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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Welcome everyone. We're going to get started shortly. If you can see and hear me, please drop your name in location in the chat.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and I'm going to share some

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: special links with you in the chat right now.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Alright, I we see Canada, Detroit, Virginia, Connecticut, more Canada.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Florida. Oh, it's moving so fast now. So it looks like everything is working on our end. So that is great news. Welcome to another session in romance writers Week. I'm Michelle with pro writing aid, and I'm so happy to see so many of you here.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We had a great first session, and we're so excited to kick it off with another great one now. So just a few quick housekeeping items.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: replays of today's sessions will be available on the Hub no later than tomorrow morning. We just have to wait for a little bit of lag time between zoom processing and Youtube and whatnot. But you can find all of the replays for Monday through Thursday sessions on the main writers week hub.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and they will be there to view until March first.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and after that date the replays will be available for premium and premium pro subscribers of pro rating aid. Only Friday is our premium day. So while Monday, through Thursday are free for all to attend. Friday is limited to premium in premium pro writing aid subscribers. If you have any questions about your account, feel free to email hello@proratingaid.com, and we'll be happy to assist

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if you would like to upgrade your account to view Friday's sessions and Friday's replays. You can do so by Friday morning.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and we have a special offer for you to do that. All attendees of romance writers week have a special 25% off yearly premium or premium pro pro writing aid, and that is available until March first. You can find more information about that and the link to access that discount on the Hub page.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: And if you would like to keep talking romance writing, we would love to have you over in our online writing community. It is private and joining is super simple. You just log in with your pro writing, aid account information, and then you can come over to the live event. Chat and see what we've been discussing already this week.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and reminders for this session. Please use the QA. Box for questions for the speakers. As you can see, the chat moves very quickly, and you are more than welcome to chat amongst yourselves while the presentation is occurring. But if you have a specific question, so that does not get lost. Please put it in the QA. Box specifically, and if you would like to chat, please make sure that in the dropdown menu next to 2 you select

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: otherwise your messages just come to the panelists and hosts. So if you would like to chat with everyone. Be sure you're doing that.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and thank you for joining us. Today. I'm so excited to introduce our speakers. Anne and Richelle Rochelle Ramirez is a certified developmental editor who helps fiction and nonfiction writers structure and finish their projects. She is a Co. C. Co. Creator of the story Path course, and numerous writing master classes.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: She is a Co. Host of the happily ever Author club at pages and platforms, and the author of the forthcoming book, the Adhd writer from frustrated to focus, to finished. You can learn more about Richelle Ramirez and her editing services at Richelle ramirez.com.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Anne Holley is a certified developmental editor of literary, historical, and fantasy fiction, and is the author of restraint, a novel of forbidden love in Regency, England. She was the producer and writer of the popular story, grid, round table podcast and currently teaches and develops writing courses at pages and platforms. Welcome Anne and Richelle. We're so glad to have you back with us.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So thanks for having us. We're excited.

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Anne Hawley: Nice to be here. Thank you.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Alright. I'm gonna go ahead and learn with everybody else in the background and let you ladies take it away.

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Anne Hawley: Okay, great. Give me just a few seconds to get my slides showing here. I'm always a little slow at this. So bear with me while I share screen and get all that set up right.

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Anne Hawley: And

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Anne Hawley: I think we're good here. Okay.

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Anne Hawley: and let's see, get rid of this little bar. Here, there we go.

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Anne Hawley: Alright. Hi!

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Anne Hawley: How are we looking here, Michelle? Everything. All right. Okay, do you? Okay. Good deal. Alright. Well, here we go.

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Anne Hawley: Got a big orange screen. There we go. Well, everybody, we're so happy to have you here. Welcome to the right way. Better scenes, workshop or webinar from pages and platforms. We're gonna move fast through this material today. But we do have you covered. If you go to this link that's on your screen pages and platforms.com slash romance

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you will get a free, downloadable guide to the essentials of scene that we're gonna cover here. So we have a written material for you available if you'd like it. And also, of course, there will be a replay of this recording. So

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Anne Hawley: stick with us. Here we move through a lot of stuff fast. As mentioned, I'm Anne Holly, and this is Richelle Ramirez. We are both developmental editors here and in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. And we are excited to have this opportunity to share what we've learned about writing scenes that work so that we can help you. Hone your scene works skills.

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Anne Hawley: First, we want to talk for a second about why you might be here.

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Anne Hawley: Most writers who come to our classes and webinars have a manuscript in progress, and I expect the same is probably true for most of you, too. and it may be that you aren't quite satisfied with that manuscript, or you feel stuck and want help finishing it. And maybe

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Anne Hawley: there's just a feeling that something isn't quite working. But you aren't sure what happens all the time. A lot of writers have formed or joined critique groups, and sometimes those with a completed draft find beta readers in order to get feedback, and it comes back with comments like, I can't quite tell what's going on, or I don't get why your characters doing that, or here's where I got bored and stopped reading. Always nice.

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Anne Hawley: What does this thing here have to do with your story? Or the rather vague? I don't know. Something just isn't quite working for me.

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Anne Hawley: None of this is very nice to hear, however legitimate it might be. The real problem is, it's not very helpful.

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Anne Hawley: So we are here today to show you some genuinely practical tools you can use to both diagnose and tighten up your own scenes. because the scene which is our focus to day is the basic building block of story

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Anne Hawley: and writing better scenes means writing better stories.

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Anne Hawley: understanding the fundamentals of scene structure is going to give you an excellent lens to see why your critique partners or beta readers might have left some of those comments, or why you feel that something just isn't working. So to day we're covering 3 main topics to help, you understand and write better scenes. First, we're going to define our main term. What do we mean by scene?

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Anne Hawley: And then we'll we will cover the 7 essential elements every working scene needs. And we'll spend quite a bit of time analyzing 3 working scenes. We're gonna start with a real life, romantic anecdote, and then we'll move to a written scene from a historical love story. In fact, the aforementioned one that I wrote, and progressing to a filmed scene from a legal drama with a love romance subplot.

