes and sees his point of view and he changes and sees hers.” But that really doesn’t give much depth to the novel.

I’ve taken a number of workshops on plotting, and one of the things that stuck with me is the idea that the character is driven by a belief, a view of the world, that is essentially flawed. In order to be successful, the character has to change that mistaken world view.

I’ve also heard numerous times that romances (ok, this is a romance, what else could it be with a title like that?) work better if the hero and heroine are basically dealing with opposite ends of the same internal conflict.

So what could be driving both my hero and heroine to take the stances they do? Why does one become an animal rights activist and the other a high school rodeo cowboy dreaming of making “Pro”?

How does this keep them apart and how do they need to change if they’re to ever get together as a couple and have the obligatory “happily ever after”?

At this point I started to put together a table with three columns. The left hand colum covered the turning points in the characters’ growth. The other two columns were headed with the hero and heroine’s name. Here are the turning points that I listed in the left column:

• Original wrong world view
• How this keeps them apart
• Beginning – What does it look like when they’re “doing their thing”
• What happens to force them to do it differently
• They try the different thing and begin to become confident
• What’s the reward for doing the different thing?
• Major setback in doing it differently
• Go back to doing it the old way (which leads to renewed conflict between the hero and heroine and a sense they’ll never get together)
• How does this cause them to fail in achieving their non-romance/story goal? (This is the crisis)
• What causes them to take a chance, and doing it the new way
• Success (this is the climax)
• New world view
• How this allows them to get together (denoument)

As I filled in the two columns, I focused on how each character’s action would cause conflict with the other character, adjusting the action to cause maximum conflict. For example, in the beginning when they’re “doing their thing” I have her outside the rodeo arena, carrying a placard, protesting cruelty to animals. He, of course, as he enters the showgrounds, says something insulting to her. But what if she ups the ante and does something to cause him to lose the event?

I won’t go into how I’ve filled in the boxes, but by the time I was done, I could see what had to happen to make each of my characters change -- events which can be turned into scenes. This doesn’t give me the whole plot, but it gives me an overall arc that I can fill in with the rest of the story. Even better, it gives my story direction. Plus, as the structure of all novels is predictable, it gives readers a sense of where they are in the story as they read through the work.