#because i don't think whatever grand character development plans i had for this scene are ever coming back to me

[hirazuki]

how about "shiro + lotor 2" from your WIPs? (sorry for making you VLDpost in 2024)

Lmao it's my own damn fault for admitting to VLD WIPs in my folder in 2024 XD

So this is supposed to be another missing scene, along the same lines as my one VLD fic I do have published, this time between Shiro and Lotor when they're on their way to the Kral Zera.

Lotor shifted again, braced against the cool metal, careful not to let the back of his head bump against the edge of the dashboard he was leaning on.  Senses honed by almost ten thousand years of persecution insisted that he remain standing, behind the pilot, in case something -- anything -- were to go awry; smooth sailing after the turbulence of take-off did not by any means imply that safety was guaranteed. The prince, however, had forced his body into a sitting position. With wrists propped up on bent knees, he had chosen a spot to the right of the pilot’s chair. Not only could he use what respite he could get before they arrived at their destination, but the man that had expressly -- and covertly -- gone against the wishes of his team deserved that courtesy. Shiro was risking his very position within Voltron to aid him, and had been open-minded and supportive of him from the start; the very least Lotor could do as thanks, he reasoned, was not hover over the man’s shoulder, behind his back, suggesting not only a lack of trust but possibly sinister intentions. He looked up at the paladin. The man had his hands on the controls, occasionally making some adjustments on the screen in front of him. Probably skirting patrols.  The slight veering off-course of the mechanical lion had increased in frequency the longer they were in flight.  We must be getting close. Neither of them had said much, beyond going over the details of the plan, but it was not uncomfortable. The soft whirring of the Black Lion’s engine and beeping of her controls was pleasant enough that the half-Galra found himself thinking that flying like this for the rest of his life would not be so bad. Soothing. That was the word.  “I apologize,” Lotor said, eventually, breaking the silence. “For what?” “I am aware I have caused a rift between you and the rest of the paladins. That was never my intention.” “Oh,” Shiro replied. “Actually, I don’t think it was you, specifically. It’s… been a long time coming. You were just a convenient subject.” “Ah, convenience. It does always seem to come down to that, doesn’t it?”

[roccinan]

How would you rank the deaths in lcdp? Best has to be tokio's. I loved berlin's death scene and it was my fave until tokio came and stoel it from him. Another question: did you have an ideal death scene in your mind for sergio and palermo? i thought they were going to die too.

Hi anon! Oh, interesting question. I'd have to agree with you- Tokyo's death is the best one, hands down. It had my blood racing and my eyes tearing at the exact same time. Berlin's death scene was graceful too, but I wasn't heartbroken over it.

So first part of your question- ranks.

Tokyo, for the reasons listed above.

Berlin. Hard to beat the hermanos reveal + him going out guns blazing; also Pedro took like, 80 real explosions to the flesh asdfadf I respect him for that

Moscow. He died the exact way I expected him to XD but his death was great for Denver and Tokyo's character development, and he had enough presence to make us care

Oslo. The first death was always a surprise. Man didn't talk much, but really felt for the impact on Helsinki.

Nairobi. I thought it happened in bad taste for the sake of shock value. She deserved a death like Tokyo's or one that was more respectful to the character (Ex. dying from Alicia's sniper instead)

"Lisboa." It clearly wasn't going to happen LOL, they were just trying to scare us.

Next question! Hmm, my ideal death for Palermo would been going out the same way as Tokyo lol. She literally stole that from him, good for her asdfasdf. Since he can't copy Tokyo's death now (she really took the Berlin parallel from him adfasd), my ideal death for him would be how he died in my "Grand Hotel" fic. He stays behind to cover Tokyo during her death scene (after Denver leaves) and is the one that triggers the mass explosion that takes out Gandia and co. And right before he does it, he looks Bogota in the eye and tells him to melt the gold. That, or taking a bullet for Sergio lol.

