Have you written a scene that’s bogging your script down, moving it nowhere, maybe even in the wrong direction?

What do a lot of the gurus advise in this situation? Seemingly, their favorite advice in every situation: CUT IT! Lose the scene, lose the related characters, and drop the subplot intertwined with it. Take out everything you possibly can until it’s such a hollowed-out husk of your original vision that you don’t even remember why you wanted to write it in the first place!

But maybe you don’t see how your plot works without it, so you want to try keeping it around and troubleshooting to see if you can whip it into shape. How can you do that?

It’s always easier to be a nitpicking spectator than the gladiator in the arena, so a cursory read-through with your critic cap on can get you as far as spotting some common surface-level flaws, such as;

• Little or no meaningful conflict
• Insufficient stakes
• Overloaded with expository dialog
• No significant changes in characters or the situation
• Etc.

If you have some of this going on (or not going on), there’s a good chance that the scene is there to support flailing plot logic. A necessary stepping stone to get us from the previous scene to the next, currently only serving to let the audience know where we are and how we can move forward.

This may vaguely point to what’s wrong, but what do you DO with it? I don’t suggest leaping to one of these all-too-common “solutions”:

• Cut it immediately
• Start making little line and description edits, thinking you’re fixing the problem
• Pay hundreds of dollars for professional feedback to fix the problem for you, which may not even happen
• Give up on writing and learn to code

Try this instead…

Digging into the layers of the scene’s role and objective may just root out the answers you’re looking for.

Here’s a scene rewrite layer scheme I came up with and have found extremely useful, in reverse order of importance. Plunging deeper gets you closer to the root of the scene’s role.

(It’s not intended as the end-all, be-all, and feel free to add/subtract/ rearrange these and deposit your upgraded model in the comments):

• Layer 1 – Words and Actions: What cool dialog and slick unique unexpected actions are making this an interesting scene to read/ watch?
  • NOTE: This is the level at which many novice writers’ analysis stops. Maybe if they’re lucky, they make it to the next one or two…
• Layer 2 – Story: How does it convey the character dynamics/ rules/ mechanics/ historical origins/ nature of the world and mythology I’m creating?
• Layer 3- Plot: Where/ how does this fit into my chosen plot structure model? Is it the inciting incident that’s toppling the main character’s normal world? Is someone getting what they want but paying a heavy price for it? Is it the “all is lost” moment? Is it the Act II pinch point? Is it at least leading to one of these waypoints?
• Layer 4 – Emotional Impact: How do I feel about what’s happening here and/ or what emotional response do I hope/ expect to stir up in the reader/ audience? This is where you discover what the stakes are.
• Layer 5 – Theme: Are the events of this scene pulling the protagonist toward or away from my thematic message? This tells you where you are along the character arc.

And here’s the miracle that tends to happen at this point. Chances are you’ll find that your instincts were right about the need for this scene to be there. Its purpose, function, and potential to enrich your story were just hiding under the surface, perhaps quite deep.

It’s the iceberg principle; the scene’s foundational substance was under the waterline while you were perhaps too fixated on the visible tip jutting out above it.

In case this all sounds like abstract fluff, here’s an example from my own writing experience:

In the feature script I’m currently rewriting, a scene was falling flat…

My protagonist, a mafia enforcer who’s hijacked a bar for the night to shake down the owner and other characters for vital information, is questioning a corrupt  FBI agent.

This scene was a narrative black hole. Its only purpose was the divulgence of said information to move things along, which, as discussed, is the kiss of death. So I plunged the depths to see if it could be salvaged:

• Words and Actions: The protagonist is using the FBI agent’s drug addiction against him by withholding his fix rather than employing naked force. That, plus some (maybe) clever dialog, and let’s say it passes at this level.
• Story: It shows that this world is populated by seedy criminal types where a Fed’s vices and nature, and a precarious situation, can put him at the mercy of a criminal. It seems to pass this one too, so there doesn’t appear to be a problem. See what a danger it is to stop at these upper levels?
• Plot Structure: This is the first significant occurrence of Act II (the threshold was when he took over the bar), and you could call it part of Blake Snyder‘s (Save the Cat) “fun and games” acting out a display of the movie’s premise, but it had no momentum toward a meaningful midpoint of false defeat/ victory, raised sakes, major reversal, glimpse at the final resolution, protagonist facing his major flaw, or any of that. So here we have the first signs of trouble. This showed that I hadn’t included any setups, hooks, or telegraphs to seed what would come up in later, more significant plot points. Altering and adding a few beats with the upcoming midpoint reversal in mind improved it immediately.
• Emotional Impact: Who cares about a dirty junkie Fed getting shaken down for information that we know nothing about? Aha! This pointed to the fact that I hadn’t properly set up the stakes of the scene by hinting about the content of this intel, and that not getting it could bring about dire consequences for the protagonist and some of his allies. So I was able to go back and add some simple elements to establish higher stakes here. As a bonus, I also telegraphed the possible consequences for the Fed if his people found out about this interaction.
• Theme: The theme is that living your life under someone else’s thumb leads to existential ruin, and here I realized that I had stupidly neglected to infuse the implications of these two men’s positions, one following the orders of a domineering mafia chieftain and the other operating at the behest of government bureaucrats, and how they could best interact to express this theme. So, I textured the dialog with much more text and subtext, pointing to how their power dynamics with their superiors and each other affected their words and actions.

And there you have it. Processing the scene through these layers was a huge help in pointing specifically to what wasn’t working, giving me a clear plan of action in the rewrite, rather than leaving me poring over it time and again, pulling my hair out, clutching for how to course-correct.

Maybe it can give you some direction in your rewrite as well. Let me know!