Scenes That Don't Matter

Your action scenes look great. They're still not doing their job.

Image by AndreyPopov.

I worked with a writer recently who had a strong concept with a bad-ass hero. On the surface, every scene had the elements of a winner. Action. Surprising reveals. Panel descriptions that ensured dynamic art.

But 30 pages into the script, it felt flat.

That bad-ass protagonist? Sure, he was punching and shooting and defeating bad guys in ways that would look great on the page.

So why wasn’t it working?

Because I didn't feel like any of it mattered.

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Most early drafts of comic scripts don’t fail because there’s not enough action. It’s not because your characters are boring, either.

No, most scripts fail because they’re filled with scenes that don’t actually impact your protagonist.

Add all the fist fights and explosions you like. Hell, throw in sexy time, too, if that’s your thing. None of that will help if you can’t recognize the root problem.

It’s simple: If the scene doesn’t matter to your protagonist, it won’t matter to readers.

Readers sense it even when they can’t name it. That’s when they skim and eventually check out. And here’s the frustrating part: most writers don’t notice, because on the surface the scenes look fine. Maybe even great. Punches are landing. Characters are arguing. Secrets are revealed.

But all of that epic action? It’s just activity.

What you need is meaningful activity.

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When I’m editing, I look for two questions underlying everything else. You should be asking the same questions when you edit your own work:

1. Does this scene matter to the protagonist?

2. Is it clear to the reader?

There are plenty of ways for a story to go wrong, but answer “no” to either of those questions, and your story starts to fall apart.

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Let’s break down that first one.

Most indie comic writers focus on the wrong thing. They’ve been reading comics all their life, and they’ve always assumed the action is what they enjoy. So they read their own script and ask:

“Is this cool?” “Is this gonna look epic on the page?” “Is there enough action?”

Instead, what they should be asking is:

What does the protagonist want right now?

What happens if they fail?

What happens if they succeed?

But that’s only one part of it. You need to show how the character’s success or failure actually impacts the character’s decisions or actions in the next scene.

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This is one of those “obvious” elements of storytelling, and many writers are so confident they got it, they overlook it completely.

I asked that writer with the bad-ass hero to point out where the repercussions of each scene affected his protagonist’s future actions and decisions.

After some hesitation, he realized he couldn’t.

And that’s the problem.

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Here’s a quick test: look at the next scene. If the story continues as if nothing happened, that next scene isn’t doing its job.

Ensuring every scene ripples into the next one is the fastest way to turn a stagnant script into one with real narrative movement.

Most storytelling problems aren’t mysterious once you know what to look for. And most problems I encounter come back to this over and over.

Scenes that don’t matter is one of the biggest.

When you’re self-editing your work, look at each scene, and then ask yourself if the outcome of that scene impacts future scenes. If the answer is no, not really, then you have some revisions to do.

This article is pulled from a larger project I've been working on…more on that soon. In the meantime, pull up your current script and try the test. Pick any scene. Can you answer those three questions? Did the result of that scene impact later scenes?

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