As for Sergio, I thought he might die too asdfadf he had me worried for nothing lol. His death would be more tricky. He could die outside or inside the bank. I think my ideal scenario would be one where Sergio doesn't get Tamayo and co. to compromise so easily. Sergio comes up with a way to get the rest of la banda and the gold out of the bank, but at his own expense. I don't think getting gunned down suits him. He'll probably stand there, very calm while the bank collapses over him because of whatever explosion, fire, etc. he created last minute. Ideally, he'll flashback to moments with Andres, Raquel, Tokyo, Martin, etc. and we'll get a really cheesy sequence of all the professor's key moments in the show.

Raquel will cry, but she won't go back in for him because she knows this is part of the plan. And just before Sergio dies, he remembers singing bella ciao with Andres, and his death ends with him singing it to himself (while the score does too). Bam! Epic ending for the professor, if I do say so myself.

[doomedship]

Watching All Too Well reminded me of the Tim/Lucy age gap. Until recently Tim was her mentor, and the mentor ship dynamic only works when the older mentor doesn’t take advantage of the power imbalance. He’s her superior at the precinct, and he’s belittling her. He should be the first person to accord her the respect she is due as a P2, not the last. He should set the standard for others to follow. Calling her by her name isn’t enough. He needs to treat her like a partner, with respect.

**long post alert**

Yeah, I get this.

It's one of the things that has most suffered about their relationship. Some say he's always been rude to her and that this is consistently part of his flirtation/shippy behaviour but I don't think this works, exactly, due to how the show itself has changed.

I watched a few early season scenes recently and was just hugely struck by the change in the tone of the show since then. The dialogue, the backing music, the plotlines, the settings. Back then it all had an element of grit and grunge to it, everything seeming to say toughen up, Boot.

Tim was a huge part of that. He was harsh with Lucy, and rude. But this is the difference: we were supposed to think it was rude and that Lucy had a tough gig with him as a T.O. That wasn't part of some grand shipping plan, it was simply the character Tim was written as initially: a strict, military-style officer with deep emotional pain which led him to make bad decisions at times. We weren't encouraged to think it was flirtatious, but there was always chemistry.

Their relationship grew and changed organically. It was made clear that Lucy was unusual to Tim because she pushed back hard against his bad behaviour and ended up being the one keeping him on the straight and narrow. She was essentially proved to be his equal through his harsh behaviour, albeit not in formal title yet. So far so good.

So what's different now?

Tim sort of recognised last season that Lucy was now his equal, shown by how he never called her boot again, and calls her by her name.

But since 3x09, the post rookie relationship has regressed instead of grown. Tim got retconned to erase the mistakes that he'd made as a T.O. so that instead we were supposed to believe all along he'd been managing Lucy like a pet project while she was oblivious to that fact and had to have it explained to her. It completely denied all the mutual respect that had grown between them because of all they'd been through in training.

Then, in S4, Tim no longer seems to consider Lucy his equal because as you say, his behaviour towards her is now demeaning in the workplace, while Lucy is being written to show the full effect of being 29 to Tim's 40 whatever.

An example is the "nerd" scene. It's super inappropriate for him to make a comment like that in front of a room full of colleagues just as Lucy is demonstrating her capabilities and doing her literal job. It's telling that he did it to Lucy, who then didn't defend herself (another man did it for her), while Nyla (Tim's equal) was given the line "call me a nerd, I dare you".

There is little equality in Lucy and Tim's interactions anymore. She was far more assertive, more driven, more willing to call Tim out on his bs as a rookie than she is now. And that's partly down to the fact that the tone of the show now is predominantly humour, all the time. Lucy used to be a serious character, but now is a humour device, so she doesn't get the tough dialogue. Nothing serious is actually happening to Lucy and Tim so the writing leans on these jokes and banter in lieu of development. Lucy usually comes off as the subordinate in these exchanges, while Tim gets to say something snarky about her.

This isn't cute to me, since they already tread a dangerous line because of the age and professional imbalance. That's why it was so important to show Lucy able to give as good as she got in their early relationship - it defied the fact that he is far more experienced than her and showed that she was capable of being his true match.

