The previous article in this Editor’s Guide to Scene Structure defined the scene as it relates to plot structure and introduced the six elements that make up the scene cycle. As a refresher, the standard scene pattern is as follows: The protagonist starts with a goal, which is difficult to overcome due to a conflict. In the end, the protagonist may or may not achieve their goal (outcome). They then have a reaction to the outcome and a dilemma about what to do next, ultimately arriving at a decision. This decision informs the next scene’s goal.
This cycle is the basis for telling stories with strong, cohesive plots. However, if you try to follow this pattern to the letter in every single scene in your novel, two bad things are likely to happen: (1) the novel will feel repetitive and formulaic, and (2) you will likely get stuck trying to force the pattern to work in places where it just doesn’t.
Fortunately, the standard pattern is not set in stone. In any given scene, the elements might be rearranged, repeated, implied, or omitted. This article provides explanations and examples of a few of the most common ways in which authors modify the standard scene structure. The list I’ve provided is by no means exhaustive.
Scene-Level Variations
To start, we’ll look at a couple of variations which change the entire makeup of a scene. We’ll then go on to look at how individual elements can be modified.
Pseudo-Scenes
This variation of the standard scene cycle is noteworthy because it’s the only one that breaks the cycle. That is, the outcome of the current scene does not inform the following scene’s goal. The cycle just stops after the outcome (or reaction). These “scenes” function as stand-alone episodes that could be plucked from a story without impacting the main plot.
Since driving the plot forward is the main purpose of any scene, these “scenes” aren’t true scenes. They look like scenes, they taste like scenes, but they're not scenes. I refer to them using the term “pseudo-scenes.”
But if pseudo-scenes don’t aid the plot, then should you even write them? Aren’t you tricking the reader by introducing false conflict? Aren’t you just writing filler?
It may seem that way, but pseudo-scenes do have their purposes—driving the main plot just doesn’t happen to be one of them. Usually, an author will write a pseudo-scene when all three of the following criteria are met:
The author needs to provide the reader with important information (e.g., to foreshadow future events or provide backstory).
There is no good way to seamlessly integrate this information into an existing full scene.
Relaying the information through exposition (i.e., telling, not showing) would bore the reader.
So, basically, you can think of a pseudo-scene not as filler but as a section of a story where the author needed to step away from the plot for good reason and added some conflict to make this part of the story more interesting.
As you might assume, pseudo-scenes are more commonly found in character- or theme-based (literary) novels than in plot-based (commercial) novels. This is because the primary purpose of most scenes in literary fiction is not to drive the plot forward but to add depth to the novel’s exploration of whatever it’s exploring.
For example, Bridge to Terabithia starts with Jess having already formed a goal: to win the races at school. However, Leslie joins the races and is very fast (conflict). She beats everybody, including Jess (outcome). Jess is upset, and everyone else is stunned that a girl won the races (reaction).
And then the pseudo-scene stops there. Jess doesn’t form a new goal for quite some time, and when he does, it’s to get back at Janice for stealing his sister’s Twinkies, which clearly has nothing to do with racing. That’s ok, though, because the purpose of the race pseudo-scene isn’t to get the reader hungry to see Jess train hard and win the races next time; its purpose is to develop Leslie and Jess as characters and explore the theme of gender roles.
A Scene Exists Within Another Scene
Sometimes, an author begins a scene and then introduces and resolves a new goal before finishing the original scene. When this happens, you end up with one scene embedded within another.
Based on the diagram above, you may have noticed that Scene B is a pseudo-scene. And it kind of has to be. For the scene-within-a-scene pattern to work, the conflict that interrupts the initial scene cycle should be resolved cleanly (i.e., the outcome shouldn’t create a dilemma). There’s no rule saying the new outcome can’t lead to a dilemma, but things can easily become convoluted if you try to overlap two full scenes.
There’s a scene within a scene in Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief soon after the plot gets going in Act 2. Percy’s original scene goal is to take the bus to LA (goal A). But Percy is being pursued by three Furies (conflict A), which ultimately causes a negative outcome when the bus explodes (outcome A). After reacting (reaction A), Percy smells cheeseburgers and wants one (goal B). However, it turns out the burgers are being made by Medusa, who wants to turn Percy and his companions into statues (conflict B). They defeat Medusa (outcome B) and react to the battle (reaction B).
Then, Annabeth states, “We need a new plan” (dilemma A). Note that this dilemma was caused by the bus exploding (outcome A), not by defeating Medusa—that would make no sense. Therefore, at this point, the pseudo-scene that began with Percy wanting a cheeseburger has ended, and the scene that began with Percy wanting to get to LA resumes with the dilemma question of “What’s our plan for getting to LA now?”
Element-Level Variations
Now that we've looked at the main ways authors manipulate the structure of an entire scene to suit their needs, let's see how you can alter or omit individual elements of the scene cycle.
