The previous two articles in this Editor's Guide to Scene Structure focused primarily on how scenes can be structured to propel a story’s plot. However, so far, we’ve been neglecting character and theme, as well as various other functional story elements, such as worldbuilding.
This article starts by continuing our examination of plot structure by explaining how to combine segments to form plot-advancing scenes. The article then tackles the parts of stories that do not advance plot but serve functions that are critical to a story’s coherence and deeper meaning.
Plot-Based Segments
A “plot-based segment” is any segment containing at least one piece of a full scene cycle, as outlined in Part 1 of this series. That is, a plot-based segment includes shows the protagonist’s progress toward achieving their current goal or forming their next goal.
If a story plot were a meal, each scene would be a dish, and each segment would be one of the ingredients in that dish. Most dishes contain several ingredients, although some contain just one—like that banana I had with my lunch yesterday. Similarly, some scenes contain only one segment, but most contain multiple segments.
For example, the scene in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in which the main characters deal with an illegal dragon includes twelve segments spanning more than two weeks:
At breakfast one morning, Harry, Hermione, and Ron receive a letter from Hagrid saying his dragon egg is hatching. As they discuss whether to skip classes to watch the egg hatch, Harry notices that Malfoy has overheard some of their conversation, which foreshadows this scene’s conflict.
After morning classes, Harry and friends go to Hagrid’s hut to watch the egg hatch. As they observe the dragon, they notice that someone is watching through the window and then see Malfoy running away, which further sets up the upcoming conflict.
Over the next week, Harry and friends implore Hagrid to give up the illegal dragon before he gets in trouble. Harry has the idea to send the dragon to Ron’s brother Charlie, who studies dragons in Romania (goal). Hagrid agrees to send an owl to Charlie asking him to take the dragon.
On Wednesday night of the following week, Ron returns to the dorms at midnight after helping feed the dragon, who had bitten him (this sets up the upcoming conflict even further). As they’re talking, Harry’s owl arrives with the return letter from Charlie. He has agreed to take the dragon, but they have to pass it off to his research team from the tallest tower of Hogwarts on Saturday at midnight so the dragon won’t be seen by anyone (refining the goal).
The next night, Harry and Hermione visit Ron in the infirmary; the dragon bite has caused his hand to swell, requiring treatment. He informs Harry and Hermione that Malfoy came to laugh at him and threatened to tell on them. Also, Malfoy borrowed a book from Ron, who suddenly remembers that the letter from Charlie was in it. Malfoy knows what they’re planning to do on Saturday night and wants to get them in trouble (conflict).
Harry and Hermione leave the infirmary and go to Hagrid’s hut to inform him of their plan (a step toward the goal).
On Saturday night, Harry and Hermione collect the dragon from Hagrid’s house (another step toward the goal).
It’s getting close to midnight as Harry and Hermione carry the dragon-containing crate through the corridors of Hogwarts. Ahead, they see two figures grappling with each other (but Harry and Hermione are hidden by the Invisibility Cloak, so it’s ok). It turns out Professor McGonagall caught Malfoy out of bed after hours and is punishing him. Because of this, Harry and Hermione easily get to the top of the tower undetected (several more steps toward the goal).
After ten minutes, Charlie’s friends arrive on their broomsticks. They rig the dragon up in a harness and fly away with him (outcome).
Harry’s and Hermione’s hearts are “as light as their hands” as they come down from the tower (reaction). However, Filch sees them at the bottom of the stairs, as they had forgotten the Invisibility Cloak in the tower (“but” part of the outcome).
Filch takes them down to McGonagall’s study. Harry chides himself for stupidly forgetting about the Cloak (second reaction). McGonagall gives them detention and takes fifty points each from Gryffindor for breaking the rules (“and” part of the outcome).
Over the next few days, Harry comes to the following conclusion: “It was a bit late to repair the damage, but Harry swore to himself not to meddle in things that weren’t his business from now on. He’d had it with sneaking around and spying. He felt so ashamed of himself that he went to Wood and offered to resign from the Quidditch team.” (decision).
Note how each segment serves the scene in some way, and some segments contain two scene elements. The first two segments are exceptions, as their purpose is to provide context for the scene (such segments are explained a little later). The remaining ten segments are plot-based segments.
