The Anatomy of Story (54 page)

WHY ARE JANE AUSTEN and Charles Dickens such great storytellers, still delighting audiences even in this high-tech, high-speed world? For one thing, they are two of the greatest scene weavers of all time.

A scene is generally one action in one time and place. It is the basic unit of what actually happens in the story, right now, as the audience experiences it. The scene weave is the sequence of these units. To be a great storyteller, you must create a weave that is like a fine tapestry, picking up one thread for a moment before letting that thread dip back under the surface before appearing again a bit later on.

The scene weave, also known as the scene list, scene outline, or scene breakdown, is the final step before writing your full story or script. It is a list of every scene you believe will be in the final story, along with a tag for any scene in which a structure step occurs.

The scene weave is an extremely valuable step in the writing process. Like the seven steps, character web, and revelations sequence, it is a way of seeing how the story fits together beneath the surface.

The scene weave is really an extension of the plot. It is your plot in minute detail. The point of the scene weave is to get one last look at the

overall architecture of the story before writing it. Therefore, don't go into Too much derail, because this will hide the structure. Try to describe each scene in one line. For example, a description of four scenes
in The Godfather
might look like this:

■ Michael saves the Don from assassination at the hospital. ■ Michael accuses police captain McCluskey of working for Sollozzo.

The Captain slugs him.

Michael suggests that he kill the Captain and Sollozzo. ■ Clemenza shows Michael how to execute Sollozzo and the Captain.

Notice that only the single essential action of each scene is listed. If you keep your description to one or two lines, you will be able to list your scene weave
in
a few pages. Next to the scene description, list any structure step (such as desire, plan, or apparent defeat) that is accomplished during that scene. Some scenes will have these structure tags, but many will not.

KEY POINT:
Be prepared to change your scene weave when you start writing individual scenes.

When it comes to actually writing a scene, you may find that the basic action occurring in that scene is not what you thought. You will only know that for sure when you get "inside" the scene and write it. So be flexible. What's important at this point in the process is to get an overview of what you think the single main action of each scene will be.

Be aware that the average Hollywood movie has forty to seventy scenes. A novel ordinarily has twice that number and, depending on length and genre, possibly a great many more.

Your story may have subplots, or subsections, that when woven together create the plot. If you have more than one subplot or subsection, label each scene with a plotline and subsection number. This will allow you to look at the scenes of each subplot as a separate unit and make sure each subplot builds properly.

Once you have the complete scene weave before you, see if you need to make the following changes:

■
Reorder scenes.
First, focus on getting the overall sequence of the story

right. Then look at the juxtapositions between individual scenes.
■
Combine scenes.
Writers often create a new scene for no other reason than to get in a good line of dialogue. Whenever possible, combine scenes so that each one is packed, but make sure each scene accomplishes essentially one action.
■ Cut or add scenes.
Always trim fat. Remember, story pacing has to do not only with the length of a scene but also with the choice of scenes. Once you have trimmed all the fat, you may find gaps in the scene weave that require a whole new scene. If so, add it to the list in the right spot.

KEY POINT: Order the scenes by structure, not chronology.

Most writers choose the next scene according to which action (scene) comes next in time. The result is a padded story with many useless scenes. Instead, you want to choose a scene by how it furthers the development of the hero. If it doesn't further that development or set it up in a crucial way, cut the scene.

This technique guarantees that every scene in the story is essential and in the right order. Typically, you end up with a chronological scene sequence, but not always.

KEY POINT: Pay special attention to the
juxtaposition
of scenes.

Especially in film and television, where the change of scene or story line is instantaneous, the juxtaposition of two scenes can be more important than what happens in any individual scene. In these juxtapositions, you want to look first at the contrast of content. In what way, if at all, does the next scene comment on the previous scene?

Then look at the contrast of proportion and pacing. Does the next scene or section have the right importance and length compared to the previous scene or section?

A good rule of thumb is this: find the line and keep the line. There are some scenes—such as subplot scenes—that only set up the

narrative drive. Go ahead and put them in. But you can never get away from the narrative line tor too long without your story collapsing.

You can create powerful juxtapositions in all kinds of ways. One of the best, especially in film and television, is the juxtaposition between sight and sound. In this technique, you split these two communication tracks to create a third meaning.

M

(by Tbea von Harbou and Fritz Lang, 1931)
A classic example of this technique occurs in the great German film M. In M, a child murderer buys a little girl a balloon. In the next scene, a woman prepares dinner and then calls for her child, Elsie. As she continues to call the little girl's name, the visual track splits from the sound track, and the audience sees an empty stairwell, a block of apartments, Elsie's empty chair, and her plate and spoon at the kitchen table, while the ever more desperate cries of the mother calling "Elsie!" are heard. The visual line ends with the shot of a balloon that catches in some electrical wires and then floats away. This contrast between the sound line and the visual line produces one of the most heartbreaking moments in the history of film.