The Scene Starts Without a Goal
In standard scenes, the protagonist starts with a goal and then encounters a barrier (conflict) that makes it difficult to achieve the goal. However, sometimes, the protagonist begins a scene just going about their life when an unexpected event puts them in immediate danger. This dangerous situation (i.e., the conflict) quickly catalyzes a goal.
For instance, the final scene of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird starts without a goal. Scout and Jem are walking home at night after the Hallowe’en pageant when they realize someone is following them through the empty schoolyard. When this person begins running toward them (conflict), Scout and Jem attempt to flee to safety (goal).
However, you can’t use this scene pattern to get a scene going just because you’re stuck. It still has to make sense with whatever happened in the previous scene. The above example works because, technically, the outcome of the previous scene did create a goal that is relevant to the above scene.
Previously, Scout’s father, Atticus, failed to successfully defend Tom Robinson in court, but at least he was able to expose Bob Ewell to the town as the trash that he is (outcome). Because of this, Bob Ewell wishes to get revenge on Atticus by harming his children. Thus, somewhere off the page, Bob Ewell made a decision to attack Scout and Jem based on the previous scene’s outcome.
The one exception to the above rule is that you can throw a scene-instigating conflict into your story from out of nowhere if this conflict is the story’s inciting incident.
For example, about 10% of the way into Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Scene 1 starts with Harry’s and Dudley’s preparations for the upcoming school year. Nothing of note is happening, but then a mysterious letter arrives for Harry. When Uncle Vernon sees who it’s from, it creates the story’s first conflict and, in turn, its first goal (which belongs to Uncle Vernon): Don’t let Harry see this letter and learn he’s a wizard.
The Goal Has Multiple Steps
Some scene goals are made up of several mini-goals that are very closely related and completed in relatively quick succession. Once the first mini-goal is completed, the protagonist immediately starts working toward the next one. Though the protagonist may briefly react to their initial success, there is no need for a dilemma or decision. This is because the protagonist’s success in the first mini-goal doesn’t mean anything unless they accomplish all the mini-goals. Only then (or if they ultimately fail) do they engage in a dilemma.
For example, in an early scene in R. L. Stein’s The Haunted Mask, Carly Beth forms the goal of (A) finding a really scary Hallowe’en mask and (B) buying it. Conflict A is that the party store doesn’t seem to have any masks that are scary enough. However, Carly Beth ends up finding a back room, inside of which are the scariest masks she’s ever seen (outcome A).
Conflict B begins immediately thereafter, as the man who runs the store refuses to sell any of the masks from the back room. However, after much pleading, Carly Beth convinces him to sell her one of them (outcome B). Carly Beth then reacts gleefully to the success of her dual goal, wonders if she should test the mask out on someone (dilemma), and decides she should test it out on her brother.
As a tip, you know you’re working with a two-step goal, as opposed to two separate scenes, if you can remove the first conflict without severely hindering the scene’s ability to drive the plot. In the example above, the scene wouldn’t be ruined if Carly Beth had found a really scary mask as soon as she entered the shop. The scene would have simply become a standard scene.
Not every mini-goal needs a mini-conflict
When writing a scene with a multi-step goal, it sometimes makes the most sense to give the protagonist what they want without any trouble.
For example, say you’ve created a secondary character named Mary who is very agreeable and generous. In one scene, one of your protagonist’s mini-goals is to get Mary to drive her to the hospital. It would be unrealistic if Mary were to need convincing, and the conflict would feel forced as a result. Therefore, you would want to skip the conflict and get straight to the outcome of Mary agreeing to help.
An example of this can be found around halfway through L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her friends arrive at the Emerald City. Dorothy’s scene-level goal is to gain an audience with the Wizard. There is potential for a mini-conflict when Dorothy and her friends are greeted by the Guardian of the Gate. However, no conflict arises; when Dorothy asks him to take them to the Wizard, he says, “I am the Guardian of the Gate, and since you demand to see the Great Oz I must take you to his Palace,” which is pretty much the least conflict-y thing he could have said.
Interestingly, the Guardian of the Gate in the film version is not so helpful (“Not nobody, not no how!” he famously says); the filmmakers transformed this part of the scene to contain a mini-conflict. This shows that mini-conflicts are often optional. Whenever you spot the opportunity to introduce one, you can use your discretion to decide whether or not to include it.
The Scene Contains Several Mini-Conflicts
Ok, so I know the above diagram looks a lot like the previous one for where the goal had multiple steps. However, this case is slightly different. In the previous case, the protagonist knew what steps they would need to take before they engaged with the first conflict. In the current case, the protagonist knows only of the main conflict ahead of time. The mini-conflicts are unknown to the protagonist until the author throws them in their way to test their mettle.