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Anne Hawley: Before we launch into it. I have an important caveat, and this is one that we give all of our students and friends and club members at the beginning of all our courses and webinars, and that is everything that we teach at pages and platforms is a set of tools.

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Anne Hawley: not rules. Please do not let anything you learn here today block your creative flow or interfere with your authentic, storytelling voice. Take what you need. Leave the rest.

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Anne Hawley: Okay, so, starting out, let's define our main term. What is a scene.

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Anne Hawley: There are various definitions, of course, but for our purposes in written novels it's a basic unit of story in which something happens

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Anne Hawley: and what happens changes the character from one state to another. Don't worry. We're gonna be going over all of this again. So just stick with this. You'll see it a lot. One question that comes up all the time is, this is a scene the same as a chapter, and the short answer is, no, not technically. A chapter is a print publishing convention from the early days of novels, way to break up the wall of text

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Anne Hawley: into a size that could be printed serially in a weekly magazine, for example, like we see here, or easily read aloud one evening around the fireplace, that type of thing very Victorian.

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Anne Hawley: A scene, on the other hand, is inherent to story structure, regardless of the medium. You mostly only have chapters in books, but you have scenes in books, movies, plays, comics, TV shows and tales told around the campfire

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Anne Hawley: a scene can break across chapters. We see this most often with the Cliffhanger type of device where the chapter breaks at the climax of the scene, and practically forces you, as a reader, to turn the page, find out how it all comes out.

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Anne Hawley: By the same token, a chapter can contain more than one scene. It's not at all uncommon to include 2 or even 3 short scenes in a single chapter with a graphic scene break indicator, like 3 asterisks or a flourish, as you see here. In short, a chapter can contain a single scene, a partial scene, or more than one scene.

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Anne Hawley: Now, I'm gonna pass the mic to Richelle, who is going to take us right through our second main topic. Richelle.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Thanks, Anne.

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Rachelle Ramirez: All right. This section is the very heart of the matter, the tool itself.

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Rachelle Ramirez: There are 7 essential elements that a scene needs in order to be a working scene. They are, and don't worry. We'll be cover. We'll be going over these a few times.

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Rachelle Ramirez: An inciting incident. complications leading to a turning point. a crisis. a climax, and a resolution

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Rachelle Ramirez: those 5 elements should happen in that order within the scene. But the overall scene must also have those 2 additional defining elements that we mentioned up front.

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Rachelle Ramirez: a story event, and a change of state for the character. Let's go over these one by one.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The first essential element of a scene is the inciting incident. Something happens to disturb the protagonist's status quo. It causes the main character in the scene to want something, and makes them set out towards it.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It can be intentional.

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Rachelle Ramirez: caused by the words or actions of another character or coincidental, such as an act of nature or a chance occurrence.

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Rachelle Ramirez: We track this mostly because over the course of a whole story, too many coincidences strain credibility.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The second essential element of a scene is complications leading to a turning point.

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Rachelle Ramirez: We group these together because it's possible to have a single complication. That is the turning point in the scene. But we're going to look at them in 2 phases.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Once the character begins moving toward whatever the inciting incident has pushed them towards.

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Rachelle Ramirez: If they go directly to the goal, there's no story

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Rachelle Ramirez: a scene requires bumps in the road.

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Rachelle Ramirez: These bumps in the roads or complications can be either obstacles or opportunities.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They aren't necessarily negative.

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Rachelle Ramirez: For a simple example, the character could encounter a fallen tree across the road that forces them to backtrack and waste time.

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Rachelle Ramirez: or they could find money on the path that opens the possibility of buying needed food.

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Rachelle Ramirez: so at least one complication must lie in the path between the character and what they want.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Complications create the pressure that gets the story rolling.

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Rachelle Ramirez: If you have more than one complication, the complications need to mount or progress until they force a character into a choice that makes them change direction.

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Rachelle Ramirez: This is what people mean when they talk about a scene turning. It's the turning point.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The minimum number of complications in a scene is one. That is, the complication is the turning point, and 3 complications are usually plenty.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The third essential seen element is the crisis

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Rachelle Ramirez: confronted with that turning point obstacle. They can't just step over the character faces a choice.

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Rachelle Ramirez: This is the crisis.

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It's a hard choice. The character has to make.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The 2 options must be consequential. That is, they must have some important bearing on a character's path toward the thing they set out to get or do in the inciting incident.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They shouldn't be. Mere distractions.

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Rachelle Ramirez: like a choice between cake and pie is inconsequential

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Rachelle Ramirez: unless one of them is poisoned and the character doesn't know which. and the choices need to be equally weighted. Cake or pie are equally weighted.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Dishonor or death are equally weighted for certain kinds of characters. but cake or death.

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Rachelle Ramirez: cake or death is a no brainer and not good story material.

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Rachelle Ramirez: You should be able to state the crisis choice as an either, or question with 2 sides.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Keep X, but give up y or keep y, but lose x.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The crisis is usually in subtext. It's expressed through a character's actions or their previous choices

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Rachelle Ramirez: in film. It's often shown by the actor's facial expression alone.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It's uncommon in good writing to find a character saying. Look, either I do this or X will happen.

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Rachelle Ramirez: because the X that will happen should already be clear to the reader. From earlier in the story.

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After the crisis comes the climax.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The climax of the scene is when the character makes the crisis choice. It's the answer to the crisis question. the choice they make between the conflicting options of the crisis

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Rachelle Ramirez: in good story telling the climaxes shown on the page by the character's words or actions.

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Rachelle Ramirez: After the climax, the good working scene has a resolution.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The resolution of the scene is whatever action proceeds from the climactic decision.

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Rachelle Ramirez: it typically leads into the next scene. and sometimes it forms the inciting incident of the next scene

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Rachelle Ramirez: the resolution may be very brief or only implied.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Sometimes you'll find a resolution that's a longish coda, sometimes called a sequel to the action of the scene.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The sixth element applies to the overall scene.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It's the story of it put in its most basic terms. Something has to happen

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Rachelle Ramirez: now, this sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed at how many manuscripts we see where whole chapters are full of setup, back story, exposition and scene setting with no actual event.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So we're looking for a thing that happens that can be stated using verbs of activity or motion.

