How do you assess the value of an individual scene?
Authors need to understand which scenes in their stories to cut in order to help the reader enjoy the story best.
Knowing what works for the reader and what does not is a key skill for authors. Because WSE is not a critique site, we do not post excerpts of our work for feedback.
I routinely hear that writers should cut anything the reader doesn't need, and that every scene must move the plot forward. But I also (all the time!) see scenes that I 'don't need.'
Here's one example of many:
In SW:A new hope, in the chess scene on the MF, the wookie wins 'because a droid won't rip your arms out if he loses.'
After 8 or more Star Wars installments, we still have never seen a wookie rip out anybody's arms. Even when they lose. They just moan a lot. So even the premise of what a wookie is, falls short.
Give me a little dismemberment. Otherwise this is an unfulfilled promise!
I'm sticking my flag in, right here - we don't need the scene. But I like the scene ... much as I like many of the scenes in my story.
Here's a second example, from "Hook."
Tinker bell grows big and then small again. Nothing is ever made of this. It creates sexual tension between Tink and Peter. Definitely not canon, and never used again in the story.
Again, I plant my flag. We do not need the scene.
So, the question is, how reliable is the advice: If the reader doesn't need it, cut it. If the scene doesn't progress the plot, cut it.
?? I ask because I've finished mapping my story to scene-sequel and am considering their individual value. Some are merely enjoyable scenes.
A useful answer will clarify what it means to 'move the plot' in a way necessary to the reader, and can use any example it likes. Do not feel constrained by the examples provided here.
Edit: Just learned that Unkar Plutt (Simon Pegg) had arms ripped out by Chewbacca. Scene was cut.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/34691. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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So, the question is, how reliable is the advice: If the reader doesn't need it, cut it. If the scene doesn't progress the plot, cut it.[emphasis added]
I think you are conflating "needed" with "related to the plot." Here's some examples of material that may be critical to a story but not directly plot-related.
It may relate to an important sub-plot, e.g. progressing the story of Kenobi passing knowledge to Skywalker.
It may relate to critical character development, e.g. the setup of Solo as an mercenary whose personal story (his progression to pro bono heroism) must resolve for the main plot to resolve.
It may act as setup for a callback later, e.g. the setup of Solo as an atheist would later be called back when he bid Leia "May the Force be with you" during an emotional goodbye.
It may be part of greater narrative, e.g. the longstanding relationship among wookie and droids, which spans many of the films.
It may serve as setup for the next scene, e.g. morphing levity into forboding as the protogonists approach a particularly dangerous area.
It may serve a specific marketing purpose, e.g. if a stakeholder in the production hoped to merchandise themed chess sets.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34707. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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There is also physical setting, social setting, philosophy setting, (together perhaps world building) and character building scenes.
This scene is a beat, a pause in the action, that is needed, and demonstrates life in the Star Wars universe is not a constant battle. There are things to enjoy. I think you take the "rip your arms off" line too literally, it is an exaggeration of a Wookie making a big deal of being upset. The important point is not that, it is proving Jedi's have a learning curve and proving / foreshadowing Luke can fail.
The reader does need this scene, whether it is a plot point or not, it reveals characters for several people appearing in that scene.
I could even argue that it moves the plot forward: Character abilities and changing abilities, and character failings and frustrations, are necessary to the plot too. It is a point on the character's arc to to realize "I suck at this," or "I'm sick of trying this, I can't do it."
Imagine a movie in which a female protagonist, in the first act, picks up a guy in a bar just to have company for the night, and she spends the night having sex with him in a hotel room. We never see that guy again, there are no consequences of their tryst. But the fact that she is capable of this is an important factor in her story, thus it is important to the plot. (Perhaps a later random tryst IS a plot point.)
I could say the same about a superspy movie; it opens with a firefight and our superspy kills some people, and we never see them again or know what they did. No matter, it builds the character of our superspy, he's lethal and calm under fire. Why not show that later? Because on his new mission, he doesn't get to kill anybody for 30 minutes. That's past the first act, and too late to introduce these crucial character traits that will be very important later in the story.
Let's say the same thing about a fantasy movie: If you don't introduce magic in the first act, near the opening, it can look like a deus ex machina or completely out of place. I might try to say that magic is so costly it isn't used until the end, but readers will call BS, if magic is a thing, it needs to be shown very early no matter how costly it is.
If the setting itself is dangerous (e.g. a sci-fi space setting, a dystopia, a post-apocalyptic nightmare, dinosaurs, time-travel changing history) a scene demonstrating the level of danger is in order, even if it doesn't serve the overall plot. It is building the "character" of the setting.
If I am writing a fantasy scene and wish to show a social fact, say that women and men have equal rights, the scene that does that may not move the plot forward, but can be an important thing to know for a later plot point. It is social "character" building.
The reader needs to learn about the characters and the world they live in, and some of this is shown by scenes that reveal this information without just telling it.
