Open forum question from Manwhit:

i was wondering if you could tell me what makes a great scene. in other words, ideally what should every scene have in it? conflict, argument, visual ques, etc? is there a checklist that you can create so that one could go through their screenplay scene by scene and make sure that all the components were there? and should individual scenes have sort of a mini structure within them- like crisis, conflict, climax, resolution?

An interesting question following on the heels of yesterday’s topic. And gives me the opportunity to note that I teach a 1-week online course called “Screenwriting as Scene-Writing.” Here’s the course description:

If you figure that the average scene is two pages long and the average script is 120 pages, that means most scripts will have at least 60 scenes. Looked at this way, it’s fair to say that the most basic act of screenwriting is scene-writing. This course presents several guidelines over the course of one week to help students develop a deeper understanding of scenes — what they are, how they function, how each scene touches on plot, character, and style, and most importantly, how to write them.

Per that course, which I’ll be teaching again in May 2010, one basic premise is this: You can’t write a great scene unless you know how to craft a good one. To that end, here are some questions a writer can ask to help steer how they prep a scene:

* What type of scene is it (e.g., interaction, action, exposition, revelation, etc)?
* What is the point of the scene?
* What characters should be in the scene / why are they there?
* What is the central conflict of the scene?
* What is the scene’s Beginning, Middle, and End?
* What are the key themes in the scene?
* When I should I enter / exit the scene?

That’s just to get a handle on the ‘guts’ of a scene. I’m sure there are many variations on these types of lists. A good one I stumbled on recently is here.

But here’s the thing: It’s possible to nail all of these guidelines and still not have a great scene. The scene might be a solid scene, it might advance the plot, it might do a dozen things right, but if it’s not entertaining, then it’s probably not a great scene.

So as with almost all aspects of the writing process, we’re called upon to use both our left and right brains. And while it’s important to know the fundamentals of crafting a scene, it’s critical that we get in touch with our intuitive self, our aesthetic self, our cinematic self, and breathe some soul into a scene. Brainstorm possibilities and ask, What would make this scene fascinating?

And here we come smashing up against that screenwriting mantra: “See. Read. Write.” That is See Movies. Read Scripts. Write Pages. The first two are critical, not only in gaining a Gestalt sense of scene structure, but also to feed our creativity. If it’s true that every great story has already been told, then I suppose it’s also true that every great scene has already been written. So by ingesting movies and screenplays in vast quantities, our intuitive self can churn through all that ‘stuff’ and (hopefully) come up with an interesting variation.

Of course, one thing you can do to feed that process is go through each of the Great Scenes that are posted on this website. Every Friday at 10AM EST / 7AM PST (United States), I post a Great Scene. At last count, there are nearly 60 on the list which you can access here.

Let me end by saying that if you go through that list of Great Scenes, one thing you’ll invariably notice is that each scene involves some compelling event in the life of the story’s characters. And that right there could be as good as any description of what comprises a great scene: A scene in which one (or more) of the story’s main characters has a compelling experience.

How about you? What do you think makes a great scene? Any words of wisdom you care to share, please post in comments.