Chapters Really Consist of Scene Stages

Last time I explained how I got to my definition of a scene, which is, more or less: [Viewpoint] observes [Characters] interacting in [setting] for a given chunk of time, and something changes that moves the plot forward.

Now I’d like to get back to the original topic, which was, what do chapters consist of, if they don’t (always, exactly) consist of scenes?

The answer that certain correspondents and I have come up with is that chapters consist of scene stages.

Now, if someone else is already using this term, maybe we can call them Scene Phases or something, but alliteration is always awesome.

So what are the stages of a scene? I’m sure there are many excellent answers, but ultimately what I’ve been trying to learn is, how to identify where to split scenes between chapters for dramatic effect. So for this purposes, I think it’s enough to say that the stages of a scene are as follows:

1. Opening
2. Continuation (not always necessary)
3. Closure
4. Sequel (not always present)

The reason for this seemingly rather obvious split (except for #4 if you’ve never heard the term “sequel” used this way) is simple: you can put a break between any two of these stages. Or between all of them, or some of them, or none, though if you don’t at least split 1 from 3 you lose the dramatic tension cliffhanger effect which was the original goal of this series.

By “break,” by the way, I generally mean a chapter break, but there’s that other kind of break you see a lot, what I think of as a triple-asterisk break. And there’s also the invisible break, for the writer’s purposes only. (I think I’ll do another short blog entry on these breaks rather than derail this one here.)

Anyway, let’s look at some examples.

• A short scene that serves a minor purpose without heavy action might have its Opening and Closure stages crammed into a couple of paragraphs. This is an obvious candidate for the situation where a chapter really does contain multiple scenes. But it’s really containing multiple scene stages, is the point here. By writing such a tiny little scene—which might turn out to be pointless in the grand scheme, especially in later drafts—we’re skipping out on the opportunity to split the scene across breaks with any sort of cliffhanger moment in between them.
• An action scene of medium length might be split into Opening and Closure stages with a chapter break in between. Depending on the length of the Closure stage, you might go on to end that second chapter with a sequel stage, if you need your characters to get all touchy-feely about the ape lizards they just diced up, or suchlike. I view this as sort of the holy grail of scene-splitting for genre fiction.
• A long, detailed action scene with a “bullet-time” level of detail might be milkable for more than one cliffhanger, and thus spread across an Opening stage, one (or even more) Continuation stages, and a Closure stage.
• A semi-actiony scene, like, say, expository dialogue spread across characters who are antagonistic to each other, might consist of Opening, Closure and Sequel in the same chapter, or Opening and Closure in one chapter but the Sequel in the next, perhaps a turning point in the story. Again, loss of the cliffhanger opportunity, and where I’ve found a couple of these in my own first draft, I figure they must be too low on drama and will need to be retooled or cut.

Inferring this breakdown—from other people’s doubtless more thoughtful work on the subject—made it possible for me to go through my own chapters and identify and split scenes across chapters…in some cases very differently from the way I had them split up, or not split, before.

I don’t feel right about blogging on the more detailed view of what scene opening & closure stages ought to consist of, and definitely not on the subject of “sequels,” because I didn’t invent them and don’t feel like any kind of an authority. Maybe someday I’ll feel differently about it. For now, I really recommend that you look up these things, especially the subject of “scenes and sequels.” Maybe I can find a good link to post.