The scene is a crucial storytelling element. You can get away with writing a substandard sentence or paragraph here and there, but too many weakly structured scenes will ruin a novel and signal to agents and readers that an author hasn’t yet mastered their craft.
Therefore, a basic understanding of scene structure is critical to the success of any aspiring author. However, scene structure is also one of the most difficult storytelling concepts to understand, which can prevent writers from creating stories that hold readers’ attention.
To clear up some of the confusion surrounding the scene, I’ve written this Editor’s Guide to Scene Structure to explain in detail how I define and analyze scenes when editing a novel. My main goal in writing this series is to give you a strong understanding of how scenes work on a fundamental level, enabling you to write more structurally sound novels.
This series comprises six parts:
This first article defines the scene as well as the smaller and often-overlooked building block of stories that I call the “segment.”
Part 2 explains the most common ways in which authors manipulate standard scene structure.
Part 3 looks at segments in more depth and explains their most common purposes.
Part 4 ties everything together by showing you how to weave different types of segments together to create meaningful scenes that seamlessly build off each other, forming a cohesive, engaging story.
Parts 5 and 6 each present a full analysis of a popular novel to show how scenes are constructed and arranged by successful published authors.
The remainder of the current article will:
Address the confusion surrounding precisely what a scene is in a novel.
Define the scene and outline the six elements that make up the scene cycle.
Introduce the concept of "segments" and explain why they are a useful unit of story structure.
Two Conflicting Definitions of the Scene
Perhaps the biggest reason for the confusion surrounding the scene is that not all authors define the term “scene” the same way. Most authors conceptualize scenes using some variation of one of the following:
A scene is a chain of events comprising a miniature story arc containing six key elements: a goal, a conflict, an outcome, a reaction, a dilemma, and a decision. A scene ends when the action leads a character to decide on a new goal, which is then the starting point of the next scene.
A scene is a chain of events occurring at the same place and time. A new scene can be indicated by a scene break, a chapter break, a transitional phrase, or a sentence indicating that time has passed or that the viewpoint character is in a new location.
Sometimes, these two definitions sync up. That is, sometimes, all six elements named in the first definition play out within one location without any significant time gaps between elements. However, more often than not, the time and the location shift several times between the goal and decision.
So, if two people were to read the same chapter from the same book, one of them might say the chapter contains half a scene (based on the first definition), while the other might say it contains four scenes (based on the second definition).
Clearly, the two definitions of “scene” presented above refer to two different units of a story. Differentiating between these two units is a good place for a writer to start reinforcing their understanding of the scene.
To add some clarity to this matter, I distinguish these two units using the labels “scenes” and “segments,” each of which is described in the following sections. We’ll look at scenes first.
Scenes
Of the two definitions of “scene” given above, the first one is preferred by story structure experts as well as the majority of random people on the Internet. So, that’s the definition we’ll use. To restate:
A scene is a chain of events comprising a miniature story arc containing six key elements: a goal, a conflict, an outcome, a reaction, a dilemma, and a decision. A scene ends when the action leads a character to decide on a new goal, which is then the starting point of the next scene.
You can think of each of the six elements as one step in a scene cycle, which looks like this:
In a nutshell, a scene begins with a goal—a specific task that the protagonist wants to accomplish (occasionally, the goal belongs to another character, but I’m just going to say “protagonist” to keep things simple). However, someone or something gets in the way, creating a conflict. The protagonist’s efforts to overcome this conflict will end in one of two types of outcomes: either the protagonist accomplishes their goal, or they don’t. Then, the protagonist has a reaction to the outcome and engages in a dilemma about what to do next. The dilemma ultimately leads the protagonist to a decision, which is the basis of the following scene’s goal.
For example, in the Seinfeld episode “The Dinner Party,” Jerry and Elaine go to a bakery to buy a chocolate babka to take to a dinner party (goal). However, once they’re already in line, they realize they forgot to take a number; when they try to convince a woman behind them to give them her number in the interest of fairness, she is unwilling (conflict). In the end, Jerry and Elaine cannot convince the woman to give up her number, and, to make matters worse, she ends up leaving the bakery with the last chocolate babka (outcome).
Jerry and Elaine are upset and complain about how that was supposed to be their babka (reaction). Then, they look around the bakery and suggest a few different desserts to get instead of the chocolate babka (dilemma). They eventually agree to buy a cinnamon babka (decision), which becomes their new goal for the next scene. But they notice a hair on it after they’ve bought it, creating a new conflict, and so on.