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Rachelle Ramirez: If it were a film, you would see and hear it happen.

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Rachelle Ramirez: In other words, a solely internal change to character's thoughts or feelings usually doesn't constitute a story event.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The event is what happens to or is caused by the scene's central character.

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Rachelle Ramirez: For example. in this scene a burglar breaks into Lily's house.

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Rachelle Ramirez: or in this scene.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Henry tells Jamal that he wrecked his car.

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Rachelle Ramirez: or in this scene

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Rachelle Ramirez: Ashley meets Jojo for the first time.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Notice the words, breaks into, tells meats.

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Rachelle Ramirez: verbs of action, that we could see and hear if the story were a film.

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Rachelle Ramirez: our seventh and final essential scene element also applies across the whole scene. It's a change of state for the character. This should be a detectable shift in the character's inner state or outer situation.

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Rachelle Ramirez: or both.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The beginning, state and the ending state should be along a shared continuum. For example.

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Rachelle Ramirez: tired to rested, but not tired to happy

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Rachelle Ramirez: or

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Rachelle Ramirez: safe to threatened, but not lonely to threatened.

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Rachelle Ramirez: We're looking for a change that connects the beginning of the scene to the end.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The State should stay. Sorry

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Rachelle Ramirez: the State change should be meaningful and relevant to the overall story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Yes. in every scene.

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Rachelle Ramirez: if the only change that the character in an action story undergoes in a given scene is from, say, chilly to warm or a little peckish to fed.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Seriously. Consider whether your story needs that scene.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Finally, the change should be caused by the character's crisis choice.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Those 7 elements make up a working scene. So to prove it. Let's move on to part 3 of the class

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Rachelle Ramirez: analyzing working scenes.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Let's first test our new tool with a little story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It's more of an anecdote, really, but it's a simple, real world example of mine that contains all the essential elements of a scene.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Let's call it the red Bra.

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Rachelle Ramirez: I was single and living alone, so I had easily avoided going to the laundry mat for weeks.

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Rachelle Ramirez: As usual, I had run out of clothes, so, looking like a sweaty mess. I lugged a carload of laundry to the local spend cycle.

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Rachelle Ramirez: I was busy filling my eighth washing machine when a tall, dark, and handsome man walked in

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Rachelle Ramirez: with a small, neatly packed and single load of laundry. I tried getting Hansom's attention all through his wash cycle, even throwing my red braw over the top of my laundry cart.

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Rachelle Ramirez: but I got no response from anyone other than the maintenance man of the facility

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Rachelle Ramirez: I assumed. Hansom wasn't interested in the mess of a woman in front of him.

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Rachelle Ramirez: that is, until Hansom went to remove his clothes from the dryer, and I caught him watching me through the reflection of the dryer window.

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Rachelle Ramirez: so I moved a load of clothes to the dryer next to his.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Then the maintenance man rolled his sour mop water between me, and handsome, and pretended to need to fix the dryer. Handsome took his dry clothes to the folding table.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Damn it, I thought.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Hansen only has about 7 items to fold before he leaves.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Am I going to kick myself in the butt later for not having the guts to talk to him?

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Rachelle Ramirez: I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other and sidled up next to him.

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Rachelle Ramirez: You know I don't seem to have enough laundry of my own need help folding yours.

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Rachelle Ramirez: He laughed.

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Rachelle Ramirez: I'm Amelio, and I'd rather get your name and number than your help with my laundry.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The end.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Okay? First scene analysis. So what happened?

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Rachelle Ramirez: Think about how you would sum up the scene in a single sentence. Remember, we're looking for verbs of action here.

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Rachelle Ramirez: I'd say the story event is the story teller meets a handsome man in the laund at the laundromat and makes a connection.

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Rachelle Ramirez: What kind of change did that event give rise to for the character.

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Rachelle Ramirez: we might say something like lonely to connect it.

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Rachelle Ramirez: or desperate to Hopeful.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Now let's look at the inciting incident. Remember, this is the thing that happens to disturb the status quo of the character this instant. This incident can be intentional or coincidental.

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Rachelle Ramirez: What do you think was the inciting incident of the scene.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Hmm! Sorry.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The inciting incident here is tall, dark, and handsome. walks in sorry

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Rachelle Ramirez: walks in with a single load of laundry

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Rachelle Ramirez: note that this sets a kind of ticking clock.

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The protagonist has a clear time limit in which to act.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And is that intentional or coincidental

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Rachelle Ramirez: from the point of view of the protagonist. It's a pure coincidence.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The next thing your scene needs after an inciting incident is complications leading to a turning point.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Remember, complications are the obstacles or opportunities lying between the character and what they want.

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Rachelle Ramirez: In this case, between the character's starting point of lonely desperation and the beginning of a new connection.

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Rachelle Ramirez: the complications must mount or progress as the scene goes on, until they force

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Rachelle Ramirez: the character to turn or change direction. to form a crisis. Choice

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Rachelle Ramirez: complications create the pressure that says, Now we're in a story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: What complications did you notice arising in our little anecdotal story?

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Rachelle Ramirez: First? Tall, dark, and handsome, seems to be ignoring her

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Rachelle Ramirez: an obstacle. What else?

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Rachelle Ramirez: She catches him watching her through the reflection of the dryer window?

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Rachelle Ramirez: This is an opportunity.

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Rachelle Ramirez: but the final complication, the turning point seems insurmountable. What did you see as the turning point?

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Rachelle Ramirez: A literal physical obstacle. The main fence man blocks the way and separates the characters.

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Rachelle Ramirez: This obstacle forces the protagonist to a decision point. and that brings us to the crisis.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Remember, you should be able to express the crisis of the scene as a question in the form of a choice between 2 options.

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Rachelle Ramirez: neither of which is ideal.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Select x. or give up y, or hold on to y, but lose. X. What are your thoughts for the crisis question in this scene?