For example, in one scene in The Lightning Thief, Percy’s goal is to meet with Hades in the Underworld and free his mom. Mini-conflict A arises when a security guard suspects Percy is a godling (and, therefore, isn’t allowed in the Underworld), but Percy bribes the guard and is allowed through (mini-outcome A). Mini-conflict B commences soon thereafter when Cerberus blocks the party’s path, but Annabeth distracts the three-headed dog with a ball, and they sneak past (mini-outcome B). Mini-conflict C then occurs when Grover’s flying shoes go crazy and almost fly him into a pit, but he kicks them off just in time (mini-outcome C). After all that, the heroes finally arrive at Hades’s Palace, where the main conflict takes place. From there, the scene cycle proceeds as usual.
Like with the mini-goals mentioned in the previous section, the mini-conflicts in this type of scene are easy to remove without harming the overall scene’s logic. In the above example, if Rick Riordan or his editor had felt the scene was too long, he could have simply removed the bit with the security guard.
Inconveniences
Sometimes, an author will add a very small mini-conflict to add some drama or tension to a scene that might otherwise feel boring. These “inconveniences,” as I call them, are not proper conflicts or even mini-conflicts. This is because, although they evoke a sense of conflict, the protagonist doesn’t have to try very hard (or at all, in some cases) to overcome them.
The scene from the Haunted Mask example above starts with an inconvenience. When Carly Beth first gets to the party store, the shop is closed. This has the potential to be a mini-conflict, but it doesn’t count because the shop owner quickly notices Carly Beth outside and lets her into the store, and he does this without any begging or convincing from Carly Beth.
The Second Half of the Outcome Is Delayed
In Part 1 of this series, I mentioned that outcomes often have two parts. First, every outcome must clarify whether the protagonist achieved or failed to achieve their goal. Second, many outcomes also include a “but” or an “and” indicating that things are better or worse than they initially seemed. Usually, the second part immediately follows the first. However, this is not always the case.
Sometimes, the protagonist will accomplish a goal only to later realize it was a false victory. In this case, it might even look like a new scene has begun after the protagonist’s reaction, with the apparent new scene beginning with the sense that all is well. However, the protagonist soon learns that the previous outcome has had a severely negative side effect (this is the “but” part of the outcome). This causes them to have a second reaction, followed by the scene’s dilemma and decision.
This happens in The Haunted Mask after Carly Beth achieves her initial story-level goal of scaring Chuck and Steve (first part of the outcome) She celebrates (initial reaction) and then goes to Sabrina’s house, where they evaluate their Hallowe’en candy hauls. But when Carly Beth goes to take off her mask, she realizes it has somehow melded itself to her skin and can’t be removed (the “but” part of the outcome). She freaks out and runs into the streets (second reaction), and she eventually decides to ask for help from the man who sold her the mask.
There Is No Dilemma
In some situations, it wouldn’t make sense for the protagonist to stop and think through their options (e.g., they’re so angry they can’t think straight). Therefore, authors will sometimes jump straight from the reaction to the decision without describing the character’s thought process—because there was none.
This kind of scene occurs in The Lightning Thief. After Percy accomplishes his scene goal by retrieving Ares’s shield (outcome), the following passage is given:
I hated being teased. I hated being tricked. And I had plenty of experience handling bullies who liked to do that stuff to me [reaction]. I hefted the shield on my arm and turned to my friends. “We need to have a little talk with Ares [decision].”
The Decision Is Implied
There are two main reasons why an author might not explicitly state a protagonist’s decision at the end of a scene:
The decision is so obvious from the context that the author would insult the reader’s intelligence by spelling it out.
The author wants to withhold information about the decision to increase the reader’s interest in the next scene.
I won’t discuss the first reason since it’s so straightforward, but the second reason is worth explaining in a little more depth.
If it is unclear what the protagonist will do next, the author might keep their decision unclear until part-way through the following scene. Instead of simply telling the reader what the protagonist is going to do (e.g., see Percy’s line of dialogue from the previous section), the author makes the reader keep reading if they want to find out.
Not only is this a nice little trick to motivate readers to keep reading through a chapter break, but it also makes the beginning of the next scene more engaging by forcing the reader to be observant.
For example, in an early scene in The Haunted Mask, Carly Beth has the mask she wanted, but she still feels that her goal of using it to scare Chuck and Steve needs to be refined. This creates the dilemma question of “How can I amplify the effect of the mask to really scare Chuck and Steve?”
But the reader isn’t told what her decision is; they’re only told that “suddenly, she had an idea.” The reader is left to deduce exactly what that idea is based on Carly Beth’s actions in the following scene.
Closing Remarks
So, there are just a few ways in which authors modify the standard scene structure. Of course, there are many more ways in which this can be done. The main thing to take away from this article is that you don’t always have to blindly follow the standard scene structure outlined in Part 1 of this series.
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