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Success may be found
in three great scenes,
and no weak ones.
The legendary fi lm director John Huston (The Maltese
Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen)
once remarked that the secret to a successful fi lm was
three great scenes, and no weak ones.
Great scenes make memorable fi ction, too. Scenes
where the combatants are operating to the full. Passions
run high; stakes run higher. What happens in the scene
affects the rest of the story, and in a big way.
Weak scenes don’t have this juice. They feel like fl uff
or fi ller. No one is really going after anything. There’s a
lot of sitting around, small talk, waiting, reacting.
In your novel planning, think about potential big
scenes. Jot some notes about them, think about where they
might land in your structure. A climactic scene near the
end is a good place to start. If you can come up with some-
thing memorable right away, it’s a scene to write toward.
That’ll give you a through line to guide your plotting.
When the fi rst draft is done, look for weak scenes.
Always be asking this question: Is there any place in my
manuscript where a tired, overworked editor can feel tempted
to put the manuscript down?
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Cut that scene or make it matter. And keep cutting
until there are no more weak scenes.
Next, fi nd three scenes to elevate into greatness. This
doesn’t mean the rest of your book will have mediocre
scenes. No! Every scene must work on its own, adding to
the whole. Every scene needs tension and a strong read-
ability quotient.
But three scenes should be elevated relative to the
rest. These scenes need to be packed with confl ict, emo-
tion, and surprise.
All three.
Conflict. Emotion. Surprise.
Conflict is the engine of fi ction, of course. Crank up
the confl ict. How?
Through emotion. Make sure the readers see the
stakes to the inner life of the character.
Finally, give us something surprising—the unexpected
setback, revelation, or question raised by the events.
Let’s take John Huston’s screenplay of The Maltese Fal-
con. The script has no weak scenes. (I might add, credit
goes to Dashiell Hammett’s novel as well, as the script
is very faithful to the book.) And for me, at least three
stand out.
Sam Spade’s fi rst meeting with the Fat Man, Gut-
man, is one of them. Spade has gone to Gutman to fi nd
out about this black bird everyone’s interested in. In ad-
dition to the confl ict and simmering emotions, there are
two surprises I like.
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162
First is Gutman himself. He is (especially as por-
trayed by Sydney Greenstreet) a unique antagonist—enor-
mous, well dressed, speaking odd little bromides: “I dis-
trust a closed-mouth man. He generally picks the wrong
time to talk and says the wrong things.”
Then, at the end of the scene, Spade pulls a bluff by
pretending to lose his temper. The sudden switch catches
both Gutman and the audience by surprise. When Spade
slams the door and walks out, a little smile creeps across
his face.
Two other scenes to mention.
One takes place in Spade’s apartment with Brigid
O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) and Cairo (Peter Lorre)
present, and the cops arrive at the front door. Spade
won’t let them in. Cairo screams and the police rush in.
Brigid has attacked Cairo. Then, with the police present,
she kicks Cairo. It’s a surprise, because it’s so unlike her
to lose her cool and act like a school girl.
The other great scene is the last one, where Spade
tells Brigid that she’s going to take the fall. The emotion
is evident in Spade, because he has, in spite of himself,
fallen for her. But he also knows how bad she is. He won’t
play the sap for her. He lets her be led off by the cops.
Which gives us a final tip: One of your three big
scenes should be at or very near the end.
Give us three scenes like this in your novel and no
weak ones. That’s the secret.
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