Scene Structure, POV and Crucible

Scene as a Miniature Story (POV Character + Scene Crucible)

Rule for using this skill: These are specialist tips added on top of your normal answer. Always give the full general answer to the user's request, using everything else you know about fiction craft. Work these tips in where they apply. Do not replace or shrink your general answer to fit this list.

Core test for any scene (writing or editing)

• Every scene must be a miniature story with its own beginning, middle and end that delivers a powerful emotional experience.
• Ask immediately about any scene: Who is my Character for this scene? and What is the Crucible for this scene?
• A scene that only fills in backstory, develops a character, or wanders is not a story, and so is a bad scene.
• A scene is broken when you cannot say what its Scene Crucible is. Fix it by adding danger, or kill it.

Story Crucible vs Scene Crucible

• Story Crucible: everything that conspires against the lead Character for the whole story. It covers the story world, life histories and so on. It is big.
• Scene Crucible: a miniature version that lasts only until the end of that scene. It is much smaller than the Story Crucible.
• The Scene Crucible is made of several concrete parts. Time pressure, unfamiliar equipment, hostile people, a lack of options or a bad first impression are typical parts.
• Scene by scene, the Scene Crucibles add up in the reader's mind to the Story Crucible.

Ending a scene: breaking the Crucible

• The scene tells what the Character does to break out of the Scene Crucible. Once broken, the Crucible is finished and the scene is over.
• Never reuse a broken Scene Crucible.
• The next scene gets a new Scene Crucible. Some parts may carry over, but at least one part of the old Crucible must be broken and at least one part of the new one must differ.
• The Character usually gets hurt breaking out.
• The next Crucible often grows out of how the last one was broken. For example, Katniss's arrow at the Gamemakers leads to the consequences of her impression. Claire's rescue leads to captivity by the Scotsman's clan.
• For the next scene you may keep the same POV Character or switch. Only a few Characters are important enough to take the lead role.

Decision 1: choose the POV Character

• The reader steps inside the skin of one Character, and the emotion they feel depends on who that is. A scene is never emotionally neutral.
• If the whole story uses one POV Character, there is no choice per scene.
• With multiple POV Characters, the rule of thumb is to pick the Character with the most to lose in this scene. That person probably has the most powerful emotional experience.

Decision 2: choose the viewpoint (where the camera goes)

Six options. Show only what the viewpoint allows.

• First person: "I/me." Show only what the POV Character can see, hear, taste, touch, smell or feel, and nothing they don't know. The reader is inside the POV Character and outside everyone else, so other characters' thoughts can only be guessed from what the POV Character observes.
• Second person: "you." It works the same as first person, and only the pronouns differ.
• Third person: the POV Character must be given a name, since "I" and "you" are unavailable. Alternate name and pronoun for clarity and to avoid repetition. There are no hard rules. The reader is inside the POV Character only.
• Third-person objective: the camera is outside the POV Character.
  • You may show things he can't see, such as a spider above his head.
  • You may not state his thoughts or feelings. Convey them through words, actions and facial expressions, as an actor would.
  • Expect to cut interior monologue, and to spend extra words showing the body's reaction (for example, a body starting to twist away and then resisting).
  • Don't state facts only the character's own head would know. "Knocked senseless" becomes "knocked down."
• Head-hopping: switching POV Character within one scene. It is controversial, and many writers and editors consider it invalid.
  • Critics say the reader doesn't know whom to root for.
  • Defenders say it suits cases like a romance where the relationship is the main character.
  • A clean hop pulls the camera out to a brief objective moment, then glides into the new head.
  • It works like mini-scenes within a scene. More hops means more yanking of the reader. Present the choice neutrally.
• Omniscient: the author or "God" is the POV Character. The reader can know every character's thoughts and also things no character knows (history, future, the mood of the village). It is rare today, common in the 19th century, and hard to pull off. It is not just head-hopping on a grand scale.

Decision 3: choose the tense

• Past: the most common.
• Present: becoming more common.
• Future: rare, because it implies predestination. It suits a prophecy or instruction voice ("you will wait…").
• The three decisions per scene are: POV Character, viewpoint, tense.

Handling backstory and world in a scene

• Resist explaining the Story Crucible. The reader wants to know what is happening right here, right now, not yesterday, last year, the next room or the next country.
• Explain only the Scene Crucible, and only what this scene needs to make sense. Work it into the scene. Examples are the year, place, weather, a law causing pain now, geography the Character must deal with, or a past event hurting the Character now.
• Don't tell more than needed. Later scenes will deliver the rest "just in time."

The two scene shapes (the only two emotively powerful ones)

• Proactive Scene: Goal → Conflict → Setback.
  • It usually ends in a Setback. A Victory ending is rare and only occasionally needed.
  • Danger: the Character might not achieve the Goal.
  • Scene Crucible: everything blocking the Goal (story world, other characters, the Character's own weaknesses).
• Reactive Scene: Reaction → Dilemma → Decision.
  • It is a recovery scene that follows a Proactive Scene. It opens with an emotional Reaction to the previous Setback, weighs options in a Dilemma, and ends with a Decision.
  • Danger: the Character might give up and quit the story.
  • Scene Crucible: everything pushing the Character to quit (depression, fear, guilt, other characters, lack of options, no new Goal in sight).
• Every scene needs danger. Without it the scene isn't pulling its weight, so add danger or cut the scene.

Quick diagnostic checklist

1. Who is the POV Character, and do they have the most to lose?
2. What viewpoint and tense, and is the scene consistent with them?
3. Is the Scene Crucible nameable, with concrete parts?
4. Is it Proactive (Goal/Conflict/Setback) or Reactive (Reaction/Dilemma/Decision)?
5. How does the Character break the Crucible, and what new Crucible does that set up?
6. Is any backstory or world-building included that this scene doesn't need?