In Every Scene, Nothing Goes As Expected

Here’s how to write a boring scene. Introduce a scene where the hero expects something to happen. Then show that expectation happening exactly as the hero expected.

The reason this is boring is because if we expect something to happen and it happens, then there’s no surprise. The scene promises a specific result and then delivers exactly what we expect.

That’s boring.

What you need to do instead is always create expectations for a scene that the hero hopes will occur, then shatter those expectations completely. That creates surprise and forces the hero to react. The greater the surprise, the more the hero must react and the more exciting the story will be.

Watch this opening scene from “The Martian”. As the scene opens, we expect to see astronauts exploring the surface of Mars. Then the unexpected occurs and a storm appears far sooner than anyone expected. As the crew tries to get to safety, the hero, Mark Watney, gets hit by debris and thrown far out of sight with his vital signs turning off, leading the crew to presume he’s dead.

The initial expectation is that the astronauts will be able to explore Mars in peace, but that gets shattered when a storm appears. Then the next expectation is that Mark Watney has been killed, but as the crew blasts off from Mars to escape the storm, they fail to realize that Mark Watney is actually still alive. The crew has abandoned one of their own crew members to survive on Mars with dwindling supplies, which is essentially a death sentence.

Note that this scene haters our expectations. First we think the astronauts won’t have any trouble and then when the storm hits, we think Mark Watney has been killed but he’s still alive and abandoned on Mars. This massive shift forces the hero to react (being marooned on Mars) and that starts off the story.

Now watch this scene from “Little Miss Sunshine” where the expectation is that the family will simply eat lunch in a restaurant. This expectation gets shattered when the hero’s father, Richard, suddenly decides to lecture the hero, Olive, on how ice cream can make her fat and fat women don’t win beauty pageants. So if Olive wants to win the beauty pageant, she shouldn’t eat ice cream.

Notice that this dilemma is far less dramatic as “The Martian” scene where the hero is thought to be dead and left behind on Mars.v In this restaurant scene in “Little Miss Sunshine”, the hero expects to eat her ice cream but then her father sows doubt in her mind that eating ice cream will make her fat and ruin her chances of winning the beauty pageant.

What should ave been a simple lunch scene has suddenly turned into a major dilemma for Olive. Should she eat ice cream or not? Richard has simply taken our initial expectations that lunch would be uneventful and turned it into a major event anyway.

So the key to writing great scenes is to always lead us into thinking a scene will be about one thing, then shatter those expectations and show us that the scene is really about something far more important. Shattering expectations in a scene will keep us surprised and force the hero to react. The more the hero mu8st react, the stronger your story will be.

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