How to Write Interesting Scenes by K.M. Weiland - Usa

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Here’s a secret about storytelling that many writers overlook. An interesting plot isn’t what makes an interesting story. Interesting characters aren’t what make an interesting story either. In reality, a story is only as interesting as its scenes.

That sounds almost too obvious to think about.

Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it too specifically myself until reading Matt Bird’s insightful Secrets of Story, in which he points out (in his excellent common-sense chapter on scenes):

The Secrets of Story

At any given point in your story, the audience will be far more interested in the conflict within the current scene than in the overall conflict. If you allow yourself to create weak scenes in service of the larger story, you will sabotage your own work.

The lack of interesting scenes has proven the downfall of many a story. Even the most unique plot and the most sympathetic characters will fall flat if the story isn’t keeping readers’ attention from scene to scene. And on the flip-side, plenty of so-so stories prove wildly entertaining because their authors knew how to keep a reader’s attention on the scene level.

Basically, the art of writing interesting scenes is the art of preventing reader boredom. As I talked about last week, audiences are increasingly jaded when it comes to meh storytelling. The one thing, more than any other, for which they have little patience is boredom.

This is why writers run their brain-hamsters overtime trying to figure out the most-original-plot ever. Or they dig deep in their souls to write characters of tortured complexity.

That’s good.

But it’s not enough.

The only way to write a story that works for the audience is to write one that grabs them on the scene level.

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