Make A Scene (17 page)

Let's look at how another author infuses her first scene with setting in a manner that also furthers the development of her significant situation. In the novel
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood, the significant situation is a radical shift in government that takes away women's freedom overnight. One day protagonist Offred has a normal life with her husband and daughter, then it is stripped away. In this first scene, she is nothing more than a slave kept by the new ruling class for the sake of reproduction. Atwood uses setting to create tension and unease from the very first sentence. She describes a familiar setting—that of a high school gymnasium—but there's something wrong with the whole picture. Why are the protagonist and these others sleeping there in the first place? Who are these "Aunts" that patrol the room with "cattle prods slung on thongs from leather belts"?

Though Atwood has a matter-of-fact style of writing, by using a normal setting in an abnormal way, she creates an aura of fear and uncertainty that immediately drives her plot forward.

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that

were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in miniskirts, then pants, then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair. .

We had flannelette sheets, like children's, and army-issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S. We folded our clothes neatly and laid them on the stools at the ends of the beds. The lights were turned down but not out. Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts.

Notice how the first line makes you feel nervous and curious and how the careful descriptions of a gymnasium and the characters' few belongings— "flannelette sheets, like children's, and army-issue blankets"—add up to a feeling that something bad has happened and that worse things (complications!) are to come. The protagonist also describes the setting with a keen note of nostalgia, suggesting that this familiar place is no longer used for a normal or familiar activity. Atwood unbalances our sense of what is normal.

You too can unbalance the reader's sense of normalcy in your writing by having your significant situation take place in a familiar setting in an
unexpected
way. For instance, a murder could take place in a domestically cozy little cottage; or against the backdrop of a dingy back alley where homeless people sleep, a man could propose marriage to a woman.

Unbalancing normalcy with setting is a great way to start your scene off with a visual and emotional pitch.

Subtext and Dramatic Tension

Subtext, as discussed earlier, foreshadows aspects of your plot through the strategic placement of thematic imagery, subtle indications of character behavior, and by showing parallel actions in the background of the scene. Not all genres need as much subtext. Action-driven narratives such as thrillers and mysteries, for example, often bypass the subtle for action, while literary fiction often relies upon more subtext, since the genre emphasizes lyrical language, slower pacing, and richer character development.

Freed does not disappoint when it comes to subtext. Looking back to our earlier
House of Women
example, there's an undeniably erotic subtext to the first scene. Thea describes the Syrian as "gleaming and beautiful"—terms of admiration bordering on the sexual. Thea desires him, or something from him, and as the text points out, her mother has made a point to warn her that boys only want "one thing and one thing only" from her. At seventeen, she is of an age to be naturally curious about men, and without using any telling language, the subtext points to this.

Her subtext also points to the theme of the inequality between men and women. Comparing the Syrian to mythical gods like Prometheus and Apollo makes him larger than life. Thea has been taught to see men as strange and powerful, since she has never lived with her father, and been raised only by her mother. This is an important subtext for how naive Thea is to the ways of men, because if she better understood them, she would probably not have gone with the Syrian.

The subtext in your first scene sets a tone for the rest of the narrative and creates a trail of bread crumbs leading the reader to believe that a certain direction is in store for your protagonist. In your first scene's subtext you want to develop a mood, foreshadow your protagonist's plot direction, and plant thematic images in the reader's mind.

Whether or not your first scene has a subtext, it needs to have dramatic tension. Dramatic tension is the feeling that something could go wrong for your protagonist, whether by forces working against him, or by ill-advised or unwise choices he makes on his own. You want to be sure that your significant situation immediately gives the reader cause to worry about your protagonist.

Once your significant situation is underway, you'll want to be sure that you keep the tension alive throughout the scene. You'll notice how Freed's first scene is positively dripping with the potential for conflict or consequence. Here is a young woman, kept naive to men by her mother, out on a clandestine visit at night with a much older man. The reader knows that something is going to happen, and that it will probably go against Thea's mother's wishes and Thea's own expectations.

Pacing

Pace should match the emotional content of your scene. First scenes should get going with an emotional bang—start big or dramatic, ratchet up the suspense or lay on the fear, since you're capturing the reader here.

In Philip Pullman's young adult fantasy novel
The Golden Compass,
the first scene opens with an air of nervous anticipation, and the quick pace mirrors that feeling. Protagonist Lyra, a ten-year-old girl, and her animal daemon Pantalaimon live at Jordan College in Oxford, England. In the first scene, Lyra is snooping in the chamber of the Master of the college despite Pantalaimon's warnings that she will get in trouble. The action is quick and the exposition and reflection kept to a minimum.

"What d'you think they talk about?" Lyra said, or began to say, because before she'd finished the question she heard voices outside the door.

"Behind the chair—quick!" whispered Pantalaimon, and in a flash Lyra was out of the armchair and crouching behind it. It wasn't the very best one for hiding behind: she'd chosen one in the very center of the room, and unless she kept very quiet. ...

The door opened, and the light changed in the room; one of the incomers was carrying a lamp, which he put down on the sideboard. Lyra could see his legs, in their dark green trousers and shiny black shoes. It was a servant.

Then a deep voice said, "Has Lord Asriel arrived yet?"

