Langdon is now "eager to learn what his former student was about to announce." ĭan Brown Origin, Scene #3: Langdon is wandering along in the museum looking at symbols and people. Contemplates his invitation and the person who invited him. Then he talks to a host who welcomes him to the museum and to the secret meeting. ĭan Brown Origin, Scene #1: Robert Langdon sees a bunch of crazy things: 40 foot tall dog, giant spider, wobbly stairs. Lying in bed, he contemplates his gum transplants and whether a girl would ever want to kiss him. ĭean Koontz Devoted, Scene #2: Woody Bookman saves a story he's writing on the computer. Looks at her non-verbal eleven year old son. There is no clear goal at all in some cases or else it may only appear very late in the scene and then often it's a passive goal like "avoid some rowdy people" or "tell someone it's bedtime."ĭean Koontz Devoted, Scene #1: Megan Bookman feels time is running out. One sentence in the history of advice on scene writing suggests there might be the rare scene without a clear goal.īut when I read scenes from bestsellers, like Dan Brown's Origin or Dean Koontz's Devoted, they often begin with either a slice of life, some back-story, internal thoughts, or a character bumbling along observing their surroundings. That is the 1965 grand-daddy of scene structure, "Techniques of the Selling Writer" when he casually refers in one sentence to the idea that some scenes are happenings, which bring people together, but no goal or conflict is involved. Of the approximately ten most popular books on scene writing, there is only one that even hints at anything different. This is said over and over in writing craft books.
That goal should be made obvious as early as possible and repeated often to make sure the reader has clarity.
One thing in common-found in every single book-is that the main character in the scene should have a goal. I've been reading a lot of books on scene writing.
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