It is an unholy trope in my opinion to show romantic interest by mistreatment, as well, particularly in the context of a man who's pushing 40. There's a fine line between it being cute that Tim's a grump and him just being misogynistic towards Lucy.

So yeah. I don't actually want Lucy to have to be the smiling sunshine to Tim's rude snark all the time. I want them to respect one another, as you say. Like they used to in S1/S2.

[wickedpact]

A ranking of all the TTT stories in order of how much I liked them.

(Oh god this is so long)

1 My Mother's Axe

BABY ANDYYYYYYYYYYYY. Honestly this one had the trifecta of developing a character's motivations, developing a character's backstory, & developing their personality. The story starting out with Andy teaching Nile to use the axe was so charming and fun, and you could feel that chemistry they had in Opening Fire, the way they teased and bickered with each other so naturally. I loved the wedge between them on the subject of the axe, how Nile was perhaps a little too young to understand Andy's feelings about whether or not its the 'same' axe. I also love how the axe is obviously the symbol of the franchise and hugely important, but you never get a sense of exactly how important it is to Andy until you read the story.

I love the entire Ship of Theseus theme, and how it feels so natural that for Andy she has to get attached to the idea of things rather than the things themselves because she'll always outlive the things themselves-- the axe is symbolically her mom's axe, even if physically it isn't. And I love how she clearly clings to that concept so tightly. "This is the labrys she held in her hands...." IT GETS ME.

And the fact that this sense of BELONGING, of FAMILY, of CULTURE is so important to Andy that she clings to it (figuratively and literally) with both hands. And of course it's important to her, she spent so long alone that the woman doesn't even remember her birth name. That axe (or the idea of that axe) is all she has left of her mother and that family/culture she was born into.

PLUS on that note I love how Andy doesn't remember if her mom was her actual biological mother, but it doesn't matter to her. This woman was her mother in all the ways that counted. And how her mom BETRAYED AND KILLED Andy but Andy loved her so much that she avenged her and carried her axe for thousands of years. THOUSANDS OF YEARS!!!!!!

I also loved how the story transcends the timeline of the whole franchise and seeing Andy through the years. Loved seeing her with the varying squads and with varying axes. Also baby Andy was so cute. It was cool seeing her so young. like holy fuck. Andromache The Scythian, Immortal Warrior (but smol). Love that.

Also I think this one is one of the few ttt stories that doesn't suffer from length problems.

tldr: goddammit greg you've done it again.

2 Zanzibar and Other Harbors

Zanzibar my beloved. I've said before, but it's downright comedic how little regard there was for Joe and Nicky's character designs in this story. The same person who does the colors for the regular comic did the colors for this one too, and you can tell, every panel of this story was Beautiful.

Ik there was A Lot of criticism of this one (lmao @ how the fandom had no idea what was to come) but I thought a lot of The Discourse was a bit dramatic. I did think Nicky came off as a little oblivious to Joe's feelings in this story, but I've said before, I honestly think that was a 'tone not translating' thing. It felt like Nicky was nagging Joe for [checks notes] saving innocent people, but Joe was so amused by Nicky's complaints I really do think it was supposed to come off as teasing.

Plus I know the 'Joe running off into danger and Nicky reluctantly following' dynamic wasn't popular (I'm a pretty meh on it meself) but I did love how Joe's impulsiveness (if you want to call it that) was interpreted as heroism and not hot-hotheadedness. All of the examples Nicky and Joe talked about included Joe explicitly saving people. (and it also took A Lot for the nazi to actually provoke Joe).

I also feel like their characterization here was closest to the movie canon-- the bit where they hear the woman scream and Joe goes running in to save her while Nicky swoops in on Joe's heels to comfort her while Joe and the nazi were fighting reminds me of the train car scene. Joe had suggested First that they go find Nile because she needed to be protected, and Nicky later added that Nile probably also needed emotional support. Similar reactions.

But it was So Good, the themes of queer community and the enduring nature of queer culture are Not themes you see in media that often and it was such a delight how it was done. Also it's one of the few more modern TTT stories that has a completely valid excuse for taking place when it did. Chef's kiss.

