The Art of The Scene

WITD's last seasonal intensive of 2024, and it all happens right here on Substack: 6 Weeks, November 6-December 11, we dive deep into the art, craft & magic of scene writing. Come write with us!

You climb a long ladder until you can see over the roof, or over the clouds. You are writing a book. You watch your shod feet step on each round rung, one at a time; you do not hurry and do not rest. Your feet feel the steep ladder’s balance …you climb steadily, doing your job in the dark.

~Annie Dillard

The Art of the Scene, the next WITD seasonal intensive, starts November 6! If you’ve been wanting to upgrade to join us, now is a great time because this intensive will be wonderful.

The scene is the basic unit of all storytelling—fiction and CNF, book-length and short form. There is perhaps nothing more valuable for a writer to learn than true fluency in the art of the scene.

What Will We Do During The Art of the Scene?

We’ll close read some of the strongest published scenes across a variety of styles in order to celebrate how they work. Then we’ll emulate—based on inventive, structured exercises— some of the techniques we identify in order to maximize the power, narrative drive, and impact of our own scenes—regardless of genre. All narrative writing is built from scenes.

As usual, we’ll close read established writers and peers alike, and we’ll write (and revise) several scenes using clearly identified techniques.

Perhaps most of all, we’ll learn the real art of seeing our way through a scene on the page—the art of controlling the camera even when there’s no stage, no film.

By “scene” we mean all that is included in an unbroken flow of action from one incident in time to another […] The action within a scene is '“unbroken’” in … that it does not include a major time lapse or a leap from one setting to another—though the characters may, of course, walk or ride from one place to another without breaking the scene, the camera, so to speak, dollying after them.

~ John Gardner, The Art of Fiction

Here are a few nuts and bolts we’ll cover:

• Components that define a scene, and the differences between scene and summary

• Distinct types of scenes (e.g., launch scenes, middle scenes, end scenes, reflective scenes, pivotal scenes, dialogue scenes, etc.)

• The difference between exterior and interior writing, and ways to use exteriority to convey interior experiences and state of mind

• Craft techniques to shape powerful scenes with narrative arcs of their own

As for me, I love to teach and it shows. I just received a spreadsheet of absolutely lovely reflections from participants in the Dirty, Messy, Alive Embodied Memoir Summit (thanks,

Janelle Hardy

for conducting the survey). Here are just a few:

At its core, a scene is a compact unit of storytelling—almost a narrative molecule, if you will.

~Jorden Rosenfeld, Make A Scene

WITD intensives are for discovering, exploring, and practicing—for working hard and having fun. But they can also be for advancing your work in progress or for starting new work for later publication. As with other recent intensives like Strange Containers and The Letter Reimagined, this one is adapted from Writing in the Dark’s most popular live workshop of all time, from which many terrific published pieces emerged, some that you can peruse on our big, beautiful list of published work born in WITD:

Born in WITD: A Big Beautiful & Growing Directory of Work Published by WITD Writers

The Art of the Scene will be fast, playful & inventive, meant to help writers break out of the same old to find new ways into their own work.

Participants can expect the kinds of craft essays and resources you always find at WITD—this time, specific to writing powerful scenes. Plus, inspiring resources (especially published work you might not stumble across otherwise), detailed writing exercises, and lots of opportunities to share and read each other’s work, which is a beautiful facet of this community.

The Art of the Scene is for all levels, and equally applicable to CNF and fiction.

This intensive will be very accessible yet surprisingly challenging and inspiring for all levels because, like always at WITD, it’s inventive and off-map.

To note, THE SCENE is not a writing class per se (no class meetings, no Zoom, no “assignments,” etc.). It’s a WITD intensive on Substack, for which we are now what

Billie Oh

would call “medium famous.” An intensive is where all the material is delivered through four consecutive Wednesday posts, straight to your email inbox. I draw this distinction because I do ALSO teach writing classes! Which are different, which are tuition-based, and which are adjacent to and supported by but separate from the WITD newsletter on Substack.

Anyway, for The Art of the Scene and all WITD intensives, everything happens right here on the posts, and as long as you are a paid or founding member of WITD, you’re all set!

And by the way, WITD subscriptions make wonderful gifts for the writer in your life (or you can donate subscriptions to our scholarship fund, which we appreciate so much. It allows us to comp subscriptions without any questions, and provide a sliding-scale on all of our synchronous classes.) Gifted and donated subscriptions are always deeply appreciated.

What’s Included in The Art of the Scene

Paid members:

• Full access to all Letter Reimagined posts, sent via email on Wednesdays, and rich with readings, writing exercises, direct instruction and inspiration for trying your hand at some unusual new short work.

