As I start my next manuscript, I’ve been toying with different ways to plan scenes.

Quick aside — go read Story Genius by Lisa Cron. I’ll try to post soon about why it’s so good. She has a lot of smart stuff to say about common writing myths and getting story right.

Anyway, back to scenes. I’ve done a lot of groundwork for imagining my world and characters, and I know my novel’s trajectory. But I’m an underwriter, which means I struggle with word count. I need ways to keep myself on course and incorporate that world-building little by little into the actual writing.

So I ask myself these questions to prepare for writing a scene, and so far I’ve found they work like magic:

• What is the purpose of this chapter?
• Whose POV will this be and why? What’s their emotional state going in?
• What is the goal, conflict, and disaster?
• What is the reaction, dilemma, and decision (emotional reflection)?
• What is the twist that will keep people reading, or how does the problem get bigger?
• How do things go wrong for the protagonist?
• What choices does the character make here?

And then, once I’ve answered those:

• What is the setting, and how can I set the scene as I begin?
• What description the five senses will help me set this scene?
• How can I anchor the characters’ behaviors to their past in this scene?
• How can I deepen the characters’ misbelief (flawed worldview) in this chapter?

By this point, I’ve usually come up with a lot of ideas and gone way deeper into my brainstorming than I anticipated, so I’m ready to begin. But just in case, I sometimes also answer these last two questions:

• What about my world can I reveal, or dig deeper into? What can I sprinkle in?
• How else can I ask “why” to make the story richer and motivations more believable?

Since I use Scrivener, anytime as I’m writing that I hit on something I need to research more (including terms or general world choice), I leave myself a note on the side and keep typing.

Your turn. How do you prepare to write a new scene?