Writing a Scene in Your Story

An enjoyable and gratifying experience can be had when writing a scene for a novel. To get started, you should first consider the background of the situation you're writing about. Spend time trying to picture the specifics of the setting and the people engaged in the situation. As soon as you have a distinct image in your head, you should compose a few phrases that outline the action and establish the scene and characters. You may pique the interest of your audience and set the tone for the rest of your narrative by writing an engaging start.

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to better write your scene:

Where are we?

This is the most important part when writing a scene is deciding where it needs to take place. Are we outside or inside? Are we in a small town or a big city? Are you in a bar or a school? Are you by the water or in the mountains? These are essential details to establish before you can write your scene, as this plays a crucial part in deciding how the details in the remaining scene will play out. 

What’s in the room?

Now that you’ve established where you are, we need to figure out what your character notices in the room. What can distract your character while helping you fill up that empty space on the page? Does your character trip over a shoe rushing into the room? Do we notice a handwritten note sticking out from under the bed? Are there french doors leading into the bedroom? Having your character engage with items or even notice them can keep your reader more intrigued than stating them in long, drawn-out descriptive paragraphs. 

What are the smells?

Mentioning what your character can smell bring your reader even more into the story. Are they waking up from the smell of coffee brewing in the coffeepot too early in the morning? Is the cologne too strong coming from the person walking by? Can they smell the bread baking in the oven? Is there a particular smell that’s too strong that is distracting your character from something more important they need to be focusing on? 

What sensations can be felt?

Your character isnt just seeing and hearing things; they should be using all their senses unless there is a particular reason that they can’t. Are they bothered by the condensation on their glass of lemonade? Is the knee brushing under the table of a date making your character nervous, causing them to pick the label off their beer nervously? Is your character using the warmth of a heat lamp to warm themselves in a freezing room?

What do we hear?

Unless your character is in a soundproof room, they should be hearing something. People talking and cackling from people surrounding them in the bar? Can we hear forks and knives scraping against a plate in a fine-dining restaurant? Does a phone ringing shake someone back to the present after disassociating from reality? 

While it may be challenging to write a satisfying finish to a scene, with some effort and ingenuity, you may leave your readers wanting more. My go-to while writing a scene is taking a moment, closing my eyes, imagining where the scene is taking place, writing down what I would notice in the room, and using that to build a scene.