Watch and study full-length movies, but make sure you rewatch specific scenes from your favorite movies. Study how a scene grabs your attention, how it creates tension, how characters use dialogue to get what they want, how conflict reverses the state of the opposing characters, how to plant setups that payoff later, how to foreshadow important emotional moments, and how to end with a cliffhanger that creates an unresolved question that won’t be solved until much later in the story. By studying what makes great scenes work, you can learn how to write better scenes as well.
Every scene must tell a mini-story where something changes in the story for good or bad. If a scene fails to change the direction of a story, it doesn’t belong. Often times major scenes that show a lot of action are less influential than quieter scenes that involve no special effects or visual action. Such quieter scenes often change a story dramatically and then the visually active scenes show the results of the major changes created by the quieter scene.
Look at how quiet scenes change the story, which are then dramatized with more visually active scenes in following movies:
”Top Gun: Maverick”
- Quiet scene – Maverick decides to test fly a Mach 10 plane before an admiral can show up and cancel the project
- Visually active scene – Maverick flies the test plane up to Mach 10 and beyond, then problems occur and he has to bail out
- Quiet scene – Maverick faces the admiral who wanted to cancel the project, who tells him he’s being reassigned as an instructor to Top Gun
- Visually active scene – Maverick returns to a seedy Navy bar to study the Top Gun pilots as they arrive, and winds up having them throw him out of the bar
- Quiet scene – Maverick officially meets the Top Gun pilots
- Visually active scene – Maverick dogfights with the Top Gun pilots to teach them what they don’t know
”The Hunger Games”
- Quiet scene – Katniss cares for a wounded Peeta in a cave and decides he must have medicine to save his life
- Visually active scene – Katniss goes out to get medicine and nearly gets killed in the process
- Quiet scene – Once Peeta is healthy, Katniss and Peeta venture out to get food
- Visually active scene – The Game Maker creates wild creatures that chase Katniss and Peeta towards the cornucopia
- Visually active scene – Katniss and Peeta fight Cato, the last remaining tribute
- Quiet scene – Katniss and Peeta learn that the rules have changed and only one can survive
- Visually active scene – Katniss and Peeta decide to commit suicide together to deny the government a winner
”Legally Blonde”
- Quiet scene – Elle prepares for her dinner date with her boyfriend, Warner, after convincing herself and her sorority sisters that he will propose to her that night
- Visually active scene – Warner dumps Elle at dinner
- Quiet scene – At a beauty parlor, Elle sees the type of girl Warner wants to marry so she decides to pursue him into law school
- Visually active scene – Elle creates a video to demonstrate how she’s qualified for law school
Quiet scenes generally focus on the interaction between characters in a normal setting where a decision (either made by the hero or someone else) drastically changes the life of the the hero.
In “Top Gun: Maverick”, the first quiet scene sets up the conflict where Maverick decides to test fly the plane before the admiral can arrive to cancel the project. Once we know what’s at stake, the visually active scene shows us what happens.
In “The Hunger Games”, the quiet scene begins when Katniss leads a seriously wounded Peeta into a cave and decides he needs medicine to survive. Once she makes that decision, the visually active scene shows what happens when she goes to get the medicine.
In “Legally Blonde”, the quiet scene begins when Elle is at her sorority and decides what to wear because she thinks her boyfriend, Warner, will propose that night. Then the visually active scene shows what happens at dinner where Warner actually dumps her instead of proposing.
Quiet scenes are often reactions following a visually active scene. In “Top Gun: Maverick”, Maverick decides to fly a test plane past Mach 10, causing it to break up. Then the quiet scene that follows is a reaction to Maverick’s rash decision, but instead of being courtmartialed, Maverick finds himself assigned as an instructor to Top Gun.
Quiet scenes change the story’s direction because of decisions that directly affect the hero. Visually active scenes are scenes we remember because that’s where the exciting action occurs. Yet that action means nothing without the quiet scenes setting up the story first.
Watch a bad movie filled with nothing but action. Eventually all that action means nothing because we don’t know its purpose or its effect on the characters or the story.