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You can indeed distil a story only to the scenes essential to plot progression. This is the trend of modern-day literature, perhaps influenced by the way movies are made. However, one of the differences between a movie and a book is that you are not expected to experience a whole book, start to finish, in one go. It ths has no time constraint. It can be as long as you please, offering you moments of contemplation, deviating into reflection or philosophy, and so on.
Furthermore, since a book is a media of words, not images, what in a film might be established by way of a glance and a gesture, might need a dedicated scene in a book. A scene which would appear not to progress the plot in any way, but only let us "feel" the character and the world a bit more.
Here are some examples, from literature classics.
- What purpose does Tom Bombadil serve in the overarching narrative of the Lord of the Rings? He doesn't progress the Ring-destruction and Sauron-fighting in any way. Yet Tolkien devotes a wholechapter to the Hobbits sitting in his house and doing nothing.
- Why do we need to know the background, character and past deeds of Bishop Myriel, prior to his charitable act towards Jean Valjean in Les Misérables? It is only his act of kindness that is relevant, not the several chapters of his life.
- What does the reader gain from the excerpts from Yuri's diary in Dr. Zhivago, in which he discusses passages from Yevgeni Onegin? What does that advance?
The answer, I think, goes beyond "flavour", "comic relief", etc. A book isn't just about following the plot from point A to point B. Point A and point B needn't even be important. It's about the road(s) we, as readers, travel between those two points; the sights we see, the thoughts we think, the emotions we experience. The question you should be asking isn't whether a particular scene advances the plot, but whether it offers the reader something, anything, that he would not otherwise see. (As well as whether the overall story moves at the speed you want it to. If it doesn't, you might want to move a scene elsewhere in the story.) Imagine yourself on a hike: a detour to see a rare flower in bloom would not bring you any closer to the mountain peak you're trying to reach, but you wouldn't want to miss those flowers, would you?
Furthering this idea, if you look at the literature of Malot, Hugo, Tolstoy, Pasternak, and more, there is the plot, and then there are many many scenes that do not directly promote the plot, but work as tiny jigsaw pieces, that together form the world and the characters and the journey you are undertaking with them. Any one of those scenes seems to be nothing. Together they form a whole. The story is in fact, not only about the characters, but about their larger circumstance. (Hugo and Tolstoy further digress into lengthy philosophical discussions of that circumstance, what the world is and what it should be. Because it isn't about the plot.)
And then there are the literary works where there isn't even a plot, really - only the sights along the way. What is the "plot" of the Divine Comedy? Or of Don Quixote? The "plot" is only a framing device, for the little scenes, the little stories along the way.
Which is to say, no, don't feel compelled to remove a scene because it doesn't move your main plot forward. Rather than asking what the scene doesn't do, ask what it does. Does it evoke something you want evoked? Does it insert an idea into your work that you want there? Does it add depth, or breadth to the story you're telling? Or does it do nothing at all, except slowing everything down?
If you are still unsure about a particular scene, you can try reading the chapter with and without it, see what reads better.
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The theory is bollocks. Here's why: the reader does not need any of it. A story is an entertainment. The reader needs food and water and oxygen and shelter and love. They don't need your novel.
Readers read for pleasure. Any scene that gives pleasure is a good scene.
However, a novel is a significant commitment. No other kind of art asks so much of the reader's time. Therefore the novel must provide a kind of pleasure that is both worth the time invested and can only be achieved with that kind of time commitment. In short, an novel must give novel pleasure as well a scene pleasure.
Novel pleasure comes (as best we understand it) from the emotional payoff of a story arc. The length of the novel is justified by the depth and/or complexity that can be delivered by a complex story arc. This is no doubt composed of many elements, including but not limited to the depth of our knowledge of and sympathy with the character, the emotional investment in their earlier triumphs and tragedies, and the profound nature of the the great moral choice that is the lynchpin of the story arc.
Scenes that conform to the emotional arc of the story, therefore, add to novel pleasure in addition to whatever scene pleasure they provide. (TV shows such as BTVS which combine an episode arc with a season arc are a good example of this.)
Scenes that detract from or delay the development of the story arc, however, can destroy novel pleasure, even if they offer considerable scene pleasure. Though usually we cannot enjoy the scene pleasure either if we feel that novel pleasure is slipping away. Story pleasure depends hugely on anticipation, and if anticipation does not build, or is diffused by a scene, then the loss of the sense of anticipation is more distressing than any pleasure the scene itself can compensate for. (Imagine being made to suck a super-sweet hard candy just before you were about to try a fine wine. Even if you like the candy, it will ruin your palate for the wine, and you will hate it for doing so.)
This distinction between scene that complement and build the novel arc and those that detract from it, however, cannot be made solely on the basis of utility. It is not about utility but about pleasure. Scenes that offer complementary or contributory pleasures are welcome. Scenes that offer conflicting or detracting pleasures are unwelcome, and their pleasures turn to ashes in the mouth.
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