• Access to our incredible comments—WITD comments sections are what makes this place so damn beautiful, because of the amazingness of the Writing in the Dark community. Each week, participants share questions, insights, and snippets of work in progress—and your guides, Jeannine and Billie, actively participate, as well.

Founding members also receive cool interactive stuff, like:

• Occasional Voice Memos and Video Notes (like this recent Voice Memo on why you’re never too late and always enough).

• Occasional Live Write-Ins and Live Salons on Zoom w/open mic readings (these are so fun)

• If you love face-to-face stuff, voice stuff, and more interactivity, the founding membership is for you for $15 more annually.

All participants come away with:

• A storehouse of valuable new ways to think about writing, and why we gain from stretching that way, plus specific tools to apply long after the the intensive is over.

• A collection of new work in progress that you can continue to develop on your own. 

• An archive of readings and writing exercises you can repeat as desired.

• A deeper understanding of the ways fluency in scene writing or can enliven and strengthen all other aspects of your writing practice.

Join now to start poking around our giant archive and maybe even dip your toe into our thriving Thursday Threads, or explore the full archive of past WITD intensives.

What People Say About Writing in the Dark Intensives

• I can’t believe what I’m getting out of this intensive. It’s changing my writing in the most unexpected ways, and I am beyond grateful. You are the most generous teacher.

• You are magic. Pure magic.

• I have learned much from you in the last year, through your weekly posts and seasonal intensives. The depth and quality of your content is unmatched on Substack (IMHO). That, plus the network of subscribers you have garnered is why I look forward to Wednesdays! (And Mondays for Lit Salon and Thursdays for the new Threads!) I have been involved in workshops that cost more but provide less. Thanks for all you are producing and the community you have created in an effort to bring the out our best writing selves.

• As always, there's more to these exercises than I first anticipate.

• I’m thoroughly enjoying this challenge and truly appreciate all the ways you’re helping each of us become more thoughtful and evocative writers.

• It's actually been super helpful to work through the exercises in quick succession, like a little writing course... But so much more inspiring and thoughtful and generous and fun than any I've taken before. THANK YOU Jeannine, you are brilliant.

• These assignments are like magic.

• Your post gave me a giant AHA moment. You’ve unlocked my understanding of tension and storytelling in memoir.

• This post was wonderful. Love the first quote especially. I had a couple of deeper realizations with this exercise.

• Reading all the comments on my writing today, so full of enthusiasm and encouragement, really made my day! One of the things I will treasure most about this challenge is learning to trust myself and others with my writing.

What to Expect From Every WITD Intensive

• Unusual craft essays on scene writing, and the space between that explore inventive approaches to short work, along with structured writing exercises to get you started on some of your own!

• Inventive writing exercises that invite you to try some really unexpected new approaches on the page.

• Encouragement to participate each week—which is a very lively experience—or work at your own pace, or start the challenge later or repeat it, or whatever works best for you, because all of the posts will be tagged and permanently archived in order.

• At the end, you’ll have a cadre of original, interesting, and intriguing new pieces you can revise and consider. If we’re lucky, these new works will really surprise us.

• An immersion in the concept of “zero-waste” writing, where everything interesting can become something more than itself now or later.

• Encouragement to record your experiences as part of the process—and you can expect to find me and Billie Oh in the comments, too, participating in the conversation.

• Links to resources for further reading.

• Exercises that are clear, doable, and scaffolded over the 6 weeks in a way that allows you, if you like, to “arranges the bits” toward an interesting suggestion of wholeness later.

• Highly usable craft tools you can apply forever.

•  Specific, potent literary approaches to deepen and illuminate your relationship with language.

• New discoveries about yourself and your life.

• Less familiar readings as well as some crowd favorites.

• Exercises that are specific and directive and clear, but also a bit feral and unpredictable. You can expect (as always in WITD) exercises that honor the truth of living in bodies that breathe and move and laugh and cry, while also living in a world that breathes and moves and laughs and cries, while also having unruly minds that are constantly escaping to the past and the future even when what we most need is to attend to this exact moment in order to live lives that are, as Mary Oliver said, “particular and real.”

• To be imperfect and write imperfectly, and for that to be perfectly okay.

• To come out of this intensive with new ideas about what writing can be, and how it can feel.

• To come out of this intensive with new ideas of who you are, who you are becoming, and what is possible for you as a writer.

I know from the experience of The Letter Reimagined, Strange Containers, the Lyric Essay Challenge and Story Challenge and The Visceral Self that these things evolve and change along the way, but these are the main points as far as we can see, and I’m happy to answer questions if you have them! Just throw your thoughts into the comments.

I can’t wait to write with you!

Love,
Jeannine