Quiet scenes help us understand the story by letting us know what the hero intends to do and what obstacles might get in the way. Then visually active scenes show us whether the hero succeeds or not. Based on what happens in the visually active scene, the hero must make a new decision in another quiet scene and the process starts all over again.
In quiet scenes, conflict occurs mostly through dialogue and often end with a cliffhanger (question). In visually active scenes, conflict occurs mostly through physical activity and ends with a definite resolution (answer).
In “Top Gun: Maverick”, there’s a quiet scene after Iceman dies when Maverick’s commanding officer, Cyclone, takes over the training and permanently grounds Maverick. Then there’s another quiet scene where Maverick goes to his girlfriend, Penny, and she tells him that without Iceman to protect him, he has to find his own way back. If he was in the air and lost his wingman, he would never give up fighting.
This first quiet scene grounds Maverick from flying in a decision that drastically changes his life. Now the cliffhanger is how will Maverick keep flying if he’s grounded and is no longer a Top Gun instructor?
Then a second quiet scene follows with Penny, who convinces Maverick to find a way back into flying again. The cliffhanger is what will Maverick do? Both quiet scenes involve conflict through dialogue and end with a question.
Then the visually active scene occurs where Maverick steals a fighter jet, flies to the simulated target, and destroys it, proving that the mission can be done after all. The conflict in this visually active scene is whether Maverick can successfully perform the mission given the time limitation.
More importantly, the visually active scene ends by answering the quiet scene’s cliffhanger question, “What will Maverick do?” The answer is that he steals a fighter plane and flies the simulated mission within the time limitation.
Quiet scenes end with cliffhanger questions. Visually active scenes end with answers. The beginning of “The Hunger Games” begins with a quiet scene where Katniss comforts her little sister, Primrose, who had a nightmare she was picked for the Hunger Games. Katniss sings to Primrose to calm her down, which leads to the question, “How will Katniss be able to protect Primrose?”
The drawing for the tributes is a visually active scene where they pick Primrose for the Hunger Games and Katniss immediately volunteers in her place to save her. This answers the question of how will Katniss protect Primrose.
In “Legally Blonde”, there’s a quiet scene where Elle waits at a drinking fountain and a witness tells her, “Don’t stomp your little last season Prada shoes at me.” That’s when Elle realizes this witness is gay and lying about having an affair with a woman on trial. Knowing this, Elle rushes to tell her law professor (who doesn’t care) and Emmett, a lawyer helping the law professor.
Then in the visually active scene that follows, the law professor questions this witness about his affair with the woman client. Emmett then steps up to ask a few questions to the witness in rapid-fire succession until finally asking, “What’s the name of your boyfriend?” Then witnesses blurts out, “Chuck.”
When he tries to backtrack and claim Chuck is just a friend, Chuck, in the courtroom, bursts out his frustration and storms out of the courtroom, thereby proving Elle’s insight that the witness is gay and thus couldn’t have been having an affair with the woman on trial.
The quiet scene involved Elle learning the witness is gay and the visually active scene shows what Elle’s law professor and friend (Emmett) do with this information to discredit the witness.
Story Structure Principle: Two types of scenes are quiet and visually active scenes. Quiet scenes involve conflict through dialogue where the hero makes a major decision that ends with a question or cliffhanger. This question only gets answered by a visually active scene where the conflict is physical and ends by answering the cliffhanger question from the quiet scene. Quiet scenes are where decisions are made. Visually active scenes are where we see the consequences of that decision.
Exercise: Watch a favorite movie and notice which scenes involve conflict through dialogue where the hero makes a decision (quiet scenes) and which scenes involve conflict through physical action where the hero shows the results of a decision (visually active scenes).
Notice how this pattern of decision-action keeps the story moving at all times. Decisions change the direction of a story while action show how the hero tries to achieve a choice. Based on this result, the hero is forced to make a new decision, starting the decision-action cycle all over again.
(Updated versions of “The 15-Minute Movie Method“, “Story Starter“, “Emotional Log Lines” and “Writing Scenes For Screenplays” are now available on Amazon.)
