Setting a Scene and Opening Lines

The Craft of Writing Subgroup – Story Workshop

Setting a Scene and Opening Lines

The Essence of Scene

“You can’t write a novel all at once, any more than you can swallow a whale in one gulp. You do have to break it up into smaller chunks. But those smaller chunks aren’t good old familiar short stories. Novels aren’t built out of short stories. They are built out of scenes.”—Orson Scott Card

Why do we talk about scene? Scenes situate your story. They are the literary equivalent to the props, backdrops, costumes, lighting, and musical accompaniment in a stage production. Without the qualities of scene, your characters would be interacting in a void. Scene places your characters in space and time. Scene conveys the aesthics, the mood, the hue and saturation of the physical reality of your story. If desired, scene can also participate in setting the pace, theme, and stylistic or genre modality of your story (e.g., think steampunk, colonial, medieval, western, mystery).

Understanding versus writing a scene.What you know about a scene will differ from what you write about a scene. As with all aspects of story, scenes should be written to progress or enhance your story or narrative. For scene development, it’s important to do a little digging, possibly a little world building (even if the setting is in a known, familiar, or “actual” place and time), to infuse your scenes with the characteristics of setting without calling attention to the setting.

Essential Questions for Understanding a Scene

1. What needs to happen to or for your characters in this scene?What does this scene accomplish? How does it progress your story?
2. Who needs to be in the scene?
3. Where might the scene take place? Is there any significance to the location?
4. In what ways might the scene begin?
5. What senses are engaged by the scene (e.g., sounds, auromas/odors, sights, sensations – chill, heat, damp, tension, hysteria, trepidation, thrill, nostalgia, comfort, relief) and what is driving these sensual experiences?
6. What objects might physically be in the scene that characters could interact with?

The Art of Setting

“The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.”―Neil Gaiman,American Gods

"Harry wished he had eight more eyes... There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon[...]" – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

"Hogsmeade looked like aChristmascard; the little thatched cottages and shops were all covered in a layer of crisp snow; there were holly wreaths on the doors and strings of enchanted candles hanging in the trees." – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Setting transitions the reader into the world of your story. It helps the reader understand how to think and feel about the circumstance of the scene. Your characters may feel differently. For example, your characters may not know that they’re walking into a trap, but you can clue in the reader by creating an atomosphere that’s dark, heavy, and ominously mysterious – such as lighting that reveals little of the space and casts long shadows over objects in the room – where an exchange is taking place. Or else, you may wish the reader toenter naively with the character into an unfavourable circumstance, in which case the setting might appear to be a near dream-come-true for the character with symbolic trinkets and items that promise success or results.

Essential Questions for Writing a Scene

1. Based on your writing or thoughts on question one from the understanding a scene questions (above), what physical or sensory elements are necessary for the scene to successfully accomplish its purpose?
2. What are the specific locational, atmospheric, and aesthetic elements that contribute to the overall story’s continuity and style (including theme)?
3. What is the most important experience for your characters to have during this scene? What elements of the the setting contribute to your characters arriving at this experience?

Effective use of setting and scene immerse the reader in the story world through concrete detail while simultaneously offering your characters the information and experiences needed to move through or develop the story.

Opening Lines and Story Beginnings

"I always do the first line well, but I have trouble with the others."– Moliere

“My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying...one must ruthlessly suppress everything that is not concerned with the subject.” – Anton Chekhov

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” – Frank Herbert

In the beginning…. Just as Frank Herbert observes that “there is no real ending”, neither is there a real beginning. There is just the place where you start your story, which by definition becomes the beginning. Advice on how to begin stories ranges from jumping into the thick of the action to cleverly framing the theme or central question of your story in a single phrase (e.g., “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”). Realistically, you can begin whereever you wish with whatever expression best serves your work. However, it’s difficult to avoid the concept of “hooking” your reader.

The Hook. These are a few general concepts to help you hook your reader with the first sentence, but, of course, this is not an exhaustive list:

• Create interest, supspense, or mystery. Express an observation that needs and promises to be unpacked in your story. Do this by summarizing a key theme or concept explored by your story. Or, present a curious idea that will provoke wonder in the reader (see “Get weird.”).
• Cut directly to the action. Start during a scene or moment when circumstances start to change for your central character. Present an immediate problem or conflict. (Remember, you can always get to the plot points that came earlier later.)
• Ground your story from the beginning in explicit concrete details,almost like a history book or case file but with a little more sensuality (e.g., place, date, physical conditions).
• Get weird. Tell the reader something strange or unusual about the place, character, or situation.
• BONUS TIP #1: Think deeply about point of view and your narrator to set up the tone of your opening lines.
• BONUS TIP #2: When writing a story beginning that is an observation, think about writing a Hemmingway-esque “one true sentence”. Write simply and clearly something that is true about your story. It may be, for example, the crux of your story, the situation, the problem, or the postmortem.

Write your first scenewith the goal of introducing your reader to the story’s setting as well as the scene’s setting. The opening scene should usually introduce your central character and possibly some of your secondary characters, but be careful not to overwhelm your reader by introducing too many characters. Establish the style, genre, and theme of your story up front.

Exercises

Opening Lines Exercises

1. Study famous opening lines (see resources). Or, study opening lines from your favourite stories. Ask yourself:
2. Why do they work?
3. How do they work?
4. What point of view or narrator is used?
5. What do they tell you?

1. From - Write a true sentence to start a story, as follows:
2. Think of something true (i.e., something true about your story).
3. Write down that “one true sentence”.
4. Think about how you can use storytelling techniques to illustrate that truth.
5. Ask yourself whether or not your “one true sentence” is a powerful opening line.

1. Look up photographs, illustrations, and other images that interest you. Describe, in one sentence, what interests you about the image. Describe, in one sentence, what story is being told by the image. Describe, in one sentence, what a character in or obeserving the image understands to be true about the image. In your opinion, are any of these effective opening lines?

Setting a Scene Exercises

1. Storyboarding. Write or draw a series of vignettes that depict the elements of your scene. Use this storyboard to identify the crucial elements of your scene and flesh out the details. Seek out story setting worksheets to support your efforts (see resources).

1. Establish a scene list to help develop scene order and character placement in your story.

Scene #/Title / POV / Summary / Proposed Word Count / Actual Word Count
(Scene identifier) / (Point of view) / (1-3 sentences about the scene) / (# of words anticipated) / (# of words written)
#1 / 3rd Person Omniscient / Clara has found a note in her locker. She goes to rendezvous with the anonymous author in the library and does not return. / 750 / 1,150
The Market Square / 3rd Person Limited / Rostock market square in August 1939. Clara searches for a bookstore called LöwenherzigLehrbücher. / 1,500 / 1,223

Resources

• The “hook”:

• Tips for writing story beginnings:

• How to write a scene:

• Scene writing for screenwriters:

• Thoughts on how to start a story with “one true sentence”:graemeshimmin.com/how-to-start-a-story

• Opening lines from notable novels:

• Other examples of opening lines:sabotagetimes.com/life/the-20-best-opening-lines-from-books

• Story setting worksheets:

• A guide to scene lists (organizational development):

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