Some scenes write themselves. And then there are the ones you’ve been staring at for three days, where two characters drink coffee, talk about the weather and absolutely nothing happens. Both have the same number of words. The difference is usually three questions worth asking before you write.
1. What does the character want in this scene?
Not in the novel. In this scene. Something specific, and soon.
In Wanted: One Dragon, Sunday Plot’s sample novel, there’s a scene where Mara sneaks into the bakery at night, following a trail of scorched crumbs. What does she want? To find the egg before Alex, the police officer, reaches the same conclusion. Small, clear and in a hurry.
That goal is what gives the scene a direction. The reader knows what the character is after and, without noticing, starts wondering whether they’ll get it. Now you have their attention.
If you can’t find it: maybe the character is only in the scene to listen, or to be told something. Try giving them an intention, even a small one. They want to leave as soon as possible. They want nobody to ask why they skipped the summer dance. They want the last slice of cake. Something.
2. What makes it hard?
The conflict. It doesn’t have to be a fight, or a shoot-out, or a dragon setting fire to an awning (although this novel does have one of those, just in case). Something standing between the character and what they want is enough.
Mara wants to search the bakery quickly and without witnesses. But Alex is already inside, flashlight in hand, with the same idea. If she leaves, he gets the clue. If she stays, they’ll have to search together.
Conflict can come from outside (another person, time running out, a door that won’t open) or from inside (a doubt, a fear, a temptation). What matters is friction. Without friction, the character gets what they want on the first try, and a scene like that reads like paperwork.
If you can’t find it: ask yourself what’s the worst thing that could happen to the character right then. It doesn’t have to happen. As long as it could, there’s tension.
3. How does it end?
The scene’s outcome. Do they get what they wanted? There are four possible answers, and all four work:
- Yes. They get it. Use it sparingly: if everything goes well, the reader relaxes too much.
- No. They fail. It works, but be careful about stringing too many together. It gets discouraging.
- Yes, but. They get it, at a price. Mara finds the egg… or what’s left of it: the shell is cracked open, and someone is hiding whatever was inside.
- No, and what’s more. They fail, and on top of that something worse happens. The favorite of writers with a mean streak, and of readers who can’t put the book down.
The outcome is what connects this scene to the next one. If the scene ends the same way it started, something got lost along the way.
A scene in three questions
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1. What do they want?
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2. What makes it hard?
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3. How does it end?
Why it works
These three questions make sure something changes in every scene. And a novel where every scene changes something moves forward on its own, even in small steps.
They also help with the blank page. It’s much easier to start writing when you know that Mara wants to search the bakery, that she runs into Alex and that the two of them end up staring at an empty shell at three in the morning. You’re not writing blind anymore: you know where the scene is going, and all that’s left is finding out how it gets there.
A friendly warning
Not every scene has to be high tension. There are breather scenes, quiet scenes, scenes where two characters finally understand each other without saying a word. Those have a goal, a conflict and an outcome too. They’re just smaller, and they happen on the inside. A look held a second too long is a conflict as well.
For today
Pick a scene that’s fighting you and answer the three questions, one line each. If you can’t think of a stuck scene, pick the next one you’re going to write.
In Sunday Plot, every scene card has a space for each question. Once they’re filled in (along with who’s in it, where it happens and who tells it), the scene shows up as “Ready to write”. It isn’t magic. You just know what has to happen.