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Rachelle Ramirez: The crisis question here is something like, should she try to talk to hansom and make a connection at the risk of vulnerability and rejection.

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Rachelle Ramirez: or remain silent and stay safe from rejection. But remain lonely.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The climax is the answer to the crisis question. It's what the character chooses to do. What was the climactic action in our story?

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Rachelle Ramirez: In the climactic choice in our story she sidles up the hansom, and offers to help him fold his laundry.

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Rachelle Ramirez: She takes an action and says something

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Rachelle Ramirez: we can see and hear proof of her climactic choice.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And how did that climactic choice work out?

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Rachelle Ramirez: It's pretty simple, the resolution often is.

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Rachelle Ramirez: He asks for her name and number with the clear implication that he's interested and wants to meet again.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Excellent work everybody. Is this beginning to make sense?

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Rachelle Ramirez: Hope you don't get discouraged here. This is a real skill, and it will take some time.

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Rachelle Ramirez: That's why we're gonna keep practicing

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Rachelle Ramirez: next. Anne's going to take you through a written scene.

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Anne Hawley: Well, that was fun, Richelle. Can I just mention reader? I married him is the outcome of his little scene in your real life. That's great. Let's try our new skills on a written scene from a book. A typical scene in an adult novel can run up to 2,500 words, which would make, or rather take, a quite a long time to read so for that reason and a couple of others, I've picked a scene from my own novel restraint.

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Anne Hawley: which I felt free to edit a little for brevity, and also because I kind of enjoy sharing it. It's a scene type you will find in the first or early in the second act of many love stories and romances where the protagonist shies away from the love interests, romantic overtures.

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Anne Hawley: Let me set this up for you a little bit. Takes a little set up since it's not the opening scene. It's 1818 in London protagonist John Waterfield, and Love interest. Lord Penrith have been friends for a few weeks. John is in denial about his sexuality and his attraction to Penrith. We're near the end of Act One.

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Anne Hawley: The previous scene has taken place in a pub where a man called Townsend has taunted John with homophobic slurs and started a brawl. He and his cronies are kicked out for fighting, and our 2 main characters have been thrown out into the street right after them.

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Anne Hawley: Now, as I read, try to imagine an aristocratic British accent because I can't possibly do one. I wouldn't embarrass myself that way, and the term bone box means mouth or teeth.

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Anne Hawley: Penrith blew out a pent up breath. The rats have scattered, he said. He shook out his hand, flexed his fingers, and grinned at John. Just as well. I nearly cracked my knuckles against that Townsend fellow's bone box.

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Anne Hawley: Come, let's go home.

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Anne Hawley: It was an odd thing to say, for their respective residences lay in opposite directions, but he strode off towards Half Moon Street without a backward glance, and as John had no wish to encounter Townsend and his cronies alone, he followed

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Anne Hawley: the brawl, and Townsend's words repeated themselves endlessly in John's mind as they walked.

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Anne Hawley: Penrith relived the occasion aloud, point for point, laughingly approving of John's clever insult, and praising the bloody effect of the one punch he had gotten in

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Anne Hawley: his words, battered at John, augmenting an already unbearable sense of shame. By the time they reached Half Moon Street John was on the point of begging him to shut up, and only refrain from doing so because Penrith fairly dragged him up to the library and handed him a large glass of cognac.

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Anne Hawley: John swallowed a great deal of it in one fiery gulp, and felt his nerves begin to unwind.

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Anne Hawley: Let me have a look at that, and Rith said his movements were full of intent as he set his own glass down and moved in to inspect John's tender, swollen cheek. He shook his head, and in low, intimate voice said.

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Anne Hawley: That's going to marry your beauty for a few days.

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Anne Hawley: His hand was on John's face, holding it steady in the light from the window. There could be nothing more to see than a bruise. But Penrith did not release him. John forced himself to remain, still cutting his eyes away, but his heart was racing uncomfortably.

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Anne Hawley: Henry's other hand came up and turned his face forward, and when he leaned in closer John could no no longer pretend to misunderstand his intent.

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Anne Hawley: he jumped back. What are you doing, Penrith? He cried. It was all he could think to say.

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Anne Hawley: Penrith gave an annoyed sigh, took up his glass again and drained it in a swallow, then almost slammed it back down on the table. John felt an irrational urge to apologize, but he could only stand staring, trying to catch his breath, wildly protesting to himself that he was not he he did not want. There was nothing to.

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Anne Hawley: Penrith's jaw worked. He made a visible effort to smooth his features, and said tightly, I beg your pardon, Waterfield, I gave you my word that I would not import you. I have let the excitement go to my head.

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Anne Hawley: A good fight always makes me well. He flushed and looked away.

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Anne Hawley: If I've misjudged the situation, I am sorry it will not happen again.

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Anne Hawley: John was seething with emotions he could neither name nor nor express. Penrith had indeed broken his promise. John knew it, and Penrith certainly knew it, too. A show of indignation would be false.

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Anne Hawley: There really was nothing to say

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Anne Hawley: I should go.

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Anne Hawley: Penrith gave a curt nod, punctiliously opened the library door for him and allowed him to make his escape.

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Anne Hawley: Okay, let's break this one down.

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Anne Hawley: The first thing we ask in analyzing a story is what happened. How would you sum up the overall story event? What the scene does? Remember? We're looking for verbs of action here. Proof that indeed something happens on the page.

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Anne Hawley: I put it this way. John walks home from a bar brawl with Penrith, who tries to kiss him, walks home, tries to kiss verbs

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Anne Hawley: or verbal phrases.

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Anne Hawley: And then we want to know, how does this event change? John, who is the point of view character in the scene from the beginning of the scene to the end.

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Anne Hawley: The change can be external in his circumstances, or internal in his emotions or state of mind, and the ideal scene will change both

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Anne Hawley: here. It's mostly internal. He does change location, but his real changes from being in total denial about his sexuality and his attraction to his friend Penrith to having to face it.