What About Segments that Advance a Subplot?
For the purposes of our discussion, a “subplot” is a secondary plot whose events occur in small pieces while the main plot unfolds. Sometimes, subplots are very simple. We’ll see examples in the analysis of The Lightning Thief in Part 6 of this series. The book contains four subplots, all of which start with a goal and end with the first outcome (i.e., each subplot gets a pseudo-scene).
In other stories, a subplot is given multiple scene cycles. For an example of this kind of subplot, let’s take a look at Wings of Fire: The Hidden Kingdom. The goal for this subplot was formed in the previous book of the series: the five dragonets of destiny (our protagonists) have decided to go to the Rainforest Kingdom to get help curing the poisonous SandWing scratch that has injured Webs.
This subplot is resolved across nine detached segments comprising three scene cycles:
On page 68, the dragonets and Webs arrive in the Rainforest Kingdom, (first step toward their goal).
We then leave Webs alone more or less until page 104, when we get an update on his injury (it’s getting worse). The dragonets ask the RainWings if they can see the queen and ask for her help (another step toward the goal).
The dragonets are then led to the queen’s treehouse. The closest thing to a conflict is that there is a long line to see the queen. While they wait in line, the dragonets learn that RainWings are going missing and no one is doing anything about it, which sparks the main plot of the story.
The dragonets finally get to see the queen on page 129 and ask if she can help Webs. She says that although RainWings know about poison, they do not know how to heal SandWing poison, so she cannot help them (outcome). After some pleading from the dragonets (reaction), the queen says they can try asking the RainWing tribe’s healers for help. The context implies that they will do just that (implied decision/new goal). The dragonets agree that it’s silly for all five of them to escort Webs to the healers and that some of them should go investigate what’s causing the RainWings to go missing. Since Glory, our viewpoint character, is part of the team that does not go with Webs, we ditch this subplot for the time being and shift to the main plot.
On page 160, all five dragonets are back together. Tsunami (one of the two who went with Webs) gives an update: “I don’t think these ‘healers’ have seen anything worse than a sprained wing or stubbed claw.” The implication is that the outcome is a failure. The dragonets drop the matter for now.
The subplot isn’t brought up again until page 243. For reasons related to the main plot, the dragonets have met with Blaze, a royal SandWing, in the desert. During their conversation, Sunny slips in a question about how one would go about curing a dragon who’s been poisoned by a SandWing scratch. Blaze tells them that cactus juice heals their poison. We then return to the main plot. However, we can imply that the dragonets intend to keep a lookout for cacti and bring some cactus juice to Webs (decision/goal).
On page 262, while the dragonets are looking for the secret passage that connects the desert to the rainforest as part of the main plot, Sunny spots a cactus and breaks off a chunk to bring to Webs (a step toward the goal).
On page 266, a few days after dragonets have returned to the rainforest, we’re told that “Sunny had squeezed the cactus juice into Webs’s wound and reported jubilantly that she thought it was working” (another step toward the goal).
Finally, on page 366, a sleeping Webs is described as “breathing peacefully for the first time since Blister had attacked him. Sunny was right: the cactus juice was working” (outcome).
You might have noticed that this subplot contains no conflicts or dilemmas. Unlike a main plot, a subplot can survive without these two elements. In fact, because these are the most immersive parts of a scene, adding too much conflict and dilemma to a subplot can be detrimental. If you’re not careful, you might pull too much attention away from the main plot, making the novel as a whole feel unfocused.
Regardless of what kind of subplot we have, I do not categorize subplot-containing segments as plot-based segments. This is because authors don’t usually devote entire segments to advancing subplots. Instead, they insert elements of subplots into scenes that already serve another purpose. This makes it hard to organize subplot-containing segments into full scenes, even if they contain all the elements of the scene cycle.
What About Pseudo-Scenes?
You may recall from Part 2 of this series that a “pseudo-scene” is a segment or collection of segments that contains the first few elements of a scene; however, the “scene” gets cut short, either at the outcome or reaction.
Although pseudo-scenes contain some elements of the scene cycle, they do not advance the plot. Remember: scene elements are included in pseudo-scenes only to add liveliness to potentially dull (but necessary) sections of a novel. But they do not transform a segment into a plot-based segment.