3 Passchendaele

I love the Duality between seeing baby Andy and then seeing Mama Andy in the very next issue. This story doesn't have a ton of meat to it, but the entire concept of Andy adopting a war orphan straight off the battlefield PLUCKS MY TENDER LITTLE HEARTSTRINGS, and I think it's especially poignant for comic!Andy. I think most people wouldn't think twice about movie!Andy doing something like that but comic Andy is so hardened and almost cruel sometimes, and seeing that even for her the world hasn't beaten all of the compassion from her yet is SO!!!!!!! this woman contains MULTITUDES okay, she's violent and angry and tired and Done but she's also so kind and compassionate and THE STRENGTH OF HER!!!!! Also the idea of her and Yitzhak co-raising a kid together is so damn cute. It was #mysterious pre-Yitzhak-story but now it's cute. holy fuck. It's cute.

& the headbonk panel of her and Zeus lives in my heart. anyways.

4 Many Happy Returns

I Know people weren't thrilled about Booker being in this one, but I've developed a pet-peeve about that: this story was *not* booker-centric. Booker only exists in this story to the extent required to explain the importance of the gesture Nile makes towards him. If there was a story about Booker making some grand gesture of kindness to Nile no one would be saying it was Nile-centric. bc it wouldn't be! Booker exists in this story to explore Nile's kindness, its not about him. I saw that a couple times and it bothered me. anyways.

AAAAAAAAAA I loved this one, the art was beautiful, I loved how Andy Nile and Booker were drawn (like their comic selves but.. more looking like actual people). I loved Andy and Nile's Bants, how Andy wanted to jump right in and Do Violence but Nile was basically telling her to hold her horses.

I feel like I'm just repeating the post I made on this story a few days ago, but I LOVED how Nile's plan revolves not around violence or Cool Mercenary Skills but on Nile's own life skills (as she canonly did a lot of minimum wage job-hopping before the marines in comics canon). Her plan used her skills, not the skills of an immortal warrior, and HER SKILLS were in fact more useful for the situation! lov to see Nile's resourcefulness and planning skills.

AND HOW NILE WAS PROBABLY WATCHING BOOKER??? it's so Much bc 1.) nile knew booker A SINGLE DAY and yet he made such an impression on her emotionally that she had to keep an eye on him and 2.) she said in the movie she wanted Booker to get off free with an apology. Yes she's a member of the team but that doesn't mean she's necessarily going to follow orders like a good little soldier. I also love how she convinced Andy to go along with it. her HEART, her KINDNESS, her THOUGHTFULNESS, UGH.

5 The Bear

Honestly I have like no negative things to say about this one other than a.) character design issues which is less about the story itself and is more of a 'tog comic in general' criticism and b.) too short, but it was supposed to be a tease, so.

But I loved Yitzhak, I wasn't expecting to really like him at all but like I said in my other post, he tickled me. I love characters who are Kind™, especially if they have little reason to be so given their backgrounds. Chef's kiss. Lov him.

6 Bonsai Shokunin

I know this one was a little controversial bc of the outsider POV but whenever I see people upset about that they never point out that the Outsider Guy (the samurai) existed as a reflection on Noriko. His ideas are explained in the text to develop hers. The whole story follows how she gave mercy to a scared young man and in response he murdered Noriko, repeatedly! Who gave him the right to inflict such pain and suffering on the world? In his opinion, the lack of response from the gods was his permission. And for Noriko-- over and over again she dies and suffers because she gave mercy, which lines up with her ideas in FM about how it's their fate to rule mortals and if they don't align with that plan/fate/whatever then they suffer. It shows some background to those ideas and how they developed in her mind outside of Ocean Madness™. Additionally, his idea of 'the Gods have done nothing to strike me down so it's fine if I do these things' kind of explains how Noriko may justify her own morally corrupt actions-- she's died so many times and it's never stuck. Maybe if she did die any of those times, or while she was in the water, maybe that would've been a sign she was doing something right, or at least doing something normal. But she hasn't died. Fate isn't done with Noriko yet. And maybe there's a reason for that. In her mind, it's just not a very pleasant reason, is all.

