Chapter Sixteen
Create the Scene Tracker Form
The Seven Essential Elements of Scene
The technique of slowing down the action in scenes forces the stakes in a story ever higher. At the same time, the stakes also rise for you the writer. Many beginning writers hide from the pressure of creating scenes by relying solely on summary and narration. These same writers hold the mistaken belief that telling what happens is a more controllable arena than showing in scene.
My contention is that if you break down scene into its smallest parts, you retain control.
Like plot, scene has many different layers and functions. The Scene Tracker addresses seven of these essential plot elements as shown in scene.
The seven functions of scene are as follows:
- Time and Setting
- Character Emotional Development
- Goal
- Dramatic Action
- Conflict
- Change in Emotion
- Thematic Details
Scenes can have plenty of other functions—minor character development, the villain’s development, tracking the romance or the mystery, political undertones, environmental overtones, and the like—but as long as you truly see and understand each of the seven elements discussed and developed in Part Two of this book, you will be better equipped to develop not only those seven but also the others.
The more you understand each of the seven functions of scene, the more you will be able to deepen the meaning of your piece through nuance in subsequent rewrites. The more you can do that, the better you can fulfill your promise to the reader.
The Scene Tracker at Work
As great as the Plot Planner and Scene Tracker templates are for creating blockbuster plots, they are also a terrific means to see how plot concepts work in classic and best-selling fiction. Let me show you what I mean with the following example from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. The theme of this story is: “Man has a collective tendency to go overboard toward generosity and forgiveness.”
For now, I just want you to have a sense of what a Scene Tracker looks like: the plot elements (each one drawn from the plot definition we defined earlier), columns, and headers. We will go over this form step by step in the following chapters.
| Scene Tracker: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Time and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SC 1 | Fri. Aunt’s house | Tom: Small, smart, fast, prankster, liar Aunt: Softy; took in dead sister’s son | Escape | Tom/Aunt trouble | X | -/-/+ | Aunt quotes the Good Book: “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” |
| Ch. 1, SU | |||||||
| Ch. 1, SC 2 | Fri. Dinner | Not to be found out/cut school | Interrogated | X (Will he or won’t he be found out?) | +/-/+/- | ||
| Ch. 1, SU | Whistling | ||||||
| Ch. 1, SC 3 | Fri. Evening | Not one to fight right away | Figure out new boy | Exchanges insults with new boy | X (Will he or won’t he figure out the new boy?) | +/-/- | Aunt forgave him earlier. Will he forgive new boy? |
| Ch. 2, SC 4 | Sat. morning, field | Hates work Intro: J | To get out of work | White-wash fence | X (Will he or won’t he get out of work?) | -/- | Aunt fights her forgiving nature to punish Tom |
| SU | Painting | ||||||
| Ch. 2, SC 5 | Minutes later | Clever | Get someone else to do work | Ignores friend; friend falls for it | X (Will he or won’t he get someone else to do the work?) | +/+ | T.’s friends end up paying him to work |
Note: Refer to Appendix III for an example of how these scenes plot out on a Plot Planner.
Create a Scene Tracker
To create a Scene Tracker, start by dividing a piece of paper into eight columns. I prefer to use a piece of banner paper that is about six feet long, but you can use whatever suits your individual needs.
Think of this form as the warp (using the weaving metaphor again), or foundation, of your story. For each column, note that the trick is to create a succinct, concise, pithy, and to-the-point description that represents the element covered in that particular column and embodied in that particular scene.
The Scene Tracker Columns
The first column of the Scene Tracker is where you indicate what chapter you are tracking, which scene you are working on, and, when appropriate, where your summaries appear. Each of the other seven columns represents one of the seven essential plot elements in every scene.
Scene/Summary Column: This column represents the frame of your story and contains chapter and scene number information. It does not represent an essential element of plot. Rather this is the place to identify which scene you’re tracking and where each scene falls in the overall sequence of your story presentation.
Time and Setting Column: This is where you indicate the passage of time within the scene and, when appropriate, historical dates and events that take place during that time frame. This is also where you will indicate the scene’s setting.
Character Emotional Development Column: The character’s emotional development represents the heart of your story and is one of the three major plotlines. This column is where you’ll indicate what traits and background you introduce about the character in the beginning section, make shorthand comments about how you deepen the reader’s appreciation of the character’s emotional limitations in the middle, and jot down notes about how she demonstrates a change in her thinking, behavior, and/or emotions in the end.
Goal Column: The protagonist has a specific goal in every scene that he or she hopes to attain.
Dramatic Action Column: This column represents the action in the story.
Conflict Column: Story is conflict shown in scene. This is the column where you indicate if the action you list in the Dramatic Action Column is dramatic (marked with an X) or passive (indicated by no X).
Change in Emotion Column: Story is change. This is where you track the fleeting emotional changes the character moves through within each scene. A positive change is indicated by a "+" sign, while a negative change is indicated by a "-" sign.
Thematic Details Column: The theme is the why, the spirit of your story, your reason for writing the story, what you want your readers to take away from having read it. This column represents the border of your tapestry.
Take a Break
Before we move on to filling in the Scene Tracker, sit back and look at the form of the Scene Tracker. The Scene Tracker is a visual aid in seeing the structure of your story and serves as a reminder that a story awaits you. Imagine where you will hang it.
When the Scene Tracker is filled in, you will see your story in ways that are not possible in simply reading what you have written. When the luster of words and phrases is removed, the Scene Tracker form is the representation of your expression. Just as it is difficult to see the forest for the trees, it is difficult to see the form of your story for the words. Mysteries and depth are hiding in your stories right now. It is on the Scene Tracker in the interlocking plotlines that they reveal themselves.
Hang your Scene Tracker vertically on the wall beside your computer screen so it is fully visible at all times. Or print out enough copies of the Scene Tracker template to cover the number of scenes in your story. Use one template sheet per chapter. Organize and group the sheets by the beginning, middle, and end of your story. Flip through them, and integrate and modify notations as you write and rewrite your scenes.
Do not track more than a few chapters of scenes in one sitting. Stop when you run out of inspiration.
When inspiration strikes again, make a note on the Tracker. Never again will you lose an idea, a reminder, a prompt, or a question because it was filed away in a folder in a file cabinet or on your computer.
When you are ready—and only then—move on in this book. Chapters seventeen through twenty-four provide straightforward explanations and examples of how other writers brilliantly layered their scenes.