Skip to main content

Storyboard Your Novel Scenes

If you're working on a commercial fiction or narrative non-fiction manuscript, you will benefit if you view your project as possessing three layers of increasing complexity:

Layer I: Overall story premise and plot. These involve top level decisions regarding major characters, the overall setting, plot line evolution, dramatic complications, theme, reversals, and other, as defined in the Six Act Two-Goal Novel guide (see below).

Layer II: The actual scenes in the story, as well as the nature of the inter-scene narrative. Consider your story generally composed of units of scene, each scene performing specific tasks in the novel, always moving the plot line(s) forward and evolving the character(s). Each scene contains an opening set, an evolution of middle, and conclusion. But whether scene-based, or inter-scene, this layer comprises the matter and techniques that clarify, evolve, and elaborate on the matters of Layer I.

Layer III: The narrative composition and delivery of your scenes and inter-scene text. This includes proper point of view(s), overall tone, the quality of the narrative prose in terms of sentences, cinema, emotion display, metaphor, and more.

But for our purposes here, let's focus on Layer 2.

Examining the progress of a protagonist or major character as they struggle and strive through the story within the context of any given scene, we can divide the vast majority of scenes into three general types. As you seek to storyboard each scene in the manner of a film director--sketching out visual setting and structural progression--carefully overview the notes below before you begin.

Types of scenes as follows:

1. Goal-to-Failure (for protagonist or other character)
  • Goal
  • Conflict or Complication
  • Failure or Victory at a Cost
Goal:
What does your protagonist or other major character(s) desire or wish to accomplish? What circumstance do they wish to come about? What objective do they want to achieve? Whatever they want should relate directly or indirectly to the progression of the major plot line(s) (or subplot). The Goal must be clear to the character and the reader (otherwise we have FINNEGAN'S WAKE). This assures you will write scenes with a point that relates to the bigger story, as well as create a character who is actively engaged, not just a victim or bystander. Very important!

Conflict: What are the obstacles your character faces? If he/she doesn't struggle in some manner for the goal, if no conflict of any kind present, you risk a dull read (esp if you're wrting high-impact genre fiction). Set your sights on at least two obstacles to overcome in any given scene. If only one, make it a BIG ONE, i.e., as appropriate for the setting and genre, as well as the role of the scene in the story.

Failure, Calamity, or Victory at a Cost: the character might come close but fails ultimately to reach the goal; reaches it only in part (and with difficulty), or achieves it but at a real cost (another character perishes, or another problem created, e.g., King Arthur is rescued but becomes a zombie as a result, etc.). You have to keep the page turning, regardless of the genre.

2. Goal-to-Success (for antagonists)
  • Goal
  • Conflict or Complication
  • Success or Victory (perhaps in unexpected way)
Same as above, except in this case, the antagonist might score a victory or three. It can't be a cake walk for them, and a downside effect might well be evident, however, victory nonetheless. And if the reader knows, but the protagonist doesn't, you have a great situation of DRAMATIC IRONY in the works that creates extra suspense. 

In order for Isabel to align with Roberta's enemy, Joanie Cunningham, to get Roberta fired from her new management job as director of the Government for Citizens Project, Isabel must make a deal with Joanie that compromises her or forces her to give up something important to her. And if the reader likes Roberta, and knows this is coming, they fear for their beloved character.
 

3. Reaction-to-Decision (for any character)

  • Reaction
  • Dilemma
  • Decision
If a Goal-to-Failure (GTF) scene occurs, your character's forward movement has been reversed or at least hampered or complicated. A scene that reacts to that condition or fact is almost always necessary.

Reaction: What is the emotional and consequential reaction to the failure that took place in the previous scene? The conflict is lost and the protagonist sits on the bank of a metaphorical river, pondering fate and life. She or he is angry, hurt, confused, dyspeptic, all of the above. Keep in mind that emotional states progress, for example, from anger to despair to resolve.

Dilemma: As a result of the GTF have you created a new circumstance with zero or few good options? Options with potentially negative outcomes? Options that might not be workable? Your protagonist or major character (POV character/narrator or no) must be facing a significant dilemma. The reader wonders what can possibly happen next. What seems to be the lesser-of-the-evil options?

Decision: How does the protagonist return to the dinner table or the skirmish line as a proactive character? Does the decision carry risk? Does it create new suspense? If so, how? There must always be potential downside, and perhaps in more than one way, or in a way the protagonist doesn't expect but the reader does. And what is the nature of the new goal to achieve the primary goal? If the author in MISERY has his kneecaps pounded to pulp by Kathy Bates (major reversal), he makes a decision to escape his captor in a new way, by pretending to cooperate long enough to lure her into a trap.


There is more to writing successful scenes, but once you've used the three above to lay the storyboard foundation for your scene, you can't help but be well on your way to writing competitive narrative and story.


