We’ve all had the pesky trouble scenes in our stories. Scenes and chapters that you just can’t seem to make work, if you can get it written to begin with.
These scenes can stunt your progress in writing and editing and are, overall, a royal pain. So today let’s look at some ways to unstick those stuck scenes.
Most of these suggestions work in conjunction with each other, and so we’ve listed them in the chronological order that we suggest. But of course there is no right or wrong answer, so feel free to use this list in whatever way best suits your story.
Ground The Scene
Before we get into the deeper suggestions, it’s important to establish where your characters are both physically and emotionally. This helps with getting an idea of where (and how) to take the scene.
For physical grounding
Take into account what is surrounding your character. What sounds do they hear? How does the ground beneath them feel? What kinds of distractions might they see? What direction is the wind blowing in? What is the temperature?
These things will affect your character’s behavior and mindset, and they will also help you get an idea for how your character will interact with their surroundings.
For emotional grounding
Think back to what the last thing your character experienced (on or off page). What was their response to it? How does that affect their current emotional state? What are they thinking about?
Now tie those things together. How do your character’s surroundings affect their mental states, their thoughts and emotions?
You don’t necessarily have to write any of these things down or directly insert them in your writing, but they are good to keep in mind. Once you’ve really set yourself in the scene and carefully considered the character’s current state of mind (however remarkable or unremarkable it may be), it becomes easier to step back and let your characters lead the scene.
To summarize this point:
-Know the setting and its effect on your characters
-Use the previous scene/experience your character was in to determine what mindset they are in right now
Consider What Your Character Wants and Needs
This is a classic piece of writing advice. It’s no wonder that it’s such a common and long-lasting suggestion, given it is a practical and solid one.
Our previous suggestion about grounding was to help enable you for this one. You’ve stepped into your character’s shoes, you’ve taken their mental state and physical surroundings into account, and you’re ready to let them lead the scene for a bit.
But even though you’re letting them lead, you still have to figure out where they’re (figuratively) going.
To do this, ask yourself what your character wants right now. You know what his state of mind is, so use that to determine what he needs in the moment.
For example, say your character skipped a meal and didn’t get any sleep last night. He’s hungry and tired, and he can’t do anything about that until he’s reached an inn. Meanwhile, his companion is in a chatty mood and – having slept well the night before – has all the energy in the world to talk his ear off.
What this character needs is food and rest, and what he wants is for his companion to shut up.
So now you can ask yourself, how will you use what he wants and what he needs to propel the scene forward? That question brings us to the next suggestion.
To summarize this point:
-Find out what your character wants and needs
-Consider how that will affect his performance in this scene
Add Conflict
Another iconic piece of writing advice is to add conflict to your scene. This can be tricky to do depending on what kind of scene you’re writing, especially if the scene before or after this present one will be conflict-heavy.
It is good, then, to keep in mind that a conflict can be as big as a character dying and as small as a character getting a paper cut.
To determine what kind of conflict you should present to your character, consider the previous point. You know what your character wants and what he needs, now how can you inconvenience him?
Let’s continue on with our previous example:
You character is hungry and tired, but in this case the conflict has little to do with either of those facts. Rather, the conflict is the annoyingly talkative companion. The fact that your character is tired and hungry makes him more susceptible to his frustration, but it itself isn’t the cause for it.
So in this case, a writer might build off of this conflict in a humorous way, using the narrator or the character’s internal monologue to depict his frustration.
Or in another case the character might lash out at his companion, growing the conflict (and likely stressing the reader out).
Whatever reaction the main character has changes depending on his personality.
The main idea behind creating conflict is to put something between your character and what he wants. Whether it’s big or small, it’ll give you something to build off of.
To summarize this point:
-Use your character’s wants and needs to determine what kind of conflict to present
-Present a conflict that you can build off of to carry the scene to its completion.
Write the Scene from a New Perspective
Say you’ve tried the previous things and the scene just isn’t working. It happens to the best of us.
When it does, it can be helpful to change the perspective of the scene.
Here’s a few ways you might do this:
Change your approach to the scene
Say you went into this scene with the anticipation that it would be a deep and emotional one. You want to convey how tired your characters are, mentally and physically, and show how much the plot is burdening them.
The motive for writing a scene such as that is to convey how serious the plot is and how hard your characters have been working. This is definitely a good, and perhaps even pivotal, scene to include. However, it’s also very heavy.
So instead of going into that scene with the anticipation having a deep scene, why not try something a little lighter? Perhaps go into it trying to highlight your characters’ strengths, not their exhaustion.
The scene can still go as planned, you’re just shifting the focus ever so slightly to make it fit better. Your characters can still have that heart to heart, or argument, or lengthy monologues.
It’s the same scene, but you’re going into it with the goal of emphasizing some underlying themes, such as how strong your characters are, instead of just leaving your characters (and reader) under a rain cloud.
This can work for just about any type of scene. The idea is to change your, the writer’s, perspective on the scene. Weave underlying characteristics of the players into the scene to freshen it up and give you a little more room to work with.
Your reader may not realize you’ve done this, but the affect will still be there.
Try writing the scene in a different POV style
Temporarily changing the style of perspective (as in first person or third person narratives) can show your scene in a new light.
For example, say you’re writing in the third person. This is a great perspective because you can do so much with the narration – you can set your own limits and be as near or as far from a character’s mind as you’d like.
However, though you may be very close to a character’s mind, you’re still not in his mind.
For that, let’s look at first person.
You know your character’s current wants and needs, so why don’t you try applying that knowledge through first person perspective? This way you can truly experience and feel your way around the character’s mind. You might just uncover something that you hadn’t previously thought of.
This works the other way around as well. If you write in first person, try switching to third for this scene. Let yourself branch out from the limited perspective and take into account how the world sees your character, rather than how your character sees the world.
This can broaden your view of both the character and the scene alike.
Of course, you don’t need to keep this switch in narration in your final draft. Rather, we suggest you use this as an exercise to give you a new perspective and break the scene free from whatever is keeping it stuck.
Once you’ve succeeded at that, you can always rewrite the scene in the proper narration style.
Change the POV character
This follows the same logic as changing the POV style. Switching which perspective you’re telling the scene from can really help you explore a scene from avenues. Sometimes all you need to get the scene moving again is to look at it through new eyes, which this enables you to do.
In some cases you may even find that the since works better in someone else’s perspective, which is a good thing as it teaches you something about both the character you switched from and the one you switched to.
This approach is also handy because you can easily reuse the scene. If your story has multiple points of view then it’ll fit right in, and if it doesn’t then you can always put it in your “deleted scenes” for your future fans to find later.
To summarize this point:
-Try changing your perspective on the scene, and imply that perspective in your narration
-Write the scene in a different POV style to get a new look at the scene
-Write the scene from a different character’s POV to get fresh eyes on it
Move On
Sometimes you really just can’t get a scene to work. When that happens, it’s always okay to backtrack or skip ahead temporarily. Work on a different part of your story for a bit, the scene will still be here when you come back. There’s no shame in taking a break from it.
Conclusion
We hope that this list has been helpful for you. If you have any additional advice or suggestions, please feel free to share it in the comments.