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Anne Hawley: We might also say that he starts out troubled from the previous scene with the brawl, and

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Anne Hawley: ends up way more troubled. He's on a downward trend of personal misery. He's freaking out.

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Anne Hawley: And what sets off that change? What's the inciting incident? What had to happen first? Which, if it didn't happen, John could have remained in denial.

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Anne Hawley: This one's it's it's a little subtle. Often it is, especially in the middle of a story somewhere.

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Anne Hawley: But basically, Lord Penrith says, let's go home. If he hadn't said that they might have parted company and gone there separate and opposite ways.

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Anne Hawley: This is an intentional inciting incidence caused by the words or actions of a character. There's nothing coincidental about it. Okay? Then off they go with John's feelings in a jumble. And what

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Anne Hawley: complicates things. What causes things to become even more complicated after that inciting incident?

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Anne Hawley: First of all, Penrith is oblivious to John's state of mind. He's yakking away, ratcheting up the tension, making things worse for John, who is too polite and too conflicted to tell him to shut up.

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Anne Hawley: And that's basically the only complication here because we come immediately to the turning point. What happens that forces John to face a consequential choice, and I suspect most of you felt this pretty clearly in the on the page.

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Anne Hawley: Penrith leans in for the kiss. John's not ready for it. It's like, Oh, yeah! Oh, my God! Freaking out right?

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Anne Hawley: So where does that leave John? What choice does that turning point force him to face?

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Anne Hawley: Now, remember, I can't say this enough. The crisis choice must be a, or ideally, is a 2 sided question. Something is sacrificed on either side, even in a scene where the crisis choice isn't monumental, it has to have consequences either way.

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Anne Hawley: So I put it this way. Either John can admit his feelings, please Penrith, and succumb to the kiss, but lose the last possibility of this very important denial that he has, or he can hold on to his denial a little longer, but annoy Penrith, and possibly jeopardize the friendship. There's no good choice here. Both of them are difficult.

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Anne Hawley: And what is the answer to the crisis question? What does John decide?

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Anne Hawley: He can't face the truth. Yet how do we know this is an important question. How do you know that's the choice he made because he takes an action that we can see and hear? He backs away and says something in protest.

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Anne Hawley: Remember, the climactic decision is ideally demonstrated by the character's words and actions. If it were a film scene you would see inherent. It's not just internal monologue, although we do have some internal monologue here as well as actions.

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Anne Hawley: And what's the result of John's choice? How does this scene end up what happens as a result?

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Anne Hawley: Well, Lord Penrith is unhappy, but he apologizes, and John makes his escape to go and simmer in denial and unresolved sexual tension for another 2 or 3 scenes. I think it's 3 more scenes.

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Anne Hawley: Okay, so that was fun. I hope you're starting to get the feel for this work. And again I, as Richelle said, don't worry. It takes practice. Once you start to see it, it becomes really clear and useful as a way of reading your own.

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Anne Hawley: your own work and analyzing your own scenes. Okay? So we're gonna do one more practice here this time is a filmed scene, which is how we absorb so many stories. So it's a really good way to also practice.

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Anne Hawley: This comes from Episode 13 of the Netflix legal drama, extraordinary Attorney Wu. You may recognize this scene as the awkward meet the family scene that occurs in many romances.

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Anne Hawley: I'm going to set this up for you a little bit Wu Yang Wu pictured here is an attorney in a major law firm as a person with autism. She has some unusual behaviours and compulsions. She eats only one kind of food, and whenever she introduces herself she compulsively recites a kind of mantra about her name.

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Anne Hawley: She has just begun a romance with Li June. Ho! And investigator for the firm, and she and he has invited her to meet his sister and brother-in-law

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Anne Hawley: to help prepare her for this exciting meeting. Wu Yang Wu's best friend, kind of a wild girl, has coached her in how she should behave and what she should and shouldn't say so. Let's give it a watch here.

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Anne Hawley: and Michelle double. Check me that our sound is coming through. All right.

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Rachelle Ramirez: That's good.

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Anne Hawley: Okay.

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The bill. Oh, yeah. was our soul. Iguan!

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And then we only need to do.

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I go. She'd only come there by

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Spain! Puerto Rico!

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Ha! Ha! No me.

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because I?

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Oh, okay.

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 it also can turn out.

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I need a wow. yeah, unless that. And she's here time to marry

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Hawaii.

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wasn't you? What kind of stuff. Yeah.

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no. And I got but doesn't go. But yeah, so. But in the

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he was. you know, and the da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da.

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We were told on them at the time.

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You

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Anne Hawley: okay, let's break this one down.

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Anne Hawley: First of all. The first thing you check is that there's an event. Something happens again. Look for verbs of action in a brief one sentence summary. That's what I try to do when I'm analyzing a scene. What happened?

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Anne Hawley: Well, I put it this way. Wu Yong Wu meets meets her boyfriend Legionhoe's family and struggles to constrain her neurodivergent behaviour. Note verbs of actions that we can see and hear, that is, not, simply thinks or reflects. No, she meets, struggles, and constrains.

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Anne Hawley: and then we want to know, how does that event the visit cause Wu Yang Moo to change from the beginning of the scene to the end? I think the change is very, very clear here

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Anne Hawley: she begins, willing but nervous.

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Anne Hawley: and she ends uncomfortable, possibly probably ashamed. This is a big change in her internal worldview.

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Anne Hawley: Okay, then our next question but sorry. Another way of looking at it. She starts out hopeful. She walks in all hopeful about her new relationship, and ends in serious doubt that she is eligible for any romantic relationship, and some of that has been set up earlier in the story. It would be clearer to you if you've seen the whole preceding 12 episodes, it's a lovely show, and I recommend it.

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Anne Hawley: What one! What launches will Young move into the scene. That is what is the inciting incident.

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Anne Hawley: and this one is a classic Wu Yang Wu and Legion-ho arrive at his sister's house. They walk through the gate. And I just want to point out this is a classic inciting incident. A character passes through a portal into a new world, whether it's fantasy or perfectly realistic like this one. If you watch this show again, I highly recommend it. You'll notice that passing through doorways is a major repeating theme in the whole story.