We now have a solid definition of “scene,” and we’ve looked at how the scene cycle operates. The following subsections are intended to reinforce your understanding of scenes by providing more nuanced explanations and examples of each element.
Goal
The goal is vital to the scene because readers won’t care about what’s happening in any given scene if they aren’t even sure what the protagonist wants. It will feel like stuff is just happening to fill the pages. Moreover, if you, as the writer, aren’t 100% clear about your protagonist’s immediate goal before you start writing a scene, you are likely to either get stuck or write a long passage that you’ll later need to delete and start from scratch.
Goals come in many varieties, with the most common broad categories including:
obtaining an object
gaining information
getting to or escaping from a location
convincing another character to do something
protecting oneself or others from immediate danger
confronting an antagonistic force
Note that a character’s immediate goal in any given scene may or may not be their main goal. Often, the scene-level goal is just one step in a much larger, overarching story-level goal.
You can have multiple levels of goals working at the same time. For example, in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s story-level goal is to get back home to Kansas. Throughout the first half of Act 2, her long-term goal is to get to the Emerald City so she can ask the Wizard for help. As Dorothy works toward achieving her long-term goal, she and her friends form and accomplish multiple scene-level goals as they travel along the yellow brick road. These scene-level goals include evading the Kalidahs in a forest, crossing a river, and getting across a field of poppies that put anyone made of flesh to sleep.
Conflict
The conflict of a scene is any barrier that makes it difficult for the protagonist to accomplish their goal. This barrier, among many other possibilities, could be:
another character
a character flaw
a literal physical barrier
a lack of critical information
a lack of a specific skill
a moral dilemma (internal conflict)
One way to ensure you’re writing engaging scenes is to make sure the protagonist doesn’t achieve their goals too easily. However, not every goal should be accompanied by a seemingly impossible-to-overcome conflict—in general, you want each conflict to be a little more challenging than the last, meaning you should start relatively small. At the same time, if you write too many scenes with no conflict or easily overcome obstacles, you risk boring the reader.
There are two basic ways to introduce a conflict. Sometimes, the conflict is baked into the goal. That is, the protagonist will understand the difficulties that lie ahead before they solidify their goal.
To return to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, one of Dorothy’s goals in the second half of Act 2 is to destroy the Wicked Witch of the West. The conflict associated with this goal is obvious from the goal’s very nature—it can’t be easy to destroy a witch (neither Dorothy nor the reader knows it’s as easy as splashing some water on her).
The second way to introduce conflict is to have the protagonist form a goal that seems easy enough at first, but then you hit them with an unforeseen complication.
For example, in one scene in Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief (a full analysis is to come in Part 6 of this series), Percy’s goal is to take a bus from New York to LA. Sounds easy, right? But not so fast—soon, three of Hades’s minions board the bus and attack Percy and his friends, creating a conflict that puts their lives at risk.
Outcome
The outcome is the culmination of the conflict. It’s either the point at which the protagonist has achieved their goal or failed to do so.
There are really only two kinds of outcomes: either the protagonist succeeds (Dorothy splashes water on the Witch, thus destroying her), or they fail (Percy crashes the bus and it explodes, meaning he now has no way of getting to LA). Although ambiguous outcomes (e.g., partial victories) are possible, they are rare.
Most of the time, the outcome goes one step further than merely indicating a success or failure. If the protagonist succeeds, there is often a “but.” For instance, the full outcome in the Wonderful Wizard of Oz example is, “Dorothy destroys the Witch, but she still needs to save the Scarecrow and Woodman, who the Winged Monkeys destroyed.”
Meanwhile, if the protagonist fails, there are two ways you can go. You can add a “but” to provide a glimmer of hope, or there can be an “and” to indicate that things are even worse than the protagonist thought. In the example from The Lightning Thief, the full outcome is, “Percy’s bus explodes, and, to make matters worse, all his money, food, and clothes were on the bus.”
Reaction
You might choose to express a character’s reaction to an outcome through:
an involuntary physiological reaction (e.g., a viewpoint character’s racing heart, a non-viewpoint character’s face turning red)
a voluntary reaction (e.g., punching someone in the face)
an adjective expressing an emotion (e.g., Shaq was furious.)
dialogue (e.g., “I’m furious!” yelled Shaq.)
introspection (e.g., mentally summarizing recent events to figure out exactly where things went wrong)
For example, after Percy and his companions flee the scene of the bus explosion, Grover is described as “shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror” (involuntary reactions). Meanwhile, Percy was “pretty much in shock” (adjective), and Annabeth “kept pulling us along” (voluntary reaction). Additional reactions are a review of how the previous conflict was handled and hints of dissension among the trio. These are shown through dialogue:
“All our money was back there,” I reminded her. “Our food and clothes. Everything.”
