Ideally, your scenes should accomplish more than one thing. This is a mantra that I often repeat to my students. When done well, multi-layered scenes provide depth to your narrative, improve pacing, and give readers an immersive and seamless reading experience.
Imagine you’re writing a modern Thai retelling of Les Mis. In the opening chapter, you want to introduce your main character, Pong, and his friend, Somkit. Pong is the Jean Valjean in this scenario. He is compassionate and fair-minded, with a strong moral code. His friend Somkit is patient, intelligent, and logical. They both live in a prison for children called Namwon. You know your readers will wonder why these children are in prison, so you want to make sure to explain that sooner rather than later; otherwise, this curiosity could distract from the events of the scene. You also want to create an enriched Thai-inspired setting for readers who may not be familiar with the landscape.
You could do something like this:
The sun rose over the courtyard of Namwon Prison, where Pong and his friend Somkit sat in the shade of a mango tree.
Pong and Somkit had been sent to Namwon Prison after their mothers had been caught stealing. Both mothers died in childbirth, but the boys remained there. Pong was fair-minded and spent a lot of time thinking about right versus wrong. Somkit was more logical and less philosophical. They were both orphans. Both nine years old. Somkit was skinny, even for a prisoner, and had a round face. Pong was a head taller than him.
Pong always wanted to do what was fair, which made him stubborn, even around the girls in the prison who were known for throwing fists. If he knew what was right, he didn’t back down, even if he hated fighting. Somkit wasn’t quite as sure-footed.
It’s not the worst three paragraphs ever written, but if it continued on like this, you’d quickly lose interest. First of all, it’s summary, not a scene. Secondly, it has no life, no movement. Nothing dynamic.
Now let’s study what Christina Soontornvat did in A Wish in the Dark, the aforementioned Les Mis retelling, which won a 2021 Newbery Honor.
A monster of a mango tree grew in the courtyard of Namwon Prison. Its fluffy green branches stretched across the cracked cement and hung over the soupy brown water of the Chattana River. The women inmates spent most of their days sheltered under the shade of this tree while the boats glided up and down and up again on the other side of the prison gate. [Notice: world-building; sensory details; and usage of verbs, which gives movement to prose).]
The dozen children who lived in Namwon also spent most of their days lying in the shade. But not in mango season. In mango season, the tree dangled golden drops of heaven overhead, swaying just out of reach. [Again: notice use of verbs. Dangled. Swaying.]
It drove the kids nuts.
They shouted at the mangoes. They chucked pieces of broken cement at them, trying to knock them down. And when the mangoes refused to fall, the children cried, stomped their bare feet, and collapsed in frustration on the ground. [Movement and action, which gives life to the prose].
Pong never joined them. Instead, he sat against the tree’s trunk, hands crossed behind his head. He looked like he was sleeping, but actually, he was paying attention.
Pong had been paying attention to the tree for weeks. He knew which mangoes had started ripening first. He noticed when the fruit lightened from lizard-skin green to pumpkin-rind yellow. He watched the ants crawl across the mangoes, and he knew where they paused to sniff the sugar inside.
[Notice: more world-building, and character development. We learn something important about Pong here. He is smart and he is patient.]
Pong looked at his friend, Somkit, and gave him a short nod. Somkit wasn’t shouting at the mangoes, either. He was sitting under the branch that Pong had told him to sit under, waiting. Somkit had been waiting an hour, and he’d wait for hours more if he had to, because the most important thing to wait for in Namwon were the mangoes. [What do we learn about the boys’ dynamic from this paragraph? How do we learn it?]
He and Pong were both nine years old, both orphans. Somkit was a head shorter than Pong, and skinny — even for a prisoner. He had a wide, round face, and the other kids teased him that he looked like those grilled rice balls on sticks that old ladies sold from their boats. [Rather than simply saying he had a “wide, round face,” Soontornvat takes it a step further by referencing “grilled rice balls on sticks” that old ladies sold, an effective world-building metaphor].
Like many of the women at Namwon, their mothers had been sent there because they’d been caught stealing. Both their mothers had died in childbirth, though from the stories the other women still told, Somkit’s birth had been more memorable and involved feet showing up where a head was supposed to be. [A quick explanation of why they are in prison].
Pong wagged his finger at his friend to get him to scoot to the left.
A little more.
A little more.
There.
[This is an effective shift closer to Pong’s interiority. It narrows the psychic distance and allows the readers to seamlessly envision his actions.]
Finally, after all that waiting, Pong heard the soft pop of a mango stem. He gasped and smiled as the first mango of the season dropped straight into Somkit’s waiting arms. But before Pong could join his friend and share their triumph, two older girls noticed what Somkit held in his hands.
“Hey, did you see that?” said one of the girls, propping herself up on her knobby elbows.
“Sure did,” said the other, cracking scab-covered knuckles. [What does scab-covered tell us?] “Hey, Skin-and-Bones,” she called to Somkit. “What do you got for me today?”
“Uh‑oh,” said Somkit, cradling the mango in one hand and bracing himself to stand up with the other. [Verbs: cradling, bracing].
He was useless in a fight, which meant that everyone liked fighting him the most. And he couldn’t run more than a few steps without coughing, which meant the fights usually ended badly.
Pong turned toward the guards who were leaning against the wall behind him, looking almost as bored with life in Namwon as the prisoners were.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” said Pong, bowing to the first guard.
She sucked on her teeth and slowly lifted one eyebrow. [What does this action indicate?]
“Ma’am, it’s those girls,” said Pong. “I think they’re going to take —”
“And what do you want me to do about it?” she snapped. “You kids need to learn to take care of yourselves.” [Our suspicion is proven correct. She doesn’t care.]
The other guard snorted. “Might be good for you to get kicked around a little. Toughen you up.”
A hot, angry feeling fluttered inside Pong’s chest. Of course the guards wouldn’t help. When did they ever? He looked at the women prisoners. They stared back at him with flat, resigned eyes. They were far past caring about one miserable mango.
Pong turned away from them and hurried back to his friend. The girls approached Somkit slowly, savoring the coming brawl. “Quick, climb on,” he said, dropping to one knee. [More character development, as Pong takes things into his own hands.]
“What?” said Somkit.
“Just get on!” [Pong as leader again].
“Oh, man, I know how this is gonna turn out,” grumbled Somkit as he climbed onto Pong’s back, still clutching the mango.
See how much Soontornvat accomplishes in this single excerpt? It’s clear that she knows her characters and setting well. Since she is able to envision the scene unfolding organically, she is able to portray it organically, too. Did she sit down and write each sentence so it would fit into a breakdown like this? Doubtful. More likely she knew what she wanted to convey and found the best way to convey it. Typically, the “best way” involves accomplishing more than one thing at once.
This breakdown is so helpful. It’s easy enough to notice when one piece of writing is better than another, but not as easy to tease apart why.
The examples were so helpful to see, especially seeing the same scene written two different ways. It really shows how much more life you can bring to a scene!