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Anne Hawley: This is, of course, an intentional, exciting incident. They walk up, they open the gate they go through on purpose.

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Anne Hawley: Okay? Then we wanna look at complications. Wu Young moves. Outward intention or desire is apparently to be accepted by her boyfriend's family, presumably to make a good impression, to have things go smoothly classic in this type of meet, the family romance episode or a scene type. So what lies in the path between their arrival at the family home and the desired outcome. These are the complications.

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Anne Hawley: First, I think it's pretty clear Wu young Wu's behavior startle her. Sis the sister and brother-in-law, her boyfriend's sister and brother-in-law. She does her compulsive introduction. Then she says what she's been coached to say, but at the wrong time and kind of inappropriately, and she seems to kind of feel that herself and everybody else is like, Oh, wow! Okay, weird.

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Anne Hawley: Then she learns that the sister has spent 2 days preparing preparing this lavish feast which the camera spends a certain amount of time on.

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Anne Hawley: And then what do you think the turning point is? Remember, this is the complication that the character in the scene cannot ignore, laugh off, step over or bypass.

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Anne Hawley: and there's a couple of ways to look at this.

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Anne Hawley: It always helps to bear in mind what the main character in the scene wants. Wu Yong Wu wants to make a good impression and minimize the awkwardness that she knows she sometimes causes.

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Anne Hawley: So what's the complication that forces her to a difficult choice point?

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Anne Hawley: There's this magnificent spread that the sister has spent 2 days preparing, and there's nothing in it that Wu Yang Wu can comfortably eat.

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Anne Hawley: So what decision does Wu Yong Wu make?

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Anne Hawley: Remember to look at the decision that she faces here? Remember, we want to look at a 2 sided decision that either, or dilemma with something to lose on either side.

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Anne Hawley: and that is, should she eat the food she can't tolerate in order to please her boyfriend and his family. or should she respect her own autonomy by not eating, but offend the hosts and her boyfriend. That's a big, big decision in this type of scene.

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Now.

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Anne Hawley: I want you to notice this crisis is not stated in words. The crisis choice in a well-constructed scene, is almost always in subtext.

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Anne Hawley: Here we see Wu Yang Wu hesitantly hovering her chopsticks over the banquet, and we see her anxious expression. But basically.

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Anne Hawley: previously in the story, it has been made very clear that she only eats one kind of food, and we already understand what her dilemma is.

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Anne Hawley: So what does she decide?

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Anne Hawley: That's the climax. The climax is what choice she makes.

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Anne Hawley: She takes a brave mouthful and manages to chew and finally swallow it with great difficulty and say something positive, although kind, of ridiculously tutored about the food. Now you notice again that the climactic choice, the answer to the crisis question is shown in the character's actions and words. We see it, and we hear it. We see her choosing the food, putting it in her mouth, chewing it, and then saying something nice about it, forcing herself to find a nice thing to say.

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Anne Hawley: And then what follows from that climactic choice? We get a little tricky here. But what's the resolution of the scene? Remember, there's a change from hopeful and romantic to doubtful and ashamed. And so what follows from that climactic decision to to force yourself to eat the food.

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Anne Hawley: As soon as she leaves the table, the sister launches into a lecture, warning her brother against a relationship with this difficult woman, and Wu Yang Wu overhears it.

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Anne Hawley: All her efforts have failed. She is not accepted, and when she hears enough to doubt whether any romantic relationship is even possible for her. She's left in a state of

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Anne Hawley: real sorrow, I think.

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Anne Hawley: and you'll note that for cinematic purposes, and to increase the tension. The suspense, the point of view shifted here for a moment. Where Wu Yang Wu isn't present. That is, it kind of went to Juno's point of view, only to reveal that she's been listening from inside the house in a written story. We might just follow young Moo into the house and show her overhearing the whole thing. So it's it's a it's a little twist on the resolution where it kinda changes point of view. There.

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Anne Hawley: Okay, this was our third scene.

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Anne Hawley: How did you do? I hope all of this is starting to sink in, and I also suspect some of you are feeling a little frustrated. But do not despair again. I can't say this enough. This takes practice. Richelle and I have been doing this for years, but once you get the hang of it, you will be able to spot missing elements in your own scenes, and see clear and simple ways to make them better, and if you stick with it. You will internalize this structural knowledge, and you won't have to think about it very much anymore.

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Anne Hawley: So let's have a quick recap of what we've learned today, and then we'll take your questions. We covered our definition of a scene, the one we use for editing and revising our own clients work and and our own work.

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Anne Hawley: And we've covered the 7 essential elements of the good working scene. A story event, a character change of state, an inciting incident, complications, a turning point, a crisis, a climax, and a resolution.

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Anne Hawley: And we've exercised our new knowledge by analyzing a personal anecdote, a written scene from a novel and a scene from a contemporary television drama with a romance subplot. And now oh, and we've exercised our new knowledge. Oh, wait a minute! Nice!

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Anne Hawley: Excuse me now. Sorry lost my place there, and you can use the tools of us of scene analysis to discover and fix the problems in your own scene. I can't emphasize enough how really valuable this is in editing your own work

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Anne Hawley: and take the technique to your writing or critique group. If you want more practice.

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Anne Hawley: and you can make your story better.

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Anne Hawley: So congratulations! You've grasped some of the tools that not many writers really know about. We hope you're ready to take a fresh look at your own work in progress, and see some opportunities for real improvements in your scenes

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Anne Hawley: before the questions and responses. Remember that you can get our free, downloadable scene work, cheat, sheet at pages and platforms.com slash romance, and you'll find all the 17 elements there, with additional details and guidance on how to think about them. When writing and revising your own scenes. You will not want to miss having this tool available as you write and edit your story. It can save you a lot of time and frustration.

