This is part two of a series discussing my process when I write a story. If you’re interested in the first part, on constructing an outline, you can find it here. It’s recommended reading for this post because, like all good processes, this step builds on the previous one so some of what I suggest here will not work that well unless you’ve written an outline. As with everything I write about my process, this is an outline of what I do. I have constructed this process through trial and error, basing much of what I do on what I learned in elementary writing exercises filtered through constant experimentation with the methods of other, more skilled writers. The result is not gospel by any means. Many things people have suggested as good writing methods I have tried and rejected. I expect others will try my methods and reject them in turn, which is good and right.

With all the disclaimers out of the way, how do I go about turning an outline into a series of narrative scenes that tie together?

Well, the first thing is that I think about the story a lot. I know that seems like a given, many people mull of their stories from time to time over the course of the day. However the thing that I try to do is be very deliberate about it. When I am at work and I have a very repetitive, hands on task like cleaning equipment scheduled for the day I look over my outline, pick two to four points and ruminate on them while performing that activity.

During this process I generally ask myself three basic questions:

1. Who are the characters in this scene?
2. How would they cause the events of the scene?
3. How do those actions lead to the next scene?

Each of these questions is actually quite complex, less because the question itself is tricky but because there may be no good answer to the question as the situation stands. For example, if the outline calls for Roy to be the only character in a scene but he needs someone who can read records of the Forever Wars written in ancient Iberian then the scene cannot progress. Roy doesn’t speak or read Iberian in any form. Thus I have to add a character to the scene to help him with this by either adding a character who can read Iberian or by adding another scene where Roy hunts down someone to translate for him.

Ideally, the events of a scene should naturally grow from who is present and what the events of a previous scene were. The first scene or two of a story are thus the most important. They’re going to set up all the pieces that drive the story so any inconsistencies there are going to spread through the rest of the story. Early errors only get worse as time goes on. That’s why I find the outlining process so valuable as it lets me see those cracks forming without spending a whole lot of time writing and rewriting the story.

In general I begin with the situation characters are in at the beginning of a scene and think about how that character would respond to it. I prefer a good, steady escalation to a scene so I begin with dialog and ramp up to actions taken. That doesn’t mean characters will always begin a scene by talking but dialog, even if it’s never used, helps you get an idea of what your characters are thinking about and what their perspectives are. Those thoughts may be best expressed directly through action. However I find that sitting down and talking over the situation with the characters the best way for me to get into their heads.

Yes, this means I am often at work, performing maintenance and having imaginary conversations with people that don’t exist. Don’t judge me. It works very well for me about 99% of the time and that is what is most important. Can’t guarantee it will work for you unless you give it a try.

Now as I mentioned above, in this stage I will often end up expanding on the outline or tweaking aspects of it in order to better reflect my answering the questions I ask myself in building a scene. I mentioned adding a scene where Roy goes to find a translator in my example above. Generally I don’t go back and modify my “final” outline as I do this although it would probably help me if I did. The outline is my road map as I plan these scenes. It’s how I plan the direction of scenes and having these things on hand is helpful, especially if I wind up taking a break part way through writing something. But as you can see in the outline I posted last week, many elements are missing from it.

The perfect example of how turning an outline into scenes can create new elements of your story is the “character” of Jonathan Riker’s Statue. I created the Statue to “watch” certain events that the point of view characters of the story couldn’t be allowed to see. They were still important events to the story and the audience needed to know them. However letting the characters see them would cause them to intervene. I couldn’t let Roy or Brandon see the captured children moving around town, watching the townspeople, for example. However letting the audience know about them was important to building the atmosphere. So I chose to create a point of view that could watch but not intervene to give the audience that perspective and that turned out to be the Statue, which grew into a much bigger POV character that I ever intended it to be.

Finally, transitions between scenes merits a lot of thought because it frames the next scene. You don’t just want to think about how you are going to get from one scene to the next you have to think about how you are going to put the events of the next scene into motion. Again, an outline is a great tool for keeping that kind of perspective in mind. However there’s another element to scene transitions to keep in mind.

Chapter transitions are a very important factor in writing your story. Each chapter needs to be a fairly contained narrative with a beginning, a middle and an end but also push the reader into the next chapter so that they’ll keep reading, be it immediately or after they get back from work that evening. It’s tempting to think of chapter transitions as scene transitions.

They are not.

A scene transition is like lobbing a ball from one platform to the next. There may be two or three of them in a chapter and that’s fine, you don’t have to create all of them as if they were chapter transitions. A chapter transition is a hard break in the action. I generally start creating a chapter break by creating a scene transition but when the ball reaches the apex of its arc between platforms that becomes the chapter break point. Then I clean up the two sides of the break point to preserve point of view and continuity.

So there you have it. General things I do while writing a scene, more things I think about than things I actually do when I am sitting at the keyboard pressing buttons or scribbling on a notepad. Generally I try and have these things half way worked out in my mind before I get to the physical writing. Again, this is something to try and I hope it will help you. Let me know how it works for you if you do!