Debra Gwartney is theauthor ofI am a Stranger Here Myself,a memoir published in 2019 for which she was awarded the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. Last year she won theWILLA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction from Women Writing the West. She has also been a finalist forthe National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pacific Northwest BooksellersAward, and the Oregon Book Award. She’s also the co-editor, along with her recently departedhusband Barry Lopez, ofHomeGround: Language for an American Landscape.
The following essay first appeared on the 49 Writer’s blog in 2013.
Back when I was enrolled in a MFA program and writing earlydrafts of pieces about my daughters that would eventually lead to my memoir, Live Through This, my teachers often suggestedI needed to write more scenes. Furthermore, they advised me to deepen andcomplicate the scenes I’d begun. I’d think, whatare they talking about? I havewritten complicated scenes! The advice perplexed me. It took me a while to realizethat in those MFA days, I hadn’t yet grasped the intricate mechanics of thefully rendered scene.
Now I’m a teacher, and students I work with often seembewildered when I say, “more scenes needed,” or “more complex scenes needed.” What are you talking about? a student willtell me. I have written scenes. Right there! See? A scene.” That impulseto defend doesn’t surprise me—many of us convince ourselves we’ve written a
scene when we haven’t done so. Not quite yet, anyway, because a few scenic elements—lovely images, a line or two ofsnappy dialogue—don’t add up necessarily to scene. Still, I can’t tell you howmany students have appeared in my office to point at their drafts and arguethat the language there constitutes a scene.
My response to such a person might go something like this:
*You have not yet effectively moved us from general time tospecific time. As a reader I remain unconvinced that I have entered the microtime of a moment. Time, because it’s not carefully defined, is muddled and
disorienting to the reader.
*I see that you have mentioned your characters are in, say, ina modern high rise in Singapore, or the Bose Stereo Store at the outlet mall inWoodburn, Oregon; that is, you’ve given the reader a place, but you have yet toachieve space. You’ve put your charactersin a living room, but I have little idea what that living room looks like. Let
me say here that in describing that living room, don’t go hog wild withdescription. Instead, you must limit your details to those that are equally vivid and essential. Leave out gratuitous images and instead discover detail
relevant to the emotional tenor of your piece. In this living room, are there chandeliersfrom the ceiling and silk brocade on the chair? Or does a single sofa have ahole in the middle of the cushion where a small dog is curled up and panting? Isthere a bowl of rotting pears on the table, a vase of paper whites stretchingtoward the one ray of sun? In your current draft, I might tell this writer, thephysical elements and the characters are not yet employed to swiftly,succinctly, create a three-dimensional space for the reader to step into, too.
*I might tell the student who is still insistently jabbingat her page, look, right here—a scene!,that though her characters do speak to each other, yes, the words they say burythe reader in information—the “information dump”— that could be delivered in a moreconvincing, concise manner. That is, through exposition. Put most of the factsin exposition, thereby leaving the dialogue to do what dialogue must do: revealcharacter and move the story forward. To use dialogue to convey information isto halt your story, to detach from your reader rather than pull her in.
“Furthermore, in a piece of nonfiction, an essay or memoir, you’ve workedawfully hard to establish voice, to infuse that voice with authority andcredibility, and you want to break into that voice with another character’s
voice only when you cannot express the sentiment as well or better. I remindmyself of my training as a journalist when I’m writing dialogue. If I wasinterviewing a farmer named Tom Jones for an article on ag business, for
instance, I would not quote him as saying, “I am the third generation to farmthis land, and last year, my 492 hogs ate 5,222 pounds of grain and 2200tubs of yogurt, which cost me thousands of dollars that I was not able to
recoup at the market.” I would paraphrase those facts while ending the graphwith a gem of a quote from his mouth, discovering (in the interview) the phraseor phrases the farmer and the farmer alone could express. Something like this: “Mygrandfather farmed this land, and after that my father,” Jones said. “It looks like
I’ll be the one to lose it.”
*Back to the now deflated student in my office: I might tellher that all scenes require action—something critical must happen between oramong the people she’s introduced us to and within the space she’s defined for
us—someone must act, someone else react, while up, up goes the tension. If thereader begins to sense we are in the scene merely for the scene’s sake, merelybecause one person said something cute or witty or particularly cruel toanother, because a group of friends broke out a bong to get high, because acouple slipped off to a bedroom to have sex, because a car broke down on alonely road, we will quickly grow disenchanted and lose interest in the storyas a whole. Scenes have beginnings, middles and ends—you get the reader in andyou provide a way out and something significant occurs in the middle. This iswhat’s called in workshop jargon, “the pay off.”
In Sandra Scofield’s TheScene Book, she defines scenes as, “those passages in narrative when weslow down and focus on an event in the story so that we are ‘in the moment’with characters in action.”