It was the Master.

Within a few paragraphs of quickly paced action and brief description, Lyra finds herself in the midst of her significant situation: As a result of being where she isn't supposed to be, she sees someone slipping poison into the brandy of their visiting guest, Lord Asriel, and overhears a conversation she isn't meant to that sets the plot in motion. In order to save Lord Asriel's life, she'll have to let on that she was in a forbidden room, and thus face punishment—putting her in quite the dilemma, which is a great way to thrust the reader into a first scene!

Your first scene is like a cold pool—the reader needs to dive in and get moving fast, or he'll be too cold to stay in the water for very long. In other scene types, you'll have more leeway with pacing. In the first scene, however, a quick pace—with more action and less reflection or exposition—will be a better sell.

To keep the pace quick, think in terms of action. What actions can your protagonist take that stem directly from the significant situation? You might want to have your protagonist take a risk, or be surprised in some way. First scenes are great for reactions—that is, characters being caught off guard in one way or another and having to think quickly about what they'll do next.

Ending the First Scene

Eventually, your significant situation will have to taper off to its close. No matter what kind of plot you choose—a quiet, character-driven one, or an action-based one as your genre and writing style demand—end your first scene with a feeling that trouble, conflict, crisis, or a dilemma has only just begun, and you will almost certainly guarantee the reader keeps on going to the next scene. To do this:

•
 Leave the consequences of the significant situation unresolved.
A

promise of more to come in the next scene keeps the reader turning the page. For example, if your protagonist has just been caught at the scene of a murder, don't let him be arrested or proven innocent before the first scene's end—leave the reader guessing.

•
 End the scene before the character makes a major decision.
This also works if you end the scene just after the character makes a bad decision, like Freed did with Thea in
House of Women.

•
 Allow your protagonist to have a disturbing realization that ultimately changes everything in his life.
What could prompt such a dramatic realization? Maybe your protagonist must flee the country, because his wife is a double-agent and an evil nemesis has found them.

•
Let your protagonist have a knee-jerk reaction to the significant situation.
This reaction should make things more complicated for him and help the scene transition go smoother.

Take a look at how Freed wraps up the opening scene of
House of Women:

Even as I slipped out of my sandals and crept down the back stairs, stopping at the bottom until Maude had delivered the drinks tray to him-even as I ran along the pantry passage and through the dining room, out onto the verandah, I knew that nothing they could do would stop me now. Not even if they caught me. Not even if they dug their nails into my flesh and screamed for the police.

"I sail tomorrow," he says.

I can hear my mother in her dressing room. She is humming, she is happy. "I've never seen snow," I say, standing up, "I've never even needed a coat."

While you want to taper the action of the significant situation to a close, you don't want it to feel too conclusive. In Thea's case, she has made a decision: "Nothing they could do would stop me now." She's going. But this is only the end of one stage of her life, at home with her mother. And Freed gives us a final, painful image of the mother "humming, she is happy," which the reader suspects will be Nalia's last moment of happiness before she realizes her daughter has gone.

You can also drop a thematic hint at the end of your first scene, as Freed does with this lovely metaphoric line of dialogue, "I've never even needed a coat." The coat symbolizes protection. With her mother as her keeper, Thea has been safe. But now she's entering a new territory without a coat, without protection.

Finally, leave your protagonist in a little bit of trouble, so the reader feels anxious enough to keep reading. Choose whichever path will create the most potential for conflict and change in the character. A shy, fearful character, for instance, might be faced with a big, brave decision at the end of your first scene—hopefully one that is a consequence of his significant situation. Whatever path you take, leave your protagonist's fate up in the air.

FIRST SCENES VS. PROLOGUES

Many writers don't quite understand the distinction between a prologue and a first scene (or chapter). The reason you will not find an entire chapter here on prologues is because they are not a crucial scene type. Most of the scene types you will have to use at least once in a narrative. A prologue is optional, and many novels don't use them at all.

A prologue is a short scene or chapter at the very beginning of a narrative—it is the very first part of the narrative that will be read, and it comes before the first scene and chapter. But here's where it can get confusing: A prologue may actually take place in the future, or even in the distant past. In fact, it may not fit into the linear chronology of the narrative at all, because its purpose is to provide information that the narrative will not or cannot just yet, but that is somehow needed. Some writers use a prologue as a hook—to tempt the reader with information that the plot will not deliver for many more hundreds of pages. I feel that your first scene should successfully provide that hook, and that if you work hard to write an effective, enticing, vivid first scene, you won't need a prologue. You do find prologues often, however, in certain kinds of genre work. Fantasy is a genre very well suited to the prologue, as it's often needed to fill the reader in on some aspect of the fantasy world that couldn't otherwise be known. Some mysteries may also require a bit of setup that is easiest to do in a prologue, to fill the reader in on the details of the case.

In the young-adult fantasy novel
The Alchemyst,
by Michael Scott, the prologue lets the reader know that even though the book is set in the modern day, Nicholas Flamel and his wife, Perenelle, are seven-hundred-year-old wizards in possession of a magic book called the Codex that is the key to their long life. The prologue simply gets the reader up to speed so the story can unfold without confusion when the Codex is stolen and two young kids are drawn into the plot.