There were things I was kind of meh about tho. I did kind of wish we saw something of Noriko and the team, or smth explaining the way she was before her dip in the pool-- personality, likes dislikes, etc. but it wasn't bad or anything. It was super vague tho, I had to read it a few times before I got what it was going for. Liked the art. Liked the bonsai metaphor. And of course I Respect the decision to use the 1300s (1200s? I don't remember off the top of my head) rather than using the last 200 years.

7 Strong Medicine

Honestly looking back, this one made me kind of sad because both this one and Bonsai Shokunin explored character's ideas on Fate and The Divine and how that intersects with immortality and I totally thought that theme would be continued, especially with Love Letters. But Then It Wasn't™.

Admittedly.... I had to re-read this one to remember most of it. I liked Booker's ideas on God, 'The conductor of the symphony just may not be very good at his trade' but the plot itself was kind of forgettable. Some fuckin cowboys try to kill a doctor (their second) because he couldn't save their sickly brother. Book tries to stop them, gets killed, and then comes back and kills them all before they get the doctor. Alright. I liked the artstyle because the characters were ugly in a similar way that leandro's are, but way more bearable.

I love the Irony of Booker concluding that there is no such thing as fate or destiny and nothing has meaning, AS HE UNKNOWINGLY SAVES MERRICK'S GRANDFATHER FROM BEING KILLED. Booker getting fucked over by life/god/destiny yet again. It also kind of explains about where the fuck hell Merrick's interest in immortal mercenaries even came from.

I originally had this one a lot higher and then I thought about it and moved it down like two spots.

8 Never Gets Old

I liked seeing Booker interact with his kid. And we got a name for the kid! Philippe was a little bitch though, he was a little obnoxious. I liked how Booker was so thrilled to experience a restaurant with his kid (and since we know he was there before, it can be assumed he went with all of his kids and yet he was so charmed each time). It fits with his line to Nicky in the moon landing story about how you don't appreciate beautiful things 'unless you have someone to share them with'. It was charming to see Booker interact with his kid, and to see him so happy. Also lmao @ Booker's big fat Ye Olde Crush on Andy.

However at the same time it was like.. of all the things to write about,,, I guess? Booker's Night Out...... alright. Especially since Book had so many stories.

I don't know, it was alright. The old man killing him really came out of nowhere, (but the 'Salut, asshole!' panel was funny tho).

9 How To Make a Ghost Town

I've hit a point where talking about these stories has gotten less fun. I liked this one but I felt like Achilles getting lynched was not really necessary for a story that was already tragic (a story that already involved Achilles doing a lot of suffering at the hand of bigots). When we first got the blurb for this story I thought it would be about Andy returning to the squad and making friends with Booker after losing Achilles and them butting heads on the idea of family and when to cut off ties. So a little bit of my underwhelmedness about this one might be just my expectations being different.

Honestly I was pretty interested in Andy and Achilles' relationship and I would've liked to see more of them-- like, what was their dynamic like? What did they love about each other?

But anyways Andy leaving and Achilles getting killed anyways feels so pointlessly tragic (which I suppose is the point..... I don't like tragedies) she left to save him and yet people killed him anyway. Meh.

I did love the bits about Andy wanting to have a domestic life (Andy and her multitudes again) and the little detail about how she buried her axe near the road but he buried his guns under his bed-- he was an escaped slave, he never had the luxury of assuredness like Andy did. It was a sad story.

10 Lacus Solitudinis

'You put this one above love letters crim??? how could you???' easy, lmao.

There was stuff in this one I liked. But to talk about stuff I didn't like: (I'll keep it brief, I know ragging on this story has been done time and time again)

UH, setting aside the 6 year cold shoulder between Joe and Nicky, I thought their chosen method of conflict resolution was... bad at best. Nicky's inability to talk about his feelings was also annoying, especially since the entire point of this story is a fight Joe and Nicky had, and yet we don't get both sides to the story, which is...... important? That fact is especially annoying bc in the absence of Nicky explaining his side of the story, it's absolutely a possible (and admittedly probably unintentional) interpretation of the text that we do get that Joe routinely resolves conflict between him and Nicky by simply cutting Nicky out of his life entirely until Nicky just. caves? Even if it takes years?

