The Scene -Part 2

I've had a couple of revelations about scene writing that I believe are essential to share!

Possibly the more important one is an epiphany I had last night.

Iglesias tells us there are 3 types of scenes -- Exposition, Dramatic, Spectacle -- and he goes into detail about all that we need to consider when writing a Dramatic scene, and he implies that all 3 types of scene are valid and necessary but he doesn't explain the structural purpose of all 3 scenes.

I don't know what synaptic misfire landed this Ah-HA! Moment in my head last night (I'll just call it "The Muse" and count myself grateful), but I believe I'm onto something.

Okay, Exposition scenes are sort of set-up scenes, Dramatic scenes are sort of raise-the-stakes scenes, and Spectacle scenes are sort of release-some-of-this-damn-tension scenes. And to really work an audience's emotional experience, we need ALL THREE, and in roughly that order.

Think about it:

Newby Writers tend to write scripts filled with Exposition scenes. Every scene serves the purpose of explaining the progression of the story and explaining where each character is in his/her arch. And this is dreadful to read because there's no viseral connection; it's an intellectual process. You're watching the story unfold over 120 pages, but you don't really care.

Commercially-minded Writers (usually inexperienced writers who are actually making money writing, but not because they've mastered their craft, like the writer/directors of low-low-budget, straight-to-dvd horror movies) try to write scripts filled with Spectacle scenes -- to continue illustrating with the straight-to-dvd horror flicks, scenes with sex or vilolence or parties or all three. And the problem here is that, once again, you just don't care about what's going on. The characters aren't real, the situations are often not set-up in any significant way, and therefore it's just pictures and noise.

Then Artist writers would prefer to have 120 pages of Dramatic scenes: charactrers chewing scenery and yelling at each other or crying or indulging in long, significant pauses, or talking about everything BUT what's the other character is talking about -- presumably to enrich this brilliant script with it's subtext, that really isn't subtext because there's nothing THAT WE CAN SEE going on beneath the surface of all this "sound and fury, signifying nothing", to borrow from Shakespeare.

I have TOTALLY found myself ebing ALL 3 of those writers at different point in my education.

I started out -- because I'm a genre guy and also have a naturally predisposition toward Summer Blockbuster type movies (but the one I grew up with in the '80s, most of which were directed by Spielberg) -- wanting to write 120 pages of Spectacle.

But then I start reading books on writing, and my every scene is trying to be a Dramatic scene.

Then I get structure down pretty good, and every scene ends up being an Exposition scene.

And don't get me wrong, professional Hollywood writers don't all have this balance correct. I think the Blockbuster movies that come out that have cool trailers and make tons of money opening weekend, but then disappear to the dvd shelves are probably the result of Exposition & Spectacle scenes, with mayeb a couple of ACTUAL Dramatic scenes tossed in so that a star will take the part. (Example: VAN HELSING. It's all Exposition and Spectacle. No ACTUAL Drama. The Exposition gets us from one Spectacle sequence to the next.)

But when we FEEL a movie, it's because the writer has the balance right.

Think about a good pop song. (Note that I said "a GOOD pop song".) It's not all verse. It's not all chorus. (And it CERTAINLY isn't all bridge. I think only bands like Phish and Pink Flyod write all-bridge songs. Just my opinion...)

The part you sing along with is usually the chorus. But in order to set-up the chorus, it helps to warm the listener up with the verse. Sometimes they'll prolong it with 2 verses off the top before they hit us with the chorus. Then after the chorus they give us another verse, the hit us with the chorus again, then maybe repeat it. Then they might give us a bridge -- just to change things up and clense our pallate -- then either repeat the chorus (or, in musical jargon, the "hook") or give us another verse before launching into the chorus a couple more times.

And that structure satisfies us. If all the parts of the song are done well, and arranged in a way that maximizes our emotional response, we can't get the song out of our head until we've heard it half a million times.

That's the usefulness of the 3 types of scenes. Each type of scene plays a part in the type of emotional experience the audience will have, and in amping up or paying off that emotional experience.

Generally speaking, we start off with an Exposition scene that let's us know where we are, what's what, and who has got what going on inside them. Then we move to a Dramatic scene that messes with what we know to be what and whatever issues each character is dealing with. We do this some more, maybe slipping some Exposition into the drama or -- if, for insatcne, it's been 9-19 pages without any payoff -- a little bit of Spectacle, and then we finally pay of all this emotional tension we've been building in the audience with a spectacle scene to end the act.

Watch good TV, good TV does this masterfully!!! Any show that gets you off is doing THIS, and you know a commercial is coming -- an act break -- because something BIG happens that makes your head spin, a Spectacle scene. And with TV, since it's only an hour long (45 minutes without commercials), the structure is much more apparent than in film.

So then we lather, rinse, repeat as needed, until we get to the Climax of our movie -- the BIG Spectacle scene -- and then cap it off with one more Exposition scene, the one that let's the audience know what the new normality (New Equilibrium) for our Main Character is. (You SO DON'T want a Dramatic scene for your Resolution or Denumont scene, 'cause the audience is already reaching for their car keys.)

Writing books usually downplay the importance of Spectacle scenes and wanr you to NEVER write an Exposition scene, but the fact is that all three types of scenes ARE NECESSARY, AND they support each other, help each other do what they're supposed to be doing.

And knowing what each type of scene is supposed to be doing -- really understanding it's purpose and relationship to the other scenes around it -- allows us to craft a screenplay the way a songwriter crafts a hit song.

Now...

Jumping off into a completely different realm of craft and creation...

I was trying to just CREATE for this one project I'm working on a few nights ago. I didn't know my Main Character that well, and I thought that maybe by writing a scene with her I might stumble onto a little insight. (It's worked before.)

So I open up my trusty list of all the things that I need to have in my scene...

And I immediately closed it again.

The list -- the same one I've included earlier on this blog -- IS NOT CONDUCIVE to the flow of spontaneous creation. I think maybe it seperates the individual elements into too much. Creation seems to be a very messy, bunchy kind of process where clumps of elements just sort of emerge from you imagination and subconscious.

I think that's why novelist don't like plotting and structuring their stories first. They would rather just let Creation do it's own thing, then worry about flow and structure later. (As do many badass screenwriters, I should add.)

So then I opened up my 6 Classic Horror Moment Beats... AND THAT WORKED. I knew there had to be a Danger -- this wasn't a scare, so the Danger was dramatic in nature. I came up with what the danger was and how I was going to INDICATE it without revealing it yet. Then I let my Main character "search for" the danger in her dialogue. Then I revealed the Danger -- the dramatic conflict between my Main Character and the other person in the scene with her. Then I had her try to "escape" the danger. Then the Danger "struck", and I revealed the aftermath.

All dialogue. This was a Dramatic scene.

It wasn't a keeper, by any means. This was just play. But it was very insightful! If I like this scene enough to put it in my story, I could have then gone back to my list of all the elements that a scene needs to contain and carefully considered each one, to maximize the impact of the scene.

And I learned that my Main Character is a dud. She's not there yet.

But the point is that as structural tentpoles -- the key structure scenes -- can help me find the shape of a story, I need structural tentpoles for a scene. AND THAT'S ALL! I need a signpost that says "Star Here", then another one that says "Get Here", and I need enough leeway to get from signpost to signpost in my own way.