“Well, maybe if you hadn’t decided to jump into the fight—”
“What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?”
“You didn’t need to protect me, Percy. I would’ve been fine.”
“Sliced like sandwich bread,” Grover put in, “but fine.”
“Shut up, goat boy,” said Annabeth.
The hidden importance of the reaction
Of the six scene elements, the reaction is the least directly tied to plot. Really, you could eliminate the reactions from most of the scenes in a novel and the plot would remain intact. However, reactions are important for two non-plot-related reasons.
First, the reaction helps readers see why a character makes a certain decision at the end of the scene. This makes readers care more about whether the character succeeds or fails to achieve their next goal. It also makes the character’s subsequent actions seem less random.
For example, in the first scene of R. L. Stein’s The Haunted Mask (a full analysis can be found in Part 5 of this series), the outcome is that Carly Beth is unable to prevent Chuck and Steve from scaring her at the science fair. She reacts with embarrassment, followed by anger. The embarrassment helps the reader sympathize with Carly Beth, while the anger helps the reader understand her tenacious desire to pay Chuck and Steve back.
Second, the reaction provides a natural opportunity for the author to explore character since the way people react to situations often says a lot about what kind of person they are.
Say you write an opening scene in which your protagonist gets accosted by a thug and hands his wallet over. If readers are only told about this event and nothing more, then readers may interpret the character’s action differently (some might find him cowardly, while others might find him prudent).
Generally, you don’t want to leave it up to the reader to decide what traits your characters have. Therefore, you should take advantage of the reaction elements of scenes as needed to guide the reader’s interpretation of your characters’ actions.
After your protagonist hands over his wallet and the thug runs off, you might use introspection to express that he was thinking about his wife and four-year-old daughter the whole time, and he’s just relieved that the thug didn’t hurt him. Alternatively, you could have him glare at the thug and curse himself for forgetting his switchblade at home. Same action, two very different characters.
Dilemma
The dilemma is the thought process, expressed through introspection, dialogue, or a combination of the two, that leads the protagonist to form their next goal. The dilemma revolves around a question created by the outcome (e.g., “How do we get to LA now that the bus is toast?”)
Sometimes, the right thing to do is obvious, in which case the dilemma is very short. Returning to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after Dorothy destroys the Witch and frees the Lion, the (implied) dilemma question is, “What of the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman?” The entire dilemma is as follows:
“Don’t you suppose we could rescue them?” asked the girl, anxiously.
“We can try,” answered the Lion.
Other times, the dilemma is complex. After reacting to the outcome, the protagonist, along with any other characters who are present, might spend pages narrowing the focus of the question, brainstorming ideas, eliminating bad ones, testing whether good ones are feasible, and discussing the best one until they have a specific, clear plan of action (i.e., the decision).
For example, near the end of Leah Bardugo’s Ruin and Rising, the Darkling threatens to march a group of children “to the mercy of the volcra.” This threat brings up the dilemma question of “How are we going to save the children?”
Over the next fourteen pages, Alina and her allies formulate their plan, Alina practices using her magic powers to bend light (this ability will determine whether the plan is even feasible), and the team waits for the troops that they hope the Apparat has sent. After a depressingly small team of troops arrives, the dilemma ends when Alina states the decision: “We would take our chances, and if we failed, there would be no more options.”
Decision
Just as the outcome is the culmination of the conflict, the decision is the culmination of the dilemma. It’s the protagonist’s final answer to whatever question was posed or implied at the beginning of the dilemma. The decision is a critical part of the scene cycle since any given scene’s decision is also the goal for the following scene. If no decision is stated or implied, the “scene” does not drive the main plot and, therefore, is not a scene at all.
Continuing with our example from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, once it’s agreed that Dorothy and the Lion will help the Scarecrow and Woodman, they decide the best way to do this is to ask the Winkies for help.
We’ll look at the six scene elements more closely in Part 2. For now, we shift our focus to the “segment,” a very useful but rarely discussed unit of storytelling.
