How Many Scenes Do You Have?

John61480 · Aug 18, 2007

Hi, my question is, how many scenes do you have in your novel (80,000 words or more)? I'm asking this because I feel I'm building way too many scenes for my WIP. I currently have outlined 48 scenes. This takes me from the beginning to only the middle of the story. I'm worried that this is too much.

Reason for my worry: My only reference is Jack M. Bickham's book on Scene and Structure. He says there is on average as many as 3-4 scenes per chapter in published novels. There was also an estimate of about 1,250 words per scene (He says 4-6 pages per scene--which I assume is near 250-300 words per page, which is how I got the 1,250 average). Assuming each scene is somewhere near 1,000 words. If I followed this guideline and began to write what I have, I could be as much as 60,000 words total. And this only takes me to the middle of the story.

scarletpeaches · Aug 18, 2007

I have no idea how many scenes there are in my WIP but I know I have as many as I need. One 6,000-word chapter is all the same scene.

Today's "How long is a piece of string?" answer was brought to you by scarletpeaches.

TheKnightWhoSaidNi · Aug 18, 2007

HALT! Let's backtrack. I shall give you advice that will liberate your worried soul:
It is your novel, your story. Write it how you want it. Write as many scenes as you need to convey the story you are telling, and divide the chapters however you darn well please. Screw Jack Bickam and his mathematical guidelines - this is writing, not statistics class. Forcing your scenes and chapters to meet a certain length will inevitably lead to you having to unnaturally lengthen a scene by describing the items on a bedside table in molecular detail.

Claudia Gray · Aug 18, 2007

I've honestly never counted. I outline chapter by chapter, defining certain scenes but leaving others to the moment, so long as I know what info I need to cover. So I have no idea if I have more scenes than that, fewer, or what.

I wouldn't worry about a specific count. 4-6 pages per scene? Well, that sounds about right to me, generally. But if you're writing a thriller or something else similarly fast-paced, you may have only a page or two in some scenes, possibly even less. So don't sweat the number.

Are you familiar enough with your writing to know how long the scenes you outline will be on the page, at least roughly?

JLCwrites · Aug 18, 2007

Im at 80k and have a total of three settings, and 20+ scenes. If it is fluid, and you can follow your characters through each scene, then no problem.

John61480 · Aug 18, 2007

I actually worked on a previous project where each scene was technically a chapter.

But since I read this book, I figured I was doing the wrong thing by taking scenes as chapters.

Part of this concern is even though it seems fleshed out with many scenes, I don't want to end up with little bitty scenes that seem like machine gun rapid fire. I like those long drawn out stuff. At least those novels I've read seemed long in the process of reading.

I thought I'd ask anyway.

scarletpeaches · Aug 18, 2007

The trouble with How to Write books is a lot of people take them as gospel and they're not; they're guidelines or suggestions. The only rules you need follow are the set by agents themselves in the Writers & Artist's Yearbook.

Azraelsbane · Aug 18, 2007

21 chapters, some chapters are 6k long and one scene, some are 4k long and two or three scenes. It depends on whatever works for the story you're telling. I'm specifically shooting for 21 chapters in every novel of my series, because I'm one of those loser twits that likes to put meaning behind everything. And yes, I realize the number loses meaning in Europe and the rest of the world. Did I mention I'm also an American scumbag? :tongue

John61480 · Aug 18, 2007

I'm surprised by this last comment by Azrael.

Maybe my problem is I'm not thinking like a novelist. My mind is still in the cinema mode, where every scene is one of those little square thingies on a roll of film. Too much adding up with little space for long and thoughtful writing.

I'd be interested to know how other people's manuscripts (80,000 words or more) are counted with chapters/scenes.

JanDarby · Aug 18, 2007

It varies a great deal from author to author, genre to genre, book to book. I tend to be fairly consistent within a manuscript, but have different numbers of scenes per chapter, and of course different numbers of chapters, depending on whether I'm writing a novella or a novel, romance or mystery.

The only way you'll know where your scenes fall in quantity and length is to write them. I think Bickham himself makes that point somewhere, in one of his books, that each of us has our own unique pattern to storytelling, and we need to trust the process, do the writing, and figure out our own pattern.

