LET'S WRITE! THE SCENE AND SPICES!

In the last article we discussed the basic types of stories.
That's fine and well, but now let's get into the meat of your story. We will cover the 5 Act structure another time, as well as more in-depth details as we go through the tutorials. For now, let's take a look at what makes up a story in film, television, games and comics. This tutorial can be applied to any of these, though it was taught to me with Comics in mind.

What is a Scene?
A scene, as you probably know, is any time you have characters in a location doing things. To follow a scene you must have a constant. Maybe the scene is about several different characters coming and going from a location with a ticking clock (meaning: no jumps to "Ten Minutes Later...").
Or maybe the scene is about one character moving from one location to another. Again, the ticking clock is there. When you stop the clock and change location or change characters; you change scene.
This is especially true in comic books because, unlike film, games or television, comic books pass time in between comic panels. So, to jump ahead too far in the clock, would confuse a reader. It has to be a constant ticking clock to tell the story. That's why a lot of comics will have those cheesy captions: "Later, on the Kent Farm..."

Essential Information
Every single scene in a story should contain essential information to the plot. Even menial information. Otherwise, you're just jerking off on camera. This information should also be unique! Take for instance the movie Saw:
In Saw, we are constantly seeing these two people locked in a bathroom. Despite the setting and characters not changing, there is always more information revealed about the characters' past, or the situation as the movie progresses. Disgusting as the film is, it doesn't constantly tell you the same information over and over again.

Mini-Plot
If you recall from the 5 Types of Stories article; we discussed Plot. Each plot is basically, "Who is the protagonist and what's the environment?" "What is normal?" "What changes normal?" "What is the result of that change / What is the choice of the protagonist?"
This does not change in a scene. Each scene needs to establish the protagonist of the scene, the location of the scene, what changes normal, and the result of change.

Protagonist of the Scene
A scene obviously does not need to be about the Hero. It could be about the Villain, or maybe the love interest. What about some cops who find a murder victim, and this is somehow relevant to your story in some way?
The Protagonist of the Scene is the character we're going to follow in that scene. This means, it is usually the first character we see. They are the one entering the door, they are the one finding the corpse, they are the ones vomiting in their mouth. We care about this character, even if they're the bad guy. We care, because the author TELLS us to care. The fact we're following this person, means that they are going to affect the story in some way.

Location of the Scene
You can probably guess that the location doesn't need to be the same as the Protagonist of the Story. It almost goes without saying, but is still worth saying.
Take for instance, Star Wars. When the scene changes to the admiral entering Darth Vader's chambers in The Empire Strikes Back, we don't care about Darth Vader. We care about the admiral (harping back to the last section) because he is entering the location (and we know he's also the one in emotional peril!). This location is not however, where Luke Skywalker is.

The Change
I'm going to skip "What's Normal" because that is basically you just re-establishing your world and setting with the themes or moods or whatever you need to do to reaffirm the audience they're in the same world. The movie Avatar does this constantly, by showing the protagonist in this wonderful world.
The change can come at the very start of a scene. If you're watching Smallville, this happens a lot. They will show Lex Luthor (the mortal guy who is more likely in peril in the scene) sitting in his Richie Rich mansion, and then Clark will burst in and accuse him of something. The change here, would be the accusation.
A scene without a change would be this:

Dudesoft is sitting at the breakfast table eating cereal, when K-hos walks in and says, "It's a nice morning." Dudesoft replies, "Too true, let's have eggs for breakfast. I do enjoy my eggs. Yum yum!" K-hos gladly agrees to make the eggs and they eat them. END SCENE.

This is a scene about breakfast. There is no change, except the eggs (but we're already at the breakfast table! Breakfast is already there, with the cereal, so no change.)
Here's an example of change:

Dudesoft is sitting at the breakfast table eating cereal, when K-hos barges in and slaps his bowl to the floor. "You son of a bitch!" K-hos screams, "You slept with my father!"

Boom! We go from breakfast, to sex and anger and lots of juicy emotions! (more on that later)

Result of Change / The Choice
The Change that comes into a scene will either force a character to do something, or will force the character to make a choice. A good writer will never leave the character with no choice. Sometimes it's impossible to avoid;
For instance, in Back to the Future when the Delorean won't start and the lightning is about to strike in the final big scene. Marty McFly doesn't have much of a choice. He has to keep trying to get his car to start. He has a choice, but it's not much of one and Marty isn't chicken...
So, having the character CHOOSE to do something is what makes an audience pay attention. We want to watch a character making choices.
My teacher gave us a good example in this:

The character is running down an alley, and suddenly he comes to a fence. How does he get past this obstacle?

There's hundreds of ways to get by, through, over, under, around and away from a fence. The choice is the character's to make! (Though, really it's the author's choice.) Consider what the character would do. Think back to the 5 Types of Stories.
Remember that Hero, Anti-Hero, Everyman, and Misanthrope scale? That plays a big role in the choice making! A hero would leap over the fence, fight bad guys to get by the fence, come up with some genius catapult to fly over the fence---something that ties into his Bravery, Admirable Skill, or Selflessness.
An Anti-Hero would just cut through the fence. Steal a key to a lock in the gate of the fence. Climb over an elderly woman's back to get over the fence. Something that shows he's not Selfless, or Brave, or Skilled (whatever you decided on for the character).
And so on.

The Spices
Now we have a scene that establishes who is where and what changes, and supplies some new information. Great. That's still kind of boring. What we do to "spice" things up is add something interesting to get invested in. Sexuality, Violence, Suffering, Wickedness, Comedy and Novelty.

To close, remember this quote if nothing else:

Any conversation you can have in a restaurant, you can have in a burning airplane.

Next time, I'll elaborate on the spices.
Until then, keep writing!