Non-Plot-Based Segments
Not every segment in a story can advance the plot. For one thing, if a story were all plot, it would be very difficult for readers to follow unless the plot was very simple. Moreover, the heart of a story is found not in its plot but in its characters and theme. A story that focuses only on plot can still be readable, and even enjoyable, but it would also be soulless.
That’s where “non-plot-based segments” (or “NPB segments” for short) come into play. As the name implies, an NPB segment is any segment that does not directly advance a story’s main plot.
The primary functions of NPB segments are:
exploring theme
developing character and relationships between characters
setting up the current scene or foreshadowing a later one
providing information about the story world
filling large jumps in time or location between other segments
The following sections explore each of these purposes in detail.
Segments that Explore Theme
Authors can use NPB segments to create stand-alone episodes that highlight one of the story’s themes.
For example, Chapter 11 of To Kill a Mockingbird contains four NPB segments in which Jem destroys Mrs. Dubose’s camellia bushes and is made to go read to her every day for over a month to make up for it. The events during these segments have absolutely no bearing on what happens elsewhere in the story. Instead, they highlight what “true courage” is when it’s revealed that Mrs. Dubose was fighting to overcome a morphine addiction before she died.
Segments that Develop Character
Character and plot are often developed together. That is, readers learn about characters through the actions they perform and the thoughts they have during the conflicts and dilemmas of plot-based segments. However, authors can take breaks from the plot as needed and insert NPB segments with the sole purpose of adding depth to their characters.
Flashbacks are often used for this purpose. This technique is used frequently in The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett, in which nearly every chapter (set in 2018) is followed by a flashback providing details about the protagonist’s life, from 1940 to the present year.
These flashbacks show instances from Eudora’s past in which she was abandoned in one way or another by the people she loved. Since these events happened long before the main narrative, they do not directly influence the plot. What they do is foster sympathy in readers and help them understand Eudora’s motivation for wanting to end her life (the story-level goal about which the main plot revolves).
Introducing new characters
The introduction of a new secondary character often warrants its own segment. Authors don’t typically advance the plot in such segments so that they can put more focus on acquainting the reader with the new character.
This is especially helpful if you want to introduce several new characters in quick succession. For example, in Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone, the forty pages after Alina arrives in Os Alta contain a series of NPB segments in which she meets seven new characters.
Several of these characters play notable roles, but they disappear from the reader’s view for long periods throughout the trilogy. Therefore, it’s important that the reader remembers who they are, and for this reason, it was a wise move to step away from the plot during this section of the novel. If the reader had been forced to continue following the plot while being introduced to all these characters, it could have easily resulted in cognitive overload.
Segments that Set Up Other Scenes
If a story has a strong plot, the context for most scenes will be provided by the events of the previous scene. However, the need may occasionally arise for an author to weave a new complication into the narrative to move the overall plot along. Naturally, the reader will need some context for this new complication, which can be provided through NPB segments.
We saw this in the above example from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The first three of the twelve segments in this scene were:
At breakfast one morning, Harry, Hermione, and Ron receive a letter from Hagrid saying his dragon egg is hatching. As they discuss whether to skip classes to watch the egg hatch, Harry notices that Malfoy has overheard some of their conversation, which foreshadows this scene’s conflict.
After morning classes, Harry and friends go to Hagrid’s hut to watch the egg hatch. As they observe the dragon, they notice that someone was watching through the window and then see Malfoy running away, which further sets up the upcoming conflict.
Over the next week, Harry and friends implore Hagrid to give up the illegal dragon before he gets in trouble. Harry has the idea to send the dragon to Ron’s brother Charlie, who study’s dragons in Romania. Hagrid agrees to send an owl to Charlie asking him to take the dragon (goal).
Segments 1 and 2 are NPB scenes since the scene doesn’t truly start until the goal is formed in Segment 3. However, Segments 1 and 2 could not be excluded.
Although this scene is somewhat detached from the main plot revolving around the Philosopher’s Stone, it is crucial. This is because Harry’s punishment for getting caught involves him going into the Forbidden Forest, where he learns that Voldemort is after the Philosopher’s Stone, which propels the main plot.
However, the goal of this scene isn’t related to the outcome of the previous scene. Therefore, it needed to start with two NPB segments to give readers the context behind the goal formed in the third segment.