Perhaps the most common technique of juxtaposition in scene weave is the crosscut. In the crosscut, you jump back and forth between two or more lines of action. This technique has two main effects:

1. It creates suspense, especially when you cut back and forth at an increasing pace, as when someone is rushing to save a victim in danger.

2. It compares two lines of action, two pieces of content, and makes them equal. This expands your thematic pattern. Anytime you jump back and forth between two lines of action, you go from a simple linear development of your story (usually of a single character) to show a deeper pattern present in the entire society.

An example of the content crosscut is a sequence in
M
in which the story goes back and forth between a group of cops and a group of criminals. Each is trying to figure out how to find the child murderer, so the crosscut shows the audience how two types of people they normally consider opposites are in many ways identical.

The Godfather

(novel by Mario Puzo, screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola,

1972)

An even better example of a content crosscut occurs in the battle scene of
The Godfather.
The challenge is to create a battle scene that expresses Michael's character, what he has become as the new Godfather. By cross-cutting between a number of Michael's men as they assassinate the heads of the five crime families, the writers not only provide a dense series of plot punches but also express Michael's position as a kind of corporate boss of crime. He doesn't kill these men by himself in a crime of passion. He hires men in his company who are experts at killing.

To this the writers add another crosscut, between the mass murders and Michael's renouncing of Satan as he stands as godfather to a child whose father he is about to kill. Through this crosscut, the audience sees Michael become Satan at the same moment he gains the height of his power as the Godfather.

I'd like to compare the scene weave from an early draft of
The Godfather
with the final draft. You will see how proper juxtaposition of scenes—and in this case, whole sections—can make a huge difference in the quality of the story. The key difference between these two scene weaves comes just after Michael has shot Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey in the restaurant. In the early draft, notice that the writers list all the scenes pertaining to Sonny's death and the ending of the war between the families (underlined). Then they list all the scenes of Michael in Sicily, ending with the murder of his wife (in italics).

The Godfather: Early Draft

1. At a restaurant, Michael, Sollozzo, and McCluskey talk; Michael gets a gun and shoots them.

2. Montage of newspaper articles.

3. 
Sonny finishes sex with a girl and goes to his sister Connie's house.

4. 
Sonny finds Connie with a black eye.

5. 
Sonny bea
ts up Connie's husband, Carlo, in the street.

6. Tom won't accept Kay's letter to Michael.

7. Don Corleone is brought home from the hospital.

8. Tom tells Don Corleone what happened; the Don is sad.

9. 
Sonny and Tom argue because Sonny wants to kill old Tattaglia.

10. 
A nasty fight breaks out between Connie and Carlo; Connie calls home; Sonny is mad.

11. 
Sonny is blasted in the tollbooth.

12. 
Tom tells Don Corleone that Sonny is dead—Don Corleone says to settle the war.

13. 
Don Corleone and Tom bring Sonny's body to undertaker Bonasera.

14. 
Don Corleone makes peace with the heads of the families.

15. 
Don Corleone knows it was Barzini who was the leader.

16. 
In Sicily, Michael sees a pretty girl on the road and tells her father he wants to meet her.

17. Michael meets Apollonia.

18. 
Michael and Apollonia are wed.

19. 
Wedding night.

20. 
Michael shows Apollonia how to drive; he learns Sonny is dead.

21. 
Michael's car blows up with Apollonia driving.

This scene sequence has a number of problems. It places the plot-heavy and more dramatic scenes of Sonny's killing and the revelation about Barzini first. So there is a big letdown when the plot moves to Sicily. Moreover, Michael in Sicily is a long and relatively slow sequence, so the overall story comes to a screeching halt, and the writers have tremendous difficulty getting the "train" started again after that section concludes. Putting all the scenes with Apollonia together also highlights the sudden and somewhat unbelievable nature of Michael's marrying a Sicilian peasant girl. The dialogue tries to gloss over this fact by saying Michael has been hit by a thunderbolt. But when the audience sees all these scenes at one time, the explanation is not convincing.

T
he
G
odfather
: F
inal
D
raft

In the final script, the writers overcome this potentially fatal flaw in their scene weave by crosscutting between the Sonny line and the Michael line.

1. At a restaurant, Michael, Sollozzo, and McCluskey talk; Michael gets a gun and shoots them.

2. Montage of newspaper articles.

3. Don Corleone is brought home from the hospital.

4. Tom tells Don Corleone what happened; the Don is sad.

5. 
Sonny and Tom argue because Sonny wants to kill old Tattaglia.

6. 
In Sicily, Michael sees a pretty girl on the road and tells her father he wants to meet her.

7. 
Michael meets Apollonia.

8. 
Sonny finishes sex with a girl and goes to his sister Connie's house.

9. 
Sonny finds Connie with a black eye.

10. 
Sonny beats up Connie's husband, Carlo, in the street.

11. Michael and Apollonia are wed.