Sounds so easy, so straight-forward, but if it was easy andstraight-forward Sandra Scofield would not have had to write a whole book abouthow to do it. Scene writing is a hugely intricate endeavor. First, a nonfictionwriter (a writer of any genre) must decide which moments related to thisparticular period in her history are worth elevating to scene. Not everythingcan be a scene, obviously, or we’d just be following you in real time and that
would become quickly, yawn, tedious. Howmany scenes should you use in a given piece or chapter? In nonfiction, oftenthe form you settle on helps you decide the weight that’s going to be given toscenes vs. the weight given to exposition (reflection, introspection, summary,back story, etc). Personal essays tend to—not always, but tend to—rely more on “thinkingon the page,” and less on the fully wrought scene. The well developed half-sceneis common. Memoir is often—again, not always—more dependent on scene withreflection/summary/exposition woven in where it’s needed and thoughtfully
employed depending on the narrative distance you seek.
What’s essential, and I realize I’ve already made this pointbut shall make it again, is that once you settle on a scene, then commit tothat scene. Don’t gloss, don’t settle for wishy-washy or muddled. Don’t rush.Employ all five senses, if you can, while you energize the characters and givethem something to DO. With artful subtlety, convince us that a shift took placebecause this moment occurred, and that from this point on there’s no going
back. Scenes can give your piece urgency, and urgency is what engages thereader.
The note I write mostoften on student manuscripts is “put us there.” Even when we think we’re in
scene—returning to that dispirited student at my desk—it’s frequently the casethat the narrator is actually recountinga scene rather than opening a point of entry for the reader to step in towhat’s going on. This might be akin to sitting on the bus next to a guy whoinsists on telling you the entire plot of the movie, Argo, from opening credits to the final tender relief to flashacross Ben Affleck’s face. I can promiseyou, it is much, much more satisfying to go to the theater and see Argo yourself.
When I taught a semester-long scene writing class not longago, I started off by showing the students a few clips from television showsthat I think illustrate these points I’ve been discussing. I know, television. A
pedestrian model. But I tell you, if you watch a 15-minute segment of any Law and Order episode and make yourselfpay attention to the development and evolution of a single scene, you’ll soonrealize how flat that scene is, really, even in the midst of melodrama. Howhackneyed and obvious. No subtlety in presenting the elements. We’re given information-packeddialogue—something like, “I was alarmed when I heard that Bob had stolen a
seven-inch knife from my kitchen drawer to use in the murder of histwenty-four-year-old neighbor.” If the director wants us to notice a bloodyhandprint on the sliding glass door, the camera is going to shove our faces in thatimage. If he wants us to see the victim’s boyfriend’s anguish, then thecrumpled man’s sobbing is front and center with background violins wailing abouthim. And so on. Years ago, my daughters liked to watch the Law and Order show, when Vincent D’Anafrio played the slightlyoff-balance detective. The girls called the program “Jen-Jen,” as in “are you watchingjen-jen tonight?” They came up with this name from two notes meant to notify usthat serious developments are at hand, and that also serve as the transitionbetween scenes: JEN JEN. So, in the kind of writing required for television cop/murderdrama, even the sounds must be overly obvious.
Compare this to one scene in a single episode of Breaking Bad. I realize the show’scritics call it morally reprehensible, but the program is artfully bright interms of artistic elements—the acting, the mind-bending storylines[unpredictable, yet inevitable], and,I would argue, the exquisite care in the scene writing. If golden light shinesthrough a high window onto a filthy carpet and dusty furniture, there’s areason for it. If the character Jesse breaks into a vacant house and stumblesover a prosthetic leg, that detail sets us up for the vulnerability he’s soonto face in himself. If, later in the same scene, Jesse leaves a jar ofmarshmallow cream on the counter, this glimpse of a detail is guaranteed to addpathos to the larger dynamic at work and also adds to the sincerity of theempathy we begin to feel for Jesse, totally messed up though this young man is.Marshmallow cream. A cloying detail in most any narrative, hard to pull offwithout over-instructing the reader/viewer (Hey! A metaphor!)—but in the Breaking Bad episode I’m thinking of,it’s deftly handled with not a single neon arrow pointing to the detail, insistingwe notice it. In fact, I had to rewind and slow down the frame so I could read
the label. When I realized what it was, marshmallow cream, the scene cametogether for me in one more interesting way. I got to express that delicious,“Oh, I see.”
As a bit of an aside—I’ll return to the Breaking Bad scene below—here’s a brief passage from a nonfiction
piece I once read in a student publication. The essay was published, I think,because it holds a lot of writerly promise. But this section, which purports tobe scene is not a scene. Let’s see if you agree with me:
“Jason and I had 10p.m. curfews throughout high school, and while I generally stuck to it, he
often wandered home in the wee hours of the morning smelling of pot and booze.His eyes and his actions, however, indicated that his nights consisted ofsubstances far more sinister. His boots on the hardwood floor woke my motherand they screamed and argued with each other until Peter and I peeked out ofour rooms and our wide eyes met. Peter scurried back to bed as Jason approachedthe room they shared and my mother returned to her bedroom and slammed thedoor. Most nights, I was left staring into an empty hall. It was seldom,though, that much time would pass before I heard my brother’s bedroom doorcreak open. Jason, comfortable in pajamas, emerged, and we snuck down the hallto the living room. He was always in charge of what we watched on TV thoseearly mornings, and it was always the History Channel.”