Note that such segments do not need to immediately precede the scene that they set up. For instance, in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson’s trial begins on page 180. However, there are several NPB segments scattered throughout the previous pages that provide context for the trial, including the following:
Pages 85–87: Scout is antagonized by a schoolmate because her father, Atticus, is going to defend a Black man in court. This shows that Atticus isn’t just taking on the prosecution in court; he’s taking on the mindset of the entire county.
Pages 98–100: During a conversation with his brother about the case, Atticus says, “It couldn’t be worse, Jack. The only thing we’ve got is a black man’s word against the Ewells’. The evidence boils down to you-did—I-didn’t. The jury couldn’t possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson’s word against the Ewells’.” This foreshadows that the conflict will be insurmountable.
Pages 139–140: At the Black church, Scout and Jem learn that the collection money is being donated to Tom Robinson’s wife because she can’t take care of the children on her own and is having trouble finding work due to the nature of Tom’s alleged crime (rape). This segment pre-emptively raises the stakes of the trial by clarifying the struggles Tom’s family must deal with if Atticus loses the case.
Segments that Provide Information
Sometimes, readers need to be fed background information in order to make sense of the plot or the story world. The three most common methods authors use to present information to readers are:
Direct exposition via the narrator
Dialogue
Flashbacks
Giving it to the reader straight
The simplest way to present information to the reader is to have the narrator relay the information directly. For example, as the plot of Louis Sachar’s Holes progresses, readers need to know that yellow-spotted lizards are extremely dangerous, hence the following early NPB segment:
Actually, it is kind of odd that scientists named the lizard after its yellow spots. Each lizard has exactly eleven yellow spots, but the spots are hard to see on its yellow-green body.
The lizard is from six to ten inches long and has big red eyes. In truth, its eyes are yellow, and it is the skin around the eyes which is red, but everyone always speaks of its red eyes. It also has black teeth and a milky white tongue.
Looking at one, you would have thought that it should have been named a “red-eyed” lizard, or a “black-toothed” lizard, or perhaps a “white-tongued” lizard.
If you’ve ever been close enough to see the yellow spots, you are probably dead.
The yellow-spotted lizards like to live in holes, which offer shade from the sun and protection from predatory birds. Up to twenty lizards may live in one hole. They have strong, powerful legs, and can leap out of very deep holes to attack their prey. They eat small animals, insects, certain cactus thorns, and the shells of sunflower seeds.
However, this method is not always the best since it is generally less engaging than other options. You can get away with some passages like the example above here and there, but if you were to do that for five pages straight, it may turn readers off.
Providing information through dialogue
Authors very commonly use dialogue to provide readers with information. If applied skillfully, this method is much more engaging than using the narrator directly.
For example, in The Lightning Thief, Percy has a lot of things to learn once he arrives at Camp Half-Blood and is told that the Greek gods are real and still alive. Since the reader also has a lot to learn about the story world, Rick Riordan uses a series of NPB segments to show Chiron filling in Percy (and the reader) on several matters, including the current location of the gods:
“Well now, there’s Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there’s the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It’s still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do.”
“You mean the Greek gods are here? Like…in America?”
“Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West.”
“The what?”
“Come now, Percy. What you call ‘Western civilization.’ Do you think it’s just an abstract concept? No, it’s a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn’t possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know—or as I hope you know, since you passed my course—the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps—Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on—but the same forces, the same gods.”
“And then they died.”
“Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there.”
Using flashbacks to present information
Flashbacks are another common technique for providing the reader with information while favouring showing over telling. Flashbacks are especially useful for providing large, complicated amounts of information since they lend themselves well to being formatted as pseudo-scenes.
Returning to Holes, while Stanley is digging his first hole, Sachar intersperses a series of flashback segments in the form of a pseudo-scene to explain the origin of the Yelnats family curse:
Elya Yelnats, his love for Myra, and his desire to marry her (main goal) are briefly described. However, Myra’s father would rather marry his daughter off to Igor, who can offer him a pig in exchange (main conflict).