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Anne Hawley: And so now on to your questions and our responses. Let me get out of this screen share and business here, and we'll get on screen and

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Rachelle Ramirez: say, hello to folks, Hi, everybody! Hello! Just a reminder. You're going to put the questions in the Q&A box rather than the chat.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and we have a few. We only have about what 1011 min here. So we're going to go and try and get through these pretty quickly. Anonymous attendees says, may I ask what the content of a scene's sequel should be like?

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Anne Hawley: Yeah, usually it's just you've some big event has happened, and it's a breathing space where the character reorient to the new situation. Maybe you introduce the reader to a change, a literal change of scene like a change of location. That type of thing generally. That's it's a long resolution setting up for the next act. Typically a big sequel doesn't come.

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Anne Hawley: Every scene, it says, get the end of an act as you move on to a big change in the story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and you might. I was just so that you might see it at the beginning of the next scene, which is just a simple reaction to what happened. It's a unit, single small unit of reaction.

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Anne Hawley: Are are asks, what about scenes to move the plot forward? For example, a backstory showing the protagonist past lifestyle. Guy meets a girl at a bar, and now has a one-night stand.

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Anne Hawley: Backstory is not a scene in this story.

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Anne Hawley: We generally, as it's not that you can't have any back story, but it's one of the biggest problems we find in client manuscripts. Too much backstory feeling that the reader needs to understand

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Anne Hawley: all this other stuff before they can go forward, when, in fact, you you needed to understand it, to write it, but probably you can put it into the scene in a short, in shorthand form a a sentence, or a or an of dialogue, or an a small action that the

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Rachelle Ramirez: that the character takes. Richelle, do you want to add to? That is a big question. Yeah, I would just say, backstory in general can move a scene store forward if it's say a flashback, a trauma piece, or that the backstory comes into the scene that forces the character to react to something that's happening now

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Rachelle Ramirez: and make a decision. If it informs the immediate decision. Otherwise backstory is just, hey, II the author of thought of this. And I really wanna share it with you because it's cool. Generally, reader doesn't need to know.

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Anne Hawley: Laura Jevich Jav. I'm sorry. Devtitch story then, and character change seems to be the 2 ending bullet points, but it seems to be an overall point to set up a scene. Is this correct? Yes, there the 5 elements that have to happen in sequence in the scene or inciting incident complications leading to a turning point, crisis, climax and resolution. The story, event and character change are overarching umbrella

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Anne Hawley: questions. You need to resolve across the entire scene as as the whole scene. Yeah, that's a good question. I'm glad you gave us a chance to clarify that again.

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Anne Hawley: I hope I'm saying that right? What is the right amount of description and information to use the right amount? Huh! That's a a lot depends on where in the story you are. As you approach the climax of your story, or the climax of one of the acts of your story, you don't want to be pausing for a lot of description.

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Anne Hawley: It's seen information and so forth, earlier in the story. At the beginning of a new act you have a little bit of room for more of that to bring the reader along. I mean, the right amount is enough to, and just enough and no more to bring the reader along in the story. Some of it depends on your personal style. There are some some style, some writer's like.

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Anne Hawley: and some readers like a little bit more description, a little more settling into the details of the scene. So th there's no one answer to that question.

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Anne Hawley: but my experience with client manuscripts is

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Anne Hawley: people.

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Anne Hawley: It's real easy to overdo description at moving your characters around like chess men on the chessboard. Sort of thing like I'm moving here and moving there and moving

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Anne Hawley: it it mo. It's what you needed to write to, to know and have clear in your mind to write the scene, and the reader probably doesn't need all of it to follow the scene. Michelle, you want to add to that?

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Rachelle Ramirez: Yeah, I was to say it also has to do with your narrative. Narrator. So your point of view, your narrative device. You might have a narrator who's relatively long winded or interested in a particular thing. So they're sharing a little bit more information about that.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Another narrator would might be shorter, choppier, less less details, less information. Also, your story type matters. An action story will have less description, less

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Rachelle Ramirez: space between turning. You know the complications. The pacing's gonna be a little faster than if you have one of these internal character driven stories. So you wanna keep that in mind, and we always say, if in doubt, Look at your favorite stories, see what the authors you love did when they wrote stories like yours. That's probably your answer, because those are the books you love, and you're probably writing a book similar to that.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Cameron Harris says, what about scenes for ya stories?

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Rachelle Ramirez: And I would say they are just the same. We have all the 5 basic scene elements. You have a character. Change is necessary in every scene, and being able to describe your story event and why it's in your story is important. So they are exactly the same

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Anne Hawley: of albeit different content for a different reader. But the same. Yeah. The main difference between Ya stories and adult stories is sometimes the level of the language, mostly the age of the characters, and some of the con. You know, the content is, generally speaking, a little quote unquote. Tamer, I guess, is one way putting, but otherwise scene structure is exactly the same.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Cameron also assessed. It's about how to improve a scene or plot twist. Got any ideas

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Rachelle Ramirez: I think you could look at? We have. If you want to go to pages and platforms and look at our story. Our story types. Get your story unstuck Webinar, has a some great ideas. For what kind of story are you writing? What needs to happen in your story. What does your reader expect? And how can you innovate on that? So look at your story type, what kind of story you're writing and what genre

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Rachelle Ramirez: think about who's whose? Who wrote stories that you love?

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Rachelle Ramirez: Make sure you have all the basics, and then try to innovate upon that specific for the scenes.

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Rachelle Ramirez: each individual scenes. You're going to want to look for all these 7 elements in each and every scene when you go through and edit your story to make sure you're moving the plot forward.

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Anne Hawley: Someone asked for that link again. I just stuck it in the chat pages from platforms.com slash romance for our worksheet or cheat sheet. Sort of thing.

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Anne Hawley: How do I tell 2 scenes apart from each other? If if it's not a change of location, that's a good question. The the scene by our definition here does not have specifically to do with location. We're using the term a little bit differently than say in a movie script?

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Anne Hawley: the way you tell them apart is that something different happens and moves your character forward from one scene to the next, like, if you have 2 scenes that take place in the same location.