We get where they are generally, but where are thesecharacters precisely? The boy next to his bedroom door, hand on the knob, withhis mother a few feet away in the hall? Are they face-to-face in the livingroom with the younger children peeking in from the hallway? I can’t “see” thethree-dimensional arrangement of space and people in the small hints aboutplace/ space. And what happens during the argument? Does the brother tap a
cigarette out of his pack and light it even though his mother has strictlyforbidden smoking in the house? Does the mother notice her robe has fallen open,exposing her dingy nightgown, and respond by tying the belt tight and firm?
Does our narrator wrap her arms around the little brother while glaring at hermother for what she thinks of as a profound failure to parent? Does this personcalled “I” step in between her mother and older brother, tugging at her mom’shand and trying to lead her back to bed? Any one of those gestures would turnthe story in a different direction. Any one of those gestures would clue us into the stirred up dynamic and emotional tenor. But because I haven’t been givendetail to inform the emotional stakes,
I haven’t been allowed into the moment.
Furthermore, why arewe in general time rather than specific time? Put us in one time, one latenight, one argument and more distinction and depth is possible. What kind ofpajamas is the brother wearing when he reemerges? How does the television lighther brother’s face as the two sit down together? What is the texture of the couch’sfabric, comfortable or itchy? What’s the subject that night on The History Channel—a bloody war, the
excavation of a king’s bones, a president’s deeply held secret life?
Do all of these questions need to be answered to make afully realized scene? I don’t know, because I’m not fully aware what the pieceis about yet. There are too many fuzzy abstractions in this recounted moment for us to add up themeaning, and we have not yet entered specific time. Also, what brings a scene tolife is relevant specificity.
OK, back to the BreakingBad episode. The one with the prosthetic leg and marshmallow cream. Thetitle of this one is “Peek a Boo,” and it’s one of the best examples ever ofsharp, smart scene writing. Jesse, a main character in the show, breaks intothe house of a couple of meth addicts aiming to take back, with force, the
money they’ve stolen from him. He thinks the house is empty until he findstheir child who’s been left alone in his bed. A filthy, skinny boy about four-years-oldin a squalid room covered by a flea-ridden blanket. When the meth parents comehome, a tremendous tension is launched, not just because Jesse has broken in,but because the child is there, too—justwatch this episode and note the ways, again and again, the little boy revealsJesse’s character—his vulnerability, his self-deception, the weakness of hisfaçade—and ups the ante when it comes to the stakes. The boy has only one lineof dialogue, “I’m hungry.” Brilliant. We do not see Jesse make a sandwich for achild (before the parents return home) who’s clearly desperate, uncared for,needy. That would be too obvious. What we get instead is a flash of that jar ofmarshmallow cream left on the counter, and the boy eating a fistful of awfulwhite stuff that leaves a mess on his face. That’s just one of the many momentsthat work well in this perfectly delineated scene. In general, the scene wouldbe flat, ordinary, and predictable without the boy. Adding this character, andusing physical gesture over dialogue, is like sending an emotional missile into
the middle of the room.
Television is, of course, a different medium than memoirwriting. Way different. As instructive as these programs can be to our writingprocesses, it’s far better to find examples of great scene writing incontemporary (or not so contemporary) literature. So I’ll leave you with a listof some of the essays/books I bring with me and present as models when I’mteaching a scene writing workshop, examples of nonfiction prose that succeedbrilliantly in “putting us there,” with micro time, action that takes ussomewhere new and unexpected, well rendered characters, and scintillatingdialogue:
*Frank Conroy’s Stop-Time,
though published forty some years ago, tops my list. One scene after another
doing tremendous work in the narrative, with exquisitely selective detail.
*Tobias Wolff’s ThisBoy’s Life, a scene driven memoir; as well as Geoffrey Wolff’s Duke of Deception.
*Jo Ann Beard’s Boysof My Youth, especially “Fourth State of Matter.”
*Lucy Grealy’s Autobiographyof a Face.
*Darrin Strauss’ Halfa Life.
*Mark Spragg’s WhereRivers Change Direction.
*Penny Wolfson’s Moonrise.
*Mark Doty’s Firebird.
*Mira Bartok’s The Memory Palace.
*Anthony Shadid’s Houseof Stone.
*Jane Bernstein’s Bereft.
And so many more. . .full of beautiful, poignant (never
sentimental) scenes you’ll never forget.