Segments
We now have a pretty good idea of what a scene is. However, based on our definition, scenes can be very long, and a 100,000-word novel might have only a dozen or so. This makes it difficult to outline or evaluate a novel at the scene level since the chunks we’d be working with are too large. Adding to this difficulty, not every section of a novel is part of a scene, and we need to account for these sections.
Therefore, it’s helpful to work with a unit of a story that’s shorter than a scene but longer than a paragraph which encompasses all parts of a novel, whether there are any scene elements or not. Whenever I’m analyzing a story, I refer to these units using the generic term “segments,” which I define as follows:
A segment is a chain of events occurring at the same place and time. A new segment can be indicated by a scene break, a chapter break, a transitional phrase, or a sentence indicating that time has passed or that the viewpoint character is in a new location.
You may recognize this as the alternate definition of “scene” that was dismissed earlier in this article.
Note that the term “segment” is not an official term, and you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to—you can call ’em “potatoes” if you like. The important thing is to understand that there are scenes, and then there are these smaller bite-sized units of a story.
Segments can vary in length. In general, less than 500 words is short, 500–1,200 words is about average, and longer than 1,200 words is relatively long. But that’s not to say that a 300-word segment is too short or that a 2,000-word one is too long; it all depends on what’s happening in the segment.
Segment Breaks
Unlike scenes, which end whenever a decision is made, it’s not always clear when a new segment has begun. While I define a segment as a chain of events that occurs within one setting and does not include any significant time gaps, this definition isn’t 100% rigid.
In some cases, a single segment can take place across multiple locations. For example, a car chase scene will end in a different location from where it started. But if the movement from point A to point B occurs in real-time without any breaks in the action, then the entire chase would be one segment.
Other times, an author might provide a series of one- to two-paragraph-long snapshots that occur in different places at different times, but if they all combine to create a single effect, I tend to think of them as a single segment. Take the following passage from The Lightning Thief, for instance:
The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I’d done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn’t afraid to bruise me up in the process.
“You’re going to need all the training you can get,” he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. “Now let’s try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions.”
Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I’d just poked her between the eyes.
After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: “Quest…Poseidon?…Dirty rotten…Got to make a plan…”
Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I’d rather get into fights every day than be ignored.
I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.
The above passage contains four snapshots, but I’d categorize them as one segment since they’re all so short and have a shared purpose of showing that Percy is feeling isolated and frustrated.
Conversely, a clump of action that takes place in one location without skipping any time might include multiple segments. For example, a character might receive an important phone call about work while waiting for a friend to meet him outside his apartment. The conversation on the phone would be one segment, while the meet-up and conversation with the friend would be another, even if the friend arrives before the phone call ends.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter too much where you consider that one segment has ended and another has begun since no matter where you put them, it doesn’t affect the story’s structure—they’re kind of like chapter breaks in that way. The main purpose of breaking a story into segments is simply to give you manageable chunks to work with when outlining and revising.
Why Thinking in Terms of Segments Is Helpful
If you were to try to analyze an early draft of a standard-length novel at the paragraph level, you would end up with thousands of pieces to your puzzle, making it hard to see the forest for the trees. But if you were to go by the scene or chapter, you would end up with pieces that are too large to manage effectively.
Meanwhile, looking at segments would result in 80–100 chunks. That’s not so many that the task of evaluating them feels overwhelming. But they’re also simple enough that you won’t get sidetracked or confused while assessing them.
Moreover, if you analyze your novel’s plot structure at the scene level, you might (correctly) identify that each scene serves a purpose and (incorrectly) conclude that your story doesn’t contain any sections that need to be deleted. This is because a scene that serves a crucial purpose might contain one or more unnecessary segments.
Say an author is revising an early draft of their novel and comes to a scene containing the following series of segments:
Segment 1 takes place in Location X, starting with the goal and including the conflict, outcome, and reaction.
Segment 2 shows the protagonist travelling from Location X to Location Y.
Segment 3 takes place in Location Y, where the protagonist discusses his options with a friend (dilemma) and decides what to do next.
In this case, the author should replace Segment 2 with a single transitional sentence or paragraph. However, the author would not see a need for this if they were assessing the novel’s structure at the scene level—after all, the scene contains all six elements.
Note that there are several reasons why an author might not want to delete Segment 2 above. For example, it might foreshadow later events or develop character. We’ll look at these reasons more closely in Part 3 of this series. But before doing that, we will solidify our understanding of how scenes work in Part 2.
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