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Cre­at­ing a pub­lic dis­play of emo­tion is one way to describe “mak­ing a scene.” We’ve all been there, usu­al­ly as onlook­ers, occa­sion­al­ly as par­tic­i­pants. Most often, pub­lic spec­ta­cles are spon­ta­neous, but scenes on paper are any­thing but. Par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ear­ly stages of the writ­ing process, scenes require con­sid­er­able plan­ning and fore­thought. In The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fic­tion Writer, author San­dra Scofield defines scenes as “those pas­sages in nar­ra­tive when we slow down and focus on an event in the sto­ry so that we are ‘in the moment’ with char­ac­ters in action.” If the scene is com­pelling enough, the read­er becomes a bystander of sorts, and char­ac­ters come to life. Any­one who writes short sto­ries, novel­las, nov­els, mem­oirs, screen­plays or dra­mat­ic plays must be pro­fi­cient at cre­at­ing com­pelling scenes. Think about it: All the sig­nif­i­cant moments in any nar­ra­tive get con­veyed through scene. Scenes are the build­ing blocks of nar­ra­tive, regard­less of the form that nar­ra­tive takes. read more