This Scene is Called...

This Scene is Called….

Here’s an exercise borrowed from my wife, who spends a lot of her time working with actors, particularly on Shakespeare. And this is how the exercise goes:

A group of actors know the scene already. Before the beginning of each line of dialogue or speech, the actor says: ‘This Scene is called….(insert made-up title)’ and then they say their line. As the scene continues, any actor can change the title of the scene, saying the new one before they speak their line. Whenever the scene name is changed, the other actors either adopt this new scene title, speaking it before their lines, OR they can go back to a former scene title, if that feels like a better fit for them, OR they can make up a new scene title. 

The only rules are: the total number of scene titles cannot exceed five, and NO planning ahead about when the new name will come or what it will be.

The idea behind this exercise is that the actor is encouraged to constantly interrogate the goal of the scene, from the pov of their character, as well as from the writing choices in the text. 

Here are some examples of Scene Titles. This scene is called….A New Broom…I’ve Had Enough of Him…The Big Distraction…Waiting for the Call.

And it might be useful to note that the same scene title can mean different things to different characters, i.e. one character might think they are the New Broom, another character might feel a New Broom is needed generally but they’re not it, another might think New Broom means the whole place needs a clean-out.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACTORS AND WRITERS: It makes for a truthful, vivid performance when an actor is able to live totally in the moment of the scene, without  ‘knowing’ what is going to happen next. When they truly believe that the outcome they are hoping for is going to occur – right up to the last minute, until it doesn’t. So the scene title they choose should arise from this ‘unknowingness’ of the wider story. 

But we writers are the architects. We’re allowed to know what’s really going on, in terms of the wider arc. (Whereas it’s often desirable for our characters NOT to know - at least not entirely.) So our AUTHOR scene title can reflect this. 

What I don’t want you to do with this idea is over-plan before you write a scene for the first time. Sure, you can try out a title, if you want – Marjorie Calls in her Creditors – just to give you an initial focus and get you going, but once you’re off let it go, or hold the title loosely, because your fertile imagination might have all kinds of better ideas that bubble up as you write.

But when you’ve finished what you think is a complete, horribly messy, first draft, now comes the time to read the scene over and notice what you’ve got. And out of that, see what title emerges. (Maybe the title isn’t actually Marjorie Calls in her Creditors, maybe it’s Start of a New Tax Year…) 

Notice what your imagination has created and start to make choices - yes to that, no to that, until a scene that can be held under the umbrella of one title (at least for the author) begins to emerge. And LET GO of the elements that don’t belong in a scene with that title. Use them somewhere else, if you really can’t stand to just cut them. But if they’re not part of what this scene is about, the scene will be stronger and clearer without them.

One last part of this exercise. As with the actors, each character has their own biased idea of what this scene is called. What’s really going on, what they’re hoping will happen. (And if they don’t, this might be the reason for a certain flatness in the scene, a lack of tension, or a predictability.)

After deciding your AUTHOR scene title, try going through each of the characters and listening to what they think the scene is called. Work with them. Maybe your point of view character (if there’s one and you’re not in omniscient) has a title in their head pretty close to the Author one. Or maybe they don’t, and the readers can deliciously see the train crash coming. 

But I think it’s clear at least ONE character in the scene should have a strongly different title in their head. Otherwise everyone’s in agreement, and so why are we even visiting this scene in the story? Since there doesn’t seem to be a problem. And once you have the characters’ scene titles, go through your draft and make sure: are they pursuing this scene title’s goal? Are they working toward an outcome in which the title makes sense? Or have they lost focus in places? Wandered into a completely different scene…because their author got distracted and lost the plot (literally).

This Scene is Called…I know what I’m doing. 

And it’s very satisfying.