How to Set a Scene

You know what a scene that lacks context feels like, even if you can’t quite put your finger on it. You’re immersed in a new book and you turn the page to a new scene when suddenly, the author has switched setting or timeline without specifying. You’re jarred out of the story with questions like, “Wait, what’s happening? Did I miss something? Where are we? Is it two seconds, ten minutes, or three years later?” Maybe you’ve even turned back a page or two to reread and made sure you didn’t skip an important detail about the context of the scene. Ultimately, you’re confused.

A lack of context is one of the most common reasons readers disengage from a story.

AS READERS, ours brains fire as if we’re IN the action of the story. We’re in the mind and skin of the main character, experiencing the story as they do. When we switch scenes we need to know where we’ve jumped physically as well as in time—otherwise the lack of clarity will launch us of the character’s body and back into our own.⁣

Without grounding your readers by establishing good context, you run the risk of throwing them off and pulling them out of your story. If they don’t know what’s happening, where it’s happening, or why, readers will fill in the blanks, which can lead to misunderstandings and further confusion. Confused and disengaged readers put books down.

AS WRITERS, it’s easy to forget to add context. You are inside your character’s head as you’re writing—the context is obvious to you, so you don’t realize it’s missing from the page! It’s often important to weave it in post-drafting.⁣

Thankfully, it’s not that hard to set context right!

Context: Time, Space, & Goals

Context is established through three main things: time, space, and goals.

Time = the timeline of the story.

Does the action of the new scene take place immediately after the previous scene? If yes, make that clear. Is the new scene five months later? Make sure that you specify that, and quickly.

Space = the physical location or setting of the scene.

Does it take place in the same location? Or has the action of the new scene moved elsewhere? Either way, put that on the page.

Goals = what the main character wants.

What does the main character want as a result of the last scene? With good scene structure, they’ll have made a choice in the previous scene that resulted in consequences they now must act on. What are they after and why does it matter? These goals should be related to their overall story goals. Put them explicitly on the page in the first few paragraphs so the reader knows what to care about.

Establishing context at the beginning of new scenes is crucial to keeping readers engaged and following the story. It may seem tedious, or like you’re laying it on too thick, but trust us—it’s critical to drawing them into the action. But how do you actually do it?

Let’s look at a few examples to break it down!

Example 1: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Here’s an excerpt of Chapter 15 in The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Katniss is in a survival competition to the death against children from the country’s different Districts. She’s in the woods of the arena, trying to survive on her own. In the scene previous to the one below, Katniss dropped a nest of ‘tracker jackers’ (deadly hornets) onto some of her competitors, The Careers. After being stung multiple times herself, she stumbles around until she passes out. Chapter 15 begins as she wakes.

“When I finally do come to my senses, I lie still, waiting for the next onslaught of imagery. But eventually I accept that the poison must have finally worked its way out of my system, leaving my body wracked and feeble. I’m still lying on my side, locked in the fetal position. I lift a hand to my eyes to find them sound, untouched by ants that never existed. Simply stretching out my limbs requires an enormous effort. So many parts of me hurt, it doesn’t seem worthwhile taking inventory of them. Very, very slowly I manage to sit up. I’m in a shallow hole, not filled with the humming orange bubbles of my hallucination but with the old, dead leaves. My clothing’s damp, but I don’t know whether pond water, dew, rain, or sweat is the cause. For a long time, all I can do is take tiny sips from my bottle and watch a beetle crawl up the side of a honeysuckle bush.

“How long have I been out? It was morning when I lost reason. Now it’s afternoon. But the stiffness in my joints suggests more than a day has passed, even two possibly. If so, I’ll have no way of knowing which tributes survived that tracker jacker attack. Not Glimmer or the girl from District 4. But there was the boy from District 1, both tributes from District 2, and Peeta. Did they die from the stings? Certainly if they lived, their last days must have been as horrid as my own. And what about Rue? She’s so small, it wouldn’t take much venom to do her in. But then again… the tracker jackers would’ve had to catch her, and she had a good head start.”

Collins cues us in immediately that this scene is Katniss’s next conscious moment. When she wakes up, we initially have no idea what’s happening—but the key is that Katniss doesn’t either. At first, Katniss is disoriented and confused from the tracker jacker venom, but we understand that we’re learning as Katniss is learning, and as a result the confusion isn’t distracting. Through her observations about the world, we’re able to get a sense of where she is (a shallow hole) and how much time has passed (possibly two days) and what she’s trying to do (evaluate the seriousness of her situation). With just a few pieces of information early on, we are grounded in the new scene and can continue reading and learning as Katniss learns without being pulled out of the scene.

Example 2: Vicious by VE Schwab

Vicious by VE Schwab is a multi-point-of-view story about two college friends—Victor and Eli—who become enemies as adults. At this point in the book, we last saw Victor in prison with his cellmate Mitch, but it’s been several chapters since we saw them last, so it’s critical that Schwab set up context immediately so readers can sink back into Victor’s reality without a lot of questions about where he’s been and what he’s been up to. Pay attention to how Schwab reintroduces us to Victor by simultaneously putting in his BODY as well as the time, place, and setting.

“The rain hit the car in waves. There was so much of it that the wiper blades did nothing to clear it away, only managed to move it around on the windows, but neither Mitch nor Victor complained. After all, the car was stolen. And obviously stolen well; they’d been driving it without incident for almost a week, ever since they swiped it from a rest stop a few miles from the prison.

The car passed a sign that pronounced MERIT—23 MILES.

Mitch drove and Victor stared out past the downpour at the world as it flew by. It felt so fast. Everything felt fast after being in a cell for ten years. Everything felt free. For the first few days they had driven aimlessly, the need to move outweighing the need for a destination. Victor hadn’t known where they were driving. He hadn’t decided yet where to start the search. Ten years was long enough to plan the details of the prison break down to the minutiae. Within an hour he had new clothes, within a day he had money, but a week out and he still didn’t have a place to start looking for Eli.

Until that morning.”

In this brief intro we learn instantly that: Victor is in a stolen car, he’s still with his cellmate Mitch, they broke out of prison a week ago, and they‘re 23 miles from Merit (when and where!). We also learn that he was in prison for a total of 10 years (extra when). Then, we’re rooted in both his goal for the last week: Drive aimlessly, as well as his immediate goal: Find Eli.

Schwab gives us all the info we need to jump ahead a week and a whole jail break. We sink viscerally back into Victor’s skin, IN the car with him, as he returns to his mission of finding his enemy Eli.

In Summary