WHICH i could get into that interpretation and how fucked up i find it. but im not going to. out of restraint.

I don't know, I think there are a lot of interesting ways to go about this conflict but 'Nicky wants to kill a guy and Joe refuses to acknowledge his existence until he stops because he thinks Nicky is too much of a Good Boy to get his hands dirty like that' ('I wont watch as the world turns his (...) compassion into something ugly'. ) wasn't.. how I would've done it. (I mean you know Joe doesn't give a shit about what Nicky is doing in a moral way, because Joe doesn't even care or mention that Booker is killing those cops too. Joe only cares because he doesn't like the idea of Nicky changing in a way he finds undesirable.)

admittedly I've said before, I do like the emphasis Joe's reaction puts on Nicky's kindness. Joe has a complete inability to cope with Nicky simply Not Being Kind. It speaks to the steadiness of Nicky's compassion all those years. but still that fact doesn't make it the conflict feel worth it

hm. I said I would be brief and I wasn't.

oh well. basically I thought there was interesting conflict potential there but it wasn't done the way I would've liked, and the way it was done leaves a lot of disturbing (and again probably unintended) interpretations to lie.

What I did like? Andy and Joe having that pessimist/optimist dynamic. Joe nerding out about science. Andy not being impressed by The Achievements Of Man. I loved Booker needling at Nicky about his outdated slang and also trying to give him Older Brother advice practically in the same breath. I loved Booker giving The Worst relationship advice ever and Nicky being like 'I Will Not Do That, Ever, Thanks.' the family vibes were so good. The Joenicky vibes left a lot to be desired tho.

11 Love Letters

I talked about my problems with Nicky in this story (and Lacus Solitudinis). I don't know, the story isn't bad but I do hold a little bit of a grudge towards it because its very existence begs the existence of a solo Joe story and we didn't get one. If we never got this story, then we could happily count Lacus Solitudinis and Zanzibar as The Joenicky Stories™ and move on with our lives. sigh.

I remember when we first got the blurb for this story I was really curious about why Nicky specifically + the setting, and the answer kind of feels like 'the author had an idea for a story like this and saw ttt as a good enough place to utilize that idea'. Plus I was really underwhelmed by the Romantic Sentiment in the letter. If you look at it line-by-line, the majority of the letter is actually Nicky talking about how lonely and disturbed he is, rather than actual,, yknow,,, Romantic Sentiment. I mean, compare the van speech and this letter and this letter is just kind of meh in comparison. I liked nicky calling joe wise! and I liked the brief sun/moon metaphor! and otherwise it was eh. It didn't even have cute squad banter, which is why Lacus Solitudinis is above this one.

12 An Old Soul

Nun orgy. Nun orgy?????? Nun orgy.......

The whole story felt like a setup to have a nun orgy. Why did Booker have abs? Why did they do that to Andy's nose? ?????? the art was good at least.

nun orgy.

[theticklishpear]

Recently I've noticed that a lot of my writing problems seem to stem from the fact that I don't fully understand what a scene is, or how to construct one, if that makes any sense. I'll sit down with my outline in front of me, ready to write, but nothing comes to mind because I even though I have this outline, even though I know I have to get from point A to point B, I don't know how because I don't know how scene(s) in between play out. Would you happen to have any tips/advice to help?

This is a great thing to notice about yourself. Every now and then we realize we don’t really understand something we’ve been using our whole lives, and it can make us feel like we’ve missed something simple–it can be embarrassing–but it’s important to recognize these things and do the learning to fill in that gap. I’m really proud of you, actually, for coming to this realization. Scenes are the blocks we put together to create our story, so understanding them and how they’re put together is just as crucial as understanding humans so you can write characters. So let’s break this down.