Comments

Worthy WE Wisdom

The Six Act Two-Goal Novel

What makes for good drama is a constant. To begin, we combine Siegal's "nine act structure - two goal" screenplay (very much like the Syd Field three act except that the "reversal" from Field's structure joins "Act 5" in Siegal's version) with the Field classic three act. The Two-Goal Structure, Siegal maintains, creates more dynamic plot tension due to the insertion of PLOT REVERSAL later in the story. We concur.  NOTE:  "Plot Point" is defined here as a major occurrence that emphatically changes the course of the story. In the genre novel as a whole, we see three to five major plot points depending on various factors: a first PP that begins the rising action, second PP defined by the first major reversal, a third PP defined by a possible second major reversal, a climax PP, and a theoretical PP residing in the denouement, i.e., we think the story is going to resolve a certain way after climax, but a surprise happens that resolves

"Top Ten Worst Pieces of Writing Advice" (and it gets worse)

OUTSIDE OF NARCISSISM, IMPATIENCE AND BAD ADVICE ARE A WRITER'S WORST ENEMIES . If you ever attend writer events, you will never cease to hear utterances of bad writing advice, the popular kind that circulate like  ruinous viral memes through the nervous systems of America's aborning novel writers. And each time you are exposed, you either chuckle or swear, depending on your mood and the circumstance. You might make a daring attempt to kill the meme in its tracks before it can infect someone else, or you might just stare at the writer with a dumbfounded look and ask, "Where the hell did you hear that?" Yes, the primal question: WHERE THE HELL DID YOU HEAR THAT? Inevitably, many will point to their writer's group . Ahhhh, of course , you think. Why just recently at an Algonkian event , one of my faculty (a former senior editor at Random House) and I were faced with an individual who adamantly asserted to us both that using only one point of view to write a n

What Makes a Good Memoir?

By Paula Margulies As a publicist, I'm sent books of all genres by authors interested in my services, but lately I seem to be on the receiving end of a lot of memoirs. I've also spoken to a higher-than-usual number of memoir writers, who either telephone or approach me with questions at writer's conferences. The bulk of these conversations have to do with why their memoirs aren’t selling and what the authors can do to make them better. My first suggestion for all memoir writers is to take a look at their market and identify the different types of people who would want to read their book. This is tricky, for while many memoir writers have done a good job of detailing certain aspects of their personal history, a number of them have not thought about who might be interested in reading what they've written. A lot of memoirs I've seen recently are nothing more than personal recountings of an individual’s experiences – some of which are, indeed, memorable. But I

Labors, Sins, and Six Acts - Official Novel Writing Guide - All Genres

An ideal first stop... You will discover below a series of scholarly, researchable, frank and indispensable guides to conceiving and writing the commercial genre novel, as well as the plot-driven literary novel. But the cutting edge of the developmental peels and prods as presented makes an initial big assumption, namely, that you are honestly desirous of true publication either by a classic publisher or traditional literary press , and therefore, willing to birth the most dynamic and can't-put-it-down novel you possibly can. Further, you are also naturally desirous of great sets, mind-altering theme, unforgettable characters, and cinematic scenes, among other things. Does that go without saying?   Perhaps, but you must know, it won't be easy. Labors and Sins First of all, the method-based assertions and information we've gathered and elevated before your eyes below will shiver many of you like a 6.5 on the literary Richter scale because it will contr

Loglines and Hooks With Core Wounds

HOOK OR LOG WITH CORE WOUND AND CONFLICT Your hook line (also known as logline) is your first chance to get a New York or Hollywood professional interested in your novel. It can be utilized in your query to hook the agent into requesting the project. It is especially useful for those pitch sessions at conferences, lunches, in the elevator, or anywhere else. When a prospective agent or editor asks you what your book is about, your high-concept hook line is your answer. Writing one also encourages a realization of those primary elements that will make your novel into a work of powerful fiction.  The great novel, more often than not, comprises two stories: the exterior story or plot line, and an interior story focused primarily on the protagonist, one that defines and catalyzes her or his evolutionary arc throughout the novel. For example, a protagonist with a flaw or core wound that prevents her from achieving a worthwhile goal is forced to respond to a lifechanging event instigated

"High Concept"? Sufficiently Unique? - Write a Tale That Might Actually Sell

Aspire to be a great genre author? So what's your high concept?...  If you fail to grasp the vital importance of this second question, you will fail to conceive much less write a publishable genre novel - thriller, mystery, fantasy, horror, crime, SF, you name it. Just not going to happen. Don't let any writer group or self-appointed writer guru online or writer conference panel tell you otherwise. You're competing with tens of thousands of other aspiring authors in your genre. Consider. WHAT IS GOING TO MAKE YOUR NOVEL STAND OUT from the morass of throat-gulping hopefuls who don't know any better? Believe it or not, 99.5% of the writers in workshops all across the country *do not* arrive with a high-concept story. If anything, their aborning novel child is destined for still birth. They strut forward proudly waving their middle or low concept tale while noting how their hired editor from Stanford, or Iowa, or the Johns Hopkins MA program just "loves it!"