Elya goes to see Madame Zeroni. She says Elya should forget about Myra and think about going to America, like her son (mini-conflict). However, Elya is persistent, and Madame Zeroni gives him a very small piglet to raise and trade for Myra (mini-outcome). He is to take the pig to the top of the mountain and let it drink from the stream and sing a song to it every day until (and including) Myra’s fifteenth birthday. Then, he will need to take Zeroni herself up the mountain so she can drink from the stream, and he is to sing the song to her, too. She says if he does not do this, he and his descendants will be doomed for all of eternity.”
We’re told that “Elya took the pig to the mountain every day. The pig grew fatter, and Elya grew stronger” (progress toward the goal).
However, Elya doesn’t take the pig on the last day and instead bathes before presenting himself to Myra. At Myra’s house, the father weighs Elya’s and Igor’s pigs; they weigh the same. As a result, the father lets Myra choose her husband. But she’s so empty-headed that she can’t, so she says for them to pick a number between 1 and 10. Realizing that Myra has no heart, Elya says she can marry Igor and keep the pig (main outcome).
Elya still can’t believe Myra didn’t love him and couldn’t even see what a foul person Igor was. He wanders aimlessly to the wharf (reaction). He is welcomed aboard a ship heading for America. However, after they’ve set sail, he realizes that he forgot to take Madame Zeroni up the mountain.
Elya is in America and has a wife. He can feel Madame Zeroni’s curse on him. He looks for Zeroni’s son to repay the debt, but he never finds him.
After his barn is struck by lightning for a third time, he tells his wife about the curse and that he’s a pig thief. They have a child a year later and name him Stanley.
Transitional Segments
Most transitions are not given an entire segment. Instead, they are covered by a short transitional sentence or phrase. However, if you want the voyage from point A to point B to feel grand or if you want to emphasize that a substantial amount of time or ground has been covered, you can use a whole segment as a transitional tool.
A good example of a transitional segment can be found in Leigh Bardugo’s Ruin and Rising. It starts as follows:
For two days, we carried on like that, moving through the tunnels, occasionally backtracking when a route proved impassable. I’d lost all sense of what direction we were heading, but when Mal announced that we were turning west, I noticed that the passages were sloping upward, leading us toward the surface.
Then, the following occur:
Alina has a short conversation with Mal.
Alina narrates what the other characters she’s travelling with are doing (e.g., “Tamar had started trying to teach Nadia some Shu ballads”).
Alina has a quick conversation with Genya about Genya’s love interest.
Alina very briefly narrates some small conflicts that arose between different party members along the way.
Several caves are described (“We stumbled into a series of little caves glittering with what might well have been real rubies. Genya dubbed it the Jewelbox, and after that, we took to naming all of them to pass the time. There was the Orchard—a cavern full of stalactites and stalagmites that had fused together into slender columns. And less than a day later, we came across the Dancehall, a long cave of pink quartz with a floor so slippery we had to crawl over it, occasionally sliding to our bellies”).
On the fourth day, Alina has another short conversation with Mal, followed by one with Harshaw.
The segment ends when there is an explosion above them.
That’s quite a lot of material, and at four pages long, the segment is somewhat lengthy for a transition. If such a segment were found in a fast-paced thriller, it wouldn’t be ideal. However, since Ruin and Rising is a fantasy, the length of the passage is an asset since it adds to the story’s epic feel.
Another reason the segment works is because Bardugo does well to include enough interesting sensory details, dialogue, etc. to keep the reader interested even though nothing is really happening. Although the main purpose of the segment is to take the characters from point A to point B, there is more going on than their movement through the tunnels. For instance, the relationship between Alina and Mal is explored a little bit through their conversations.
Closing Remarks
Before ending this article, I had better clarify that you don’t have to devote NPB segments to fulfilling the purposes listed above. If a plot-based segment allows you to insert a snippet of backstory, for example, then I would recommend doing that, as it will enhance your story’s pacing. Think of NPB segments as a contingency plan for cases where you need to include something unrelated to plot but you can’t think of a natural way to integrate it into a plot-based segment.
You can also use NPB segments if a character flaw, for example, is so important that you want to shine a spotlight on it by devoting a thousand words to it. Another reason you would use NPB segments is if you’re writing literary fiction, in which case plot doesn’t matter so much.
Next up, in Part 4 of this series, we’ll discuss how you can alternate between and/or blend different types of segments to build interesting and purposeful scenes. I’ll also show you how to transition between segments like a pro.
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