Make A Scene Read Online Free PDF Page B

breakfast or clean the goddamned house." His voice modulated into a scream. "Or tell me what I can do and what I can't do. I know all about you, you slut! You've been creeping here and there all your life, making up to this one and that one. But you're not really a woman are you? I don't know what you are."
    Those offensive and abusive words are strong enough in their own right, but with the characters' history added into the mix—this man abused his daughters when they were young—they are all the more horrifying. It's a painful but brilliant stroke of emotional danger that keeps the reader riveted.
    Don't be afraid to invoke emotional danger in your character's lives; they can take it, and it actually builds both reader empathy and dramatic tension.
    In truth, the essence of any conflict involves a little danger. While in life people tend to avoid arguments and conflict, in fiction, conflict is a great drama-builder. I recommend that in every story or novel your characters get into at least one heated argument—this is a great way to create a sense of emotional danger without having to give your characters bleak childhoods and painful tragedies.
    The Unexpected Revelation
    Scene middles are a great place for a character to learn that he was adopted, that his wife has cheated on him with his best friend, or that he has been wrongly accused of a crime. Revelations can come via letters found in a dead relative's old chest of drawers, from another character's mouth, from an overheard conversation, or even through a device such as dreams. However they manifest, revelations are transformative pieces of plot information that drive your narrative forward and offer huge potential for drama in the scenes where they are revealed.
    The power of a revelation is immense. Who can forget the moment in Star Wars when Luke hears those terrible words from Darth Vader—"I am your father"—and how they change everything he knows and believes; or the moment when the title character in Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre learns the terrible truth about the secret past of Mr. Rochester, a truth that forces them to cancel their planned wedding. These revelations come with devastating emphasis.
    Revelations can also provide relief and comfort, returning fortune and identity and offering a character a chance where before there was none—like Cinderella learning she has a fairy godmother, or Pip discovering the identity of his wealthy benefactor in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations —and if you have tested your characters already, withholding from them and putting them in danger, then you might find it useful to provide a revelation that changes their fate in an instant.
    Are you more inclined to remember the moment you first fell in love, or the moment when your lover broke your heart and walked out your door for the last time? Most of us tend to remember what happened most recently, and what had the greater emotional impact on us. Scene endings can carry dynamic emotional weight when done right, and can leave the reader wanting more. Endings are by their nature conclusive; sometimes they conclude simple things like conversations or dates. In other cases, they end livelihoods and lives. But some endings are unresolved and leave the reader with more questions. Both kinds are acceptable when writing scenes (see chapter twenty-one for more on final scenes).
    The end of a scene is a space for the readers to take a breath and digest all that they have just finished reading. Endings linger in memory because they are where things finally begin to add up and make sense. At the end of a scene, if it has been done well, the reader will have more knowledge of and a greater investment in the plot and characters, and feel more compelled to find out what happens next. In fact, you know you've done your work when the reader reaches the end of a scene and absolutely must press on. For novels, often each chapter is one long scene.
    It is helpful to put scene