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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29391
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29391
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In _Story_, Robert McKee warns very strongly about the dangers of writing in scenes. His point is that what makes a story is its overall arc. Given a set of characters you have invented, each with a particular motivation and a set of values that shape how they pursue their goals, it is easy to put almost any combination of those characters in a room together and allow them to interact. That will create a scene (in both meanings of the word) and if you are a good writer and you have imagined your characters well, it may be a very good scene that reveals interesting things to the reader. But that does not mean that it does anything to advance the overall arc of the story.

A collection of individually great scenes that do not work together to create a satisfying story arc do not make for a compelling story. To make the overall story work, you will have to cut some scenes, modify others, and create some new ones. The danger McKee argues (and as a Hollywood story doctor, he has seen writers go through this pattern) is that the writer has certain scenes (their darlings) that they are particularly fond of. Those scenes, the writer decides, have to stay in. And so the writer writes some new scenes, but the purpose of those scenes is to steer the plot to those darling scenes that they can't part with.

This does not produce a satisfying story arc. In fact, it often makes the problem worse, because every new scene that is created in each rewrite has the potential to be a really great scene and to become yet another darling through which the writer feels compelled to steer the plot, thus making the story line more and more convoluted with each iteration.

To avoid this trap, McKee would argue, you must think in terms of your overall story arc. Where is this story going and what it the best way to take it there? Write the scenes that the story needs to get where it is going. Otherwise, prepare to ruthlessly slay your darlings.

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