You know about plot, right? The really common depiction of plot:

It’s made up of scenes that create a story that culminates in the big climax and then tie it all together and end, right? That’s basically what a scene is, except plots are just on a larger, whole-story scope. Scenes are moments in time when something happens to character(s). Some scenes take place on-screen, meaning that the author decides to write them out in a narrative way for the audience; and some scenes take place off-screen, meaning that they happen, but the author doesn’t put them on display for the audience to “see” but may sum up what happened through the mouth of a character.

Scenes include:

Exposition such as who is present and where the scene is taking place. You want your audience to understand who they’re with and where they are. Without those two things, your audience will have a hard time following what’s going on or who is doing what. Establish early in the scene by using names and a short description of the area. “Kira found Maxim waiting in the store room,” is quite sufficient to begin with. You can expand and sprinkle in details about characters and location throughout the scene, but always find a way to establish it at the beginning to grow on later.

An action taken either by the character or taken upon the character. These actions can be as simple as a conversation and as complex as a siege on a battlefield, but something has to happen in a scene. Somebody has to see something, hear something, say something, or realize something. I like to think of scenes as including climaxes, too, even if those climaxes are small and pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of the whole story line. The climax could be someone finally saying something they’d been holding back; it could be realizing another character’s plan; it could be seeing someone across a room in an unexpected place; it could be anything but if your story had a really dramatic soundtrack playing with it, it’s the moment when it goes “bwaaaahm” and the audience realizes something plot-wise just happened.

Scenes have goals, and those goals are twofold: Your characters have goals (Maxim is in the store room to find the wine that just arrived, while Kira is looking to confront him about the crows that follow him), and you as an author have a goal (The crows are important to the plot, so I want this conversation to reveal information to the audience about Maxim’s connection with the Thirteenth God whose servants are crows). Knowing beforehand what you’re trying to have a scene do for your story can help you guide the scene toward a more meaningful position within the overall plot. Maybe a scene is more geared toward a character plot or a subplot that’s not really big, just an added layer–you should still have a goal of what you want the audience to get out of the scene that furthers whatever plot the scene is about.

Finally, a scene resolves. For this, the resolution doesn’t have to be a big long thing; it’s the “getting out,” the moving of the audience from this scene to the next. In film, you can just cut to black, but with writing, there’s the moment where someone walks out of a room, or runs back to town with the news, or gets up from a chair. That last final thing that tells the audience that the scene is done and they’re going to go do something else now. It’s the transitions, kind of.

Let’s take a scene and pull it apart:

Here we have the exposition section. This is a transition from one scene earlier into another, so the first sentence goes with the last scene, but from where the POV peeks in the door where Miss Ananda sits, it’s a new one. We get a brief description of Miss Ananda (who is earlier said to be a gorgon) and we’re told that Lex also sits in the room. So. We have 3 characters in a room. That’s the set-up.

Here’s the rising action, where the characters have this conversation. It’s setting up what’s to come during the climax. It’s character interaction to build them up and get a bit of their personalities out to the audience. It builds until:

Here’s the climax of this scene. The conversation all comes to a head at a moment when they really get to the point of what they’re talking about. Better yet, Miss Ananda puts her foot down in direct adversity to Lex. The butting of heads isn’t important to the construction of all scenes, but it is the point of this conversation within this story’s overall plot. Even just a hug, which acts as a catalyst for character development can be a scene’s climax. What’s this scene building to? That’s what you need to focus on.

The final piece to this scene is the resolution. For this scene, it’s the winding down. It’s the realization that Miss Ananda really means it, and she’s got reasons for it. It’s bringing the tension back down a little bit, but not completely, because there’s a whole ‘nother scene (and frankly the entire rest of the story) right after.

Those are the basics of a scene, though, Anon. Basically the same elements of a plot on a smaller scale, focusing on what characters are doing and why. Plots tie thousands of scenes together, scenes that sometimes don’t focus on the overall plot, but only on one of the small subplots, and weave all those scenes and moments into a cohesive story for your audience to read. I don’t know if this explanation really helped at all, but I hope so! Good luck! -Pear