You may also find when you write the actual thing that what you think required an entire scene when you were outlining ends up as a single paragraph in the final manuscript, and what you thought could be handled in a single scene becomes three. Just finish the outline and then write the manuscript.

JD

Danger Jane · Aug 18, 2007

I don't divide into chapters until the very end. My scenes range from a few sentences to a few thousand words.

Honestly, I'd say finish the WIP first. Then you can cut out scenes if you need to. Don't stress about them now, stress about them when they're written down. You don't know what's going to happen between the drafts.

Saundra Julian · Aug 18, 2007

This is just anal...IMHO

Shadow_Ferret · Aug 18, 2007

Scenes? Who cares how many scenes? That's like caring how many ingredients are in a Butterfinger candy bar. Who cares as long as it tastes good?

My novel has 36 chapters. Many of those chapters have as many as 3 or 4 scenes in them. You do the math (I'm tired).

~grace~ · Aug 18, 2007

John61480 said:
But since I read this book, I figured I was doing the wrong thing by taking scenes as chapters.

Very rarely are things absolutely "right" or "wrong." They can be right or wrong for a specific writer, but, as scarletpeaches says...

scarletpeaches said:
The trouble with How to Write books is a lot of people take them as gospel and they're not; they're guidelines or suggestions. The only rules you need follow are the set by agents themselves in the Writers & Artist's Yearbook.

yes yes yes. I concur. People take as Rules what should merely be Guidelines.

as to specifics...

like Danger Jane, I do not divide my work into chapters until the end. I might make a note like "chapter break" if I'm at a place that I think would be a tantalizing chapter ending, but I'm not going to do anything specific until it's over and I have the whole thing in front of me.

I also don't really think in Scenes. Part of that may be because my novel is one long amorphous blob that I am writing out of order and cutting/pasting around. There are definitely scenes, but I find it restricting to think like that especially because I might need to take half of a scene and put it somewhere else.

Really, just write. See what comes out. Enforce structure on the words later.

~grace~ · Aug 18, 2007

Shadow_Ferret said:
Scenes? Who cares how many scenes? That's like caring how many ingredients are in a Butterfinger candy bar. Who cares as long as it tastes good?

hahaha, I like that analogy.

John61480 · Aug 18, 2007

My novel has 36 chapters. Many of those chapters have as many as 3 or 4 scenes in them. You do the math (I'm tired)...shadow ferrett

36 * 3 = 108 scenes total.

157 scenes, plus a prologue and a three-part epilogue...Barbarique

Thanks. I don't feel as worried now.

I also don't really think in Scenes. Part of that may be because my novel is one long amorphous blob that I am writing out of order and cutting/pasting around...alternatefish

Interesting because that's how I began writing too. I would make up things as they happened, sequence following some intuition that was a borderline of mood or tiredness. It was wierd compared to what I know a little about scenes today. I ran into problems later and found that outlining seemed to fill in some of the blanks I was missing.

This is just anal...IMHO...Saundra Julian

I know the mantra. Just write the darned thing. Easy huh?

Azraelsbane · Aug 18, 2007

John61480 said:
I know the mantra. Just write the darned thing. Easy huh?

Oh definitely, if I wanted to write everything like this: (Warning: explicit everything)

Azrael walked down the street. He saw the big honkin' bad guy pulling out a gun. Oh shit, thought Azrael. That bastard is going to shoot my punk ass!

Azrael dove to the ground and grabbed his sword, which was bigger than six men stacked on end, directly from his pants pocket. He then swung it with one hand and it reached SO far that it impaled the bad guy like a cocktail weenie on a toothpick.

Azrael then wiped his sword off on the cement and daintily stuck it back in his pocket. Feeling satisfied with himself, he turned to the hooker on the corner and produced a crisp hundred dollar bill and a sultry smile. "I'm pumped. Let's blow this joint."

Hmm...if I want something decent, I see where you're going with that comment. Not so easy, but I bet I could edit that into something workable.

Atlantis · Aug 18, 2007

I counted once. I have over fifty, possibly close to sixty scenes in 1,000 page novel that has taken me three years. I only have two scenes left to go until I finish now! ahhh!! Don't worry about the number of your scenes. Just tell your story. Some people write in very short chapters or scenes, its just their style, just focus on finishing the book. Its the most important thing.

