Scene Climax

Hi everyone,

I finished my scene today. I’m very happy and feeling very satisfied. There’s nothing like the feeling of finishing a story, even if it’s a mini one like a scene. I got my MC where I wanted her to be. I’ve reread it and I love it.

Not everything is done yet. This is still only a second draft but I’ve got want I wanted to achieve done. Mostly, setting, emotion and a clear and clean thread of action through the scene and my MC achieving her goal (or not-failing is a completion of the goal, too).

Setting is important to me, so I really flush it out in the second draft because it makes or breaks a scene since, a lot of the time, my conflict comes from the setting. So I spend time on it here as well as on emotion and atmosphere because they are linked. It’s easy to spot in a third draft if a setting isn’t working, but only if I’ve given it a moment to shine in this draft.

Anyway, what I wanted to chat with you about today is the scene climax. What exactly is it?

Well, it’s two things. It’s a turning point in the story. A new direction. And it’s the protagonist either achieving or failing to achieve the scene goal. That’s why I make my goal explicit in my plan. This goal needs to be addressed in the climax.

Scene goals don’t have to be big. For example, Fictional Joanne is a coffee addict and she must have a cup of coffee before going to work. So the scene goal is for her to get a cup of coffee. But her usual coffee shop is closed due to a flood, so she has to sprint two blocks to a different coffee shop in stilettos-Fictional Joanne is very well dressed-to find that there’s a queue out the door. It starts to rain and she has no umbrella. She really wants her coffee so she braves it out getting wetter and colder by the moment. After queuing for twenty minutes, She gets to the top of the queue and they…

Success: give her the best coffee she’s ever had. She’s never going back to the old place.

Or

Failure: They run out of coffee, so now she has to sprint to work, wet, caffeine deprived and angry at the world. Maybe, she’ll give up coffee for good. That will show all those inferior coffee shops.

Scene goals can range from finding a seat in a crowded cafe to rescuing a friend from a serial killer.

If you can’t figure out your scene goal, then a good hack is to look at the climax of the scene. What does your MC get/achieve or fail to get? That’s your goal.

Knowing my scene goal is useful for me because it helps me tighten up the scene because I can delete anything that isn’t in service of this goal.

Anyway, I’m finished with this scene. On to the next tomorrow.

It’s lunar new year here in Singapore, so I’m off to my reunion dinner.

See you tomorrow.

Happy writing,

Joanne.