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Anne Hawley: do they both move the character

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Anne Hawley: further from, or closer to their goal? Do does one escalate over the other one, I mean, does one get more consequential? Does the first one

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Anne Hawley: cause a to happen, and then the second? One causes a plus B to happen. It's gotta escalate. But the scene, as we define it, does not necessarily have to do with location. Typically when

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Anne Hawley: characters do change location, it. It is also another scene. But you can have multiple scenes in the same location that happens all the time.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Anonymous attendee says, what ways are there to write that characters had sex without either writing a sex scene or coming off as childish.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And my answer to that is, look at what some of the other authors have done, and see if you could innovate on that a little bit. I think, Aunt, one of Anne's favorites favorites is to say, and they close the curtain across the scene. I if you do not, I mean and it's perfectly legitimate not in romance to have. You don't want a sexy. There are certain types of romance where you don't want

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Anne Hawley: any or not a whole bunch, or you only want a couple of really meaningful ones, and the rest of the time, your reader, for one thing, you're writing for a romance, reader, they know you know they you have the 2 characters kissing and slamming the door shut, you know, up from, or leaving the party, or hopping into the car, whatever it is, and then you just

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Anne Hawley: the next morning, whatever left 5 min later. Whatever it is, right. You you just. There's absolutely no obligation to describe a sex scene. It is not childish to draw the curtain discreetly across it. If that's the kind of romance you're writing absolutely, do not let that stop you or feel childish at all.

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Rachelle Ramirez: I would say. Just cut the scene. Cut the scene.

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Anne Hawley: Move on. Yeah, I mean, don't cut the whole scene. You cut you right. Lead up, stop tension, the sexual tension, the kiss whatever it is, though, even if they just hold hands, if it's still, there's sexual tension there and then you just draw the draw the curtain. If anonymous, ask if a scene has dialogue, does it automatically have action? We consider dialog action.

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Anne Hawley: That when we say action, that doesn't necessarily mean a car chase or a bomb going off. Dialog is action. Yes.

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Rachelle Ramirez: it's something we can see or hear. If it were a movie.

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Anne Hawley: Yeah, yeah.

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Anne Hawley: let's see just a comment. I am. So is this transcript the choice of Japanese language movie. This was Korean, by the way, but the transcript could not record it in any fashion. If it had been a video in English, the transcript would have been good with writing the words,

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Anne Hawley: thank you for that. We. That's why we include the sub. I always include the Ca close captions in there because they are in English. But I'm sorry I didn't think about the automatic caption or not catching those. And I apologize for that. We'll try and see if we can fix that next time. Thank you. That's a very good.

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Anne Hawley: a very good pointer. Thank you.

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Rachelle Ramirez: How do you fix? Nancy wants to know? How do you fix scenes that don't have all the elements

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Anne Hawley: you add, identify which ones are missing. Right?

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Rachelle Ramirez: I would say, here's here's what I what I suggest for clients is II asked them, why was this scene in your story. Why did you really want this scene in here? And what did you want it to do somewhere in that answer is.

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Rachelle Ramirez: what's missing in the scene. So if it's just, Hey, look! I needed the II needed the reader to know. The reader needed to know. Well, no, I'd say the reader probably didn't need to know.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Be proud if you don't have all the elements meaning you don't have any of the elements. It's not a scene. You probably don't need it. But look and say, ask yourself.

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Rachelle Ramirez: why is this scene here?

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Rachelle Ramirez: What? How does it drive the story forward with the change in the character for the situation. And what is what is the character protagonists need to do to make a decision here? Something needs to push them towards the decision they need to make a decision. That's why it's in the story. It's moving the story forward. And if you can't do that.

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Rachelle Ramirez: II always just pull it, just pull it and ask yourself, did I break the story? Does it still work? The answer is, usually it works better without it.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Yes.

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Rachelle Ramirez: cliff wants to know. Hi, are we to follow this scene structure for every scene in the novel? And the answer is, Yes, absolutely. Without a doubt.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Without a doubt Anna wants to know. Can you discuss scenes that are primarily a character's internal struggle struggle where the action is limited?

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Anne Hawley: Try to avoid having more than one of those in a whole novel. You can have one solo scenes, for one thing, are very hard to make dynamic, because all you usually, unless the characters battling a force of nature or something. But if you have no nothing for them to bounce off of, there's not much

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Anne Hawley: to do with. It's not that you can't ever have them. But, boy, a a whole quote, unquote scene or chapter, where it's just internal monologue. If you think about how that would look on a movie screen. Let's just talk about putting it on film what would you see in that scene and let me show you what you would see.

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Anne Hawley:  there's nothing going on. There's no action there's, no sound there's a person and a face thinking and you want something to you want to see them doing something

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Rachelle Ramirez: soft, and why we have the ally character in a story. So they're bouncing the ideas off of. Here's what I'm going to do. Here's what I want to do. Here's what I don't want to do. You might have a mentor that they're pushing back and forth against. There are other characters in the scene that force them to talk about these decisions that they're making. Or

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Rachelle Ramirez: maybe we don't need them.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And if you don't have these

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Rachelle Ramirez: components

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Rachelle Ramirez: the 7 essential components in your internal struggle. What you're calling a scene. It's probably not a scene. And you really want to think twice about whether or not, it should be in your story. If you take it out. Does your story break?

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Anne Hawley: Yeah, we are. We are at the top of the hour here. So I just want, I want to get this last question because it's a really good one. How do you use the story structure to help build the plot of your entire story. The plot of your entire entire story is basically a macro version of the same

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Anne Hawley: short version. There's a lot more to test a huge question. But I just want to point out that a story, a whole story, works the same way as the individual scenes. It's like little Russian dolls or a fractal.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So we we have more questions than we can answer here. Thank you great questions, everybody, and I know Michelle's here wanting us to hurry up here. So thank you so much. And, Michelle, that was fantastic as always. We love having you here. And thank you to everybody who attended. We had a great turnout, and so many great questions. The replay and slides will be up on the hub by tomorrow morning at the latest, so you can check them out there, and we will see you at the next session in a little less than an hour.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So thanks everybody.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Thanks for having us bye, bye.