~grace~ · Aug 18, 2007

John61480 said:
Interesting because that's how I began writing too. I would make up things as they happened, sequence following some intuition that was a borderline of mood or tiredness. It was wierd compared to what I know a little about scenes today. I ran into problems later and found that outlining seemed to fill in some of the blanks I was missing.

I should clarify, I guess...I'm not making things up out of order, I'm just writing out of order. I have the story more-or-less outlined (mostly in my head, kind of in excel) and I know exactly what happens at every point in the story; I'm just writing the scenes out of order. When my muse feels all angry, I write battle scenes, wherever in the story they might go. When it feels quiet, I write introspective scenes. Works well for me, and it helps me get around my muse's different moods.

now...I should get off AW and go write the darned thing, huh?

JoNightshade · Aug 18, 2007

I also think this issue is waaaay too anal.

Even if I do outline, I don't break it down into individual scenes. In fact, how do you DEFINE a scene? Is it every time you have a line break in the narrative? Or is it every time there is a time-break? Or a switch of place?

I outlined using 3x5 cards. Each card was a scene. But my card might say something like "pool scene." But then "pool scene," when I actually wrote it, might consist of two different points of view and a slight time break. Sooo... is that two scenes or one?

John61480 · Aug 18, 2007

I think I'm going to count how many scenes and chapters are in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code book. Maybe I'll get a better idea of the impact of how many scenes/chapters vs information detailed within each one. Heck, I may decide to re-read that book and see what I think about the pacing of the sequence of events.

Thanks guys.

Azraelsbane · Aug 18, 2007

John61480 said:
I think I'm going to count how many scenes and chapters are in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code book. Maybe I'll get a better idea of the impact of how many scenes/chapters vs information detailed within each one. Heck, I may decide to re-read that book and see what I think about the pacing of the sequence of events.

Thanks guys.

Uh...Dan Brown... Should you guys tell him, or should I do it?

Okay, I'll keep it clean and just say that I don't think doing something like that would be all that helpful. In fact, I'd call it a complete waste of time, but I'm sure someone would jump on me and cry foul if I did.

John61480 · Aug 18, 2007

I didn't mean to start a whole side topic. I really am going to do it though, for my own reasons and nothing else.

So no need to discuss about the book or the author. Again, it wasn't intended to derail or imply anything. I was thinking about it earlier today.

Azraelsbane · Aug 18, 2007

And I'm sorry about the "attempt" to derail. I just think that you'd do much better just to get the story down and worry about it later. If you're getting bored writing a scene, chances are it's draggy. If you think there needs to be more depth, there probably does (until the next edit at least). Tons of people stall on little things like this and then 10 years later they haven't gotten past chapter one.

I think you should ask yourself why the chapter breaks are all that important right now. I don't even see a problem with just putting it all down and then separating it later (as someone above mentioned doing). If it ends up too long, break the book in two (I just did that with one of mine and it has a much stronger ending because of it, imo), or three, or four. No matter how much research you do, your first draft is NOT going to be top notch.

The point is, if you're getting caught up on this right now, what about when you hit a really important issue?

I know you said you're going to do it anyway, so this is probably pointless, but I just felt like putting it out there.

wayndom · Aug 18, 2007

When you say, "scene," in context with Bickham, I assume you're talking about a dire situation which the MC makes worse by trying too hard, only to see the situation blow up in his face.

If that's what you're describing, I'd say you're overdoing it. I didn't read the same Bickham book that you did, but he did say that in the sequel (the aftermath of the scene), you're largely off the hook to make every chapter suspenseful, since the overarching question (will the MC overcome the mess he made in the scene?) carries the reader's attention.

It's hard for me to relate to your prob, because I've never been an outliner. For me, if I'm not writing the story in prose, it isn't happening, and doesn't feel real to me. So the closest I come to outlining is a single piece of paper with a few reminders, like, "Sam has to lose his job before he meets Ralph."

It's hard to tell from what you wrote, but it sounds like you're too concerned about grabbing and holding your readers' attention. Of course grabbing and holding attention is crucial, but it doesn't mean there has to be a cliffhanger every three pages.

I'd suggest you start writing the beginning, continue through your first scene, then sit back and look at what you've done, and then ask yourself if all those other scenes are really necessary.

How Many Scenes Do You Have?

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