Comments on: How Many Scenes Does Your Novel Need?

By: David Flamm

David Flamm — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 21:33:15 +0000

Randy,

This was my question, and I’m pretty excited you answered it. It’s pretty validating to see your question on here. I completely agree with you, the scenes need to fit the story. I have trimmed my 60 scenes to 53 and am now in middle of writing chapter 22 of 30. My scenes tend to be between 1200 and 3500 words with between 1 and 3 scenes a chapter. The progress is coming along fine and I anticipate a little over 100K words for my first draft. My fear of having too few scenes has been something that has continued to plague my process, but like I said, it’s coming along fine and the scene count appears to have been appropriate. I completely intend to count the number of scenes in the next novel I read by the way, it should be an interesting exercise. Thanks for all the help, you’re a fiction God send!!

-Dave

By: B. E. Berger

B. E. Berger — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 04:15:22 +0000

I’m writing a first draft of a novel, post by post, on my blog. Each post is a scene — and they have varied from 300 words to 1800. Like you, I find they usually hover around 1000 words. I just posted Scene 28, and I estimate I’m a third to halfway through the novel’s arc. Thanks for your information — I feel I’m on track because of it.

By: Nicholas Tozier

Nicholas Tozier — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 06:36:55 +0000

“It’s always easier to analyze somebody else’s work than your own. But analyzing theirs will help you when you go to write your own.”

Amen. Among other websites, I run a resource for songwriters and I was just talking about that the other day on the blog: that it pays to critique other writers carefully and well.

For one thing, it forces you to know the craft well enough to be able to clearly express its finer points aloud.

And for another, sometimes we’re blind to our own shortcomings until we begin recognizing those same shortcomings in the work of others.

Great post!

By: Karen Cioffi

Karen Cioffi — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 16:57:35 +0000

Useful information. I especially like the exercise suggestion. Thanks for sharing.

By: the writer

the writer — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:13:38 +0000

If you have read any novel by Mario Puzo, especially The God Father, you will know how to select number of scenes for your novel… in fact the number of absolutely required scenes

By: Tammy Bowers

Tammy Bowers — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 16:37:48 +0000

I learned this year that it also depends on the genre and publisher. I sent my romantic suspense manuscript to an editor last summer and received a 17-page letter of changes that they wanted before they would consider it. One major change was the number and length of each chapter. They wanted 20 chapters of approximately 3000 words. There were several scenes they wanted cut. As a new author, I am happy to make any changes they want.

By: Judy Baker

Judy Baker — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 19:32:08 +0000

Interesting article. I’ve never counted how many scenes I’ve written in a manuscript, I should. It won’t be too hard for I use a chart listing all the scenes that takes place in each chapter. Judy

By: John

John — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:55:34 +0000

Very good insight. 60-200 scenes sounds right for novel writing. Movie screenplays usually have between 30 and 55 scenes which make sense because when a novel is adapted to a screenplay, it’s usually cut down considerably.

By: James Thayer

James Thayer — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:40:48 +0000

Here’s a pretty good rule regarding scenes. Whenever the point of view character leaves one place to go to another, a new scene is usually needed. A scene usually takes place in one location. It doesn’t jump from one place to another. A single locale is one of the clearest demarcations of a scene. For example, here is the last sentence of chapter 3 of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain: “He took up his packs and set off again walking.” Here is the last sentence of chapter 8: “The blue one, that brighter one, is Venus, Ada said, as she and Ruby turned up the road to Black Cove.” The character leaves, so the scene ends. And whenever the time (the story “now”) of the story leaps ahead to a new time (say, an hour or a day or a week later) a new scene is usually needed. So the number of scenes needed in a novel can often be determined by the number of times the venue changes and/or the number of times the time frame moves forward.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:22:27 +0000

I just got back from a conference where this was discussed by an agent. His take was 4 pages for scene is nice tight writing, anything over 9-10 pages probably has to much static description and should be edited down. So one of the top agents says 4-10 pages is a desirable scene length.

There are always exceptions though! He helped me edit a prologue and thought the best length was under one page, like anything else in writing the rule is know the norm so that when you break it you can justify why you did.

Pacing is also dictated by scene length, so longer scenes could mean a slower paced novel, think literary fiction. Suspense novels tend to have shorter scenes. Fantasy longer scenes for world building.

Also to add to What James said depending on your POV you may change scenes while staying in the same place and time in order to change to a different characters perspective if you write in intimate third person.