Instructor: Beth Daniels. It popped into your head, or perhaps you dreamed it or saw something that was just soooo perfect that you can’t get it out of your mind: that One Great Scene!

Yes, it deserved the capitals, didn’t it? But where does it sit in a story? What brings the characters to that point? Where do they go after it? 

So often the One Great Scene isn’t the set up that appears on page one, though it could conclude on the final page. No, more often it lands in that Great Plains area known as the middle of the book.

Is it before the half way mark? Could be, but I’m betting it falls after that, landing more at a 3/4th or 4/5ths to the conclusion spot. It could be a love scene, a showdown, a chase, a comedy bit, but it is indeed the visual that won’t rest until you give it a home – a book – in which to shine.

The further back it falls in the tale though, the more you need to build of the story that comes before. That’s going to take a good bit of thinking – particularly if you don’t want to disturb the purity of that One Great Scene. Or, at least, not much of it. And then it’s time to move on to the what happens after it, tying up all the threads you’ve woven around it. This isn’t plotting, per se, it’s scenario set ups, idea generation of what COULD be used. Sorting them out will take more than this lone week, but they do give you a starting place. In fact, more than one starting place.

We’ll be considering various elements this week, picking and choosing a host of possible scenarios until those that suit the One Great Scene best emerge. Hopefully the outcome will be a virtual room full of scenes to be considered as you create a plot…even a loosely linked one, Pantsers…once this week is over.

Comments, suggestions, rave reviews, and questions answered will be a daily occurrence, of course.

One Great Scene deserves being shared, so let’s begin building a story around it!

Beth Daniels currently writes as Beth Henderson and J.B. Dane, though she answered to Lisa Dane and Beth Cruise in the past as well. She has worked with editors at Berkley, Zebra, Leisure, Harlequin/Silhouette, and Simon and Schuster's Aladdin Paperbacks, done e-books for a now defunct company (not her fault, she says), and began her writing life with hardcover books slated for library use with a publisher that got out of the romance business (again, not her fault). More recently she’s had a number of articles about writing picked up by e-zines, saw a short story published in a mystery and suspense magazine that turned up its toes the next year (really, really not her fault), and has a story in the MOTHER GOOSE IS DEAD anthology from Dragon Moon Press.

For over a dozen years Beth taught college level composition, both in the classroom and online, and a credit course on Novel Writing. Five of her former Novel class students are now published.

Twenty-six of Beth’s manuscripts have appeared in print or e-book format. These have been historical romantic adventures (6), romantic comedies (10), romantic-suspense (3), and young adult romantic comedy (7). Her titles have appeared in 12 different languages in over 20 countries. At the moment she is working on various manuscripts and collaborated with another RWA member on a contemporary/fantasy/romantic adventure. She also ventured into self-publishing to keep her out-of-print backlist in print.