Get the File: Dramatizing a Scene, Part 2

Use +/- notations for your scenes and chapters.

I learned about using -/+ and +/- from Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat (see the +/- in their scene cards), although he was merely informing his readers about a basic tool screenwriters use. In fact, you can find this notation in FinalDraft software.

These notations of  -/+ and +/- refer to the relative progress a hero is making in the story. 

A hero starts off in a positive or negative state in every scene or chapter, and by the end of that scene or chapter, the hero will be in the opposite state. 

This is a tool. It’s not a law. I use the notations to remind myself, when I’m blocking out my chapters, to maximize the drama and avoid stasis. 

The hero rides a wave of progress, with loops, dips, turns, and reversals. Minor changes happen in scenes. Major changes happen in acts. The biggest change happens from the start of the story to the end of the story. You can think of these changes as waves. Small waves of change are nested inside larger waves. The up-and-down feeling is imparted to the reader as the experience of drama.

So in our scene, “Get the File,” Holly starts off in a negative state, relatively speaking. She does not have the file. At the end of the chapter, she is in a positive state, relatively speaking. She has the file. And that’s it. 

Keeping it simple means I can now get complicated within the chapter.

It also means I have a way to string my scenes or chapters together. I find that reassuring, especially in the planning phase.

Let’s imagine three chapters. Let’s invent a previous chapter called “Interview the Witness.” Let’s call our current chapter “Get the File.” And let’s call the following chapter “Find a Safe House.”

“Interview the Witness” is +/-. Holly starts strong as she interviews the witness. That’s +. The witness knows what Holly needs to know, and Holly’s in a position to find out. Holly’s making progress toward her goal. By the end of the chapter, the witness reluctantly reveals that he’s been lying and doesn’t know what Holly needs to know. In fact, what Holly needs to know is contained in a certain file, the MacGregor file, kept in a law firm. That’s a - because Holly doesn’t get what she wants from the witness. Instead, she gets yet another difficult task to perform. It’s a setback.

“Get the File” is -/+. At the start of the chapter, Holly doesn’t have the file. That’s a -. By the end of the chapter, Holly has the file. That’s a +.

“Find a Safe House” is +/-. Holly has the file and is on the run. Wait. Isn’t that a negative? This is where we encounter the relativity of these positives and negatives. They only relate to the hero’s progress. Has Holly made progress toward her goal by the end of “Get the File”? Yes, she has the file. And okay, yes, at the start of this chapter, she’s on the run and trying to solve another problem (find somewhere safe to hide), but that tells us (me) that by the end of this chapter, I have to find a way to put Holly in an even more negative situation. She’s going to face another setback. 

For example, she might end up in a safe house that is anything but safe. Maybe she’s double-crossed by a false friend who pretends to offer safe haven but instead locks her in a room and steals the MacGregor file from her! Oh, crud. That’s a serious -, because Holly is worse off than when this chapter began. (There’s that relativity.) And it also catapults us into the next chapter with a burning question. How will Holly get out of this mess?

Another way to think about the -/+ is that each chapter (or major scene) answers a main question with either yes or no. Will Holly complete her mission in this story? At the end of every chapter, we get a tentative answer, and it swings back and forth between yes and no. At the end of “Get the File,” when Holly has the file, the answer seems to be yes. At the end of “Find a Safe House,” when Holly has lost the file, the answer seems to be no. That back-and-forth drama is how you, the writer, keep the story hustling along.

Maybe you’ve read a hundred novels and watched a thousand shows, and you’re like, “Duh. I know this is how drama works. I’ve seen it a billion times.”

Indeed. 

And yet . . . I still sometimes need this reminder. 

If I don’t construct my scenes with these +/- notations there, I’m liable to just hang out with my characters and forget to force them into dramatic situations. I may have them talk to each other, reminisce about the past, take a walk in the park, and get something to eat. Ooh, I can research local restaurants on Google and drop in actual dishes served by actual restaurants I wish I could go to. That sounds fun. And like a delicious seven-course meal, everything comes easily to my hero, and she strolls through the novel, unscathed and unchallenged and unchanged, because I, the author, protected her from danger. I kept her safe.

I totally forgot that in order to change, my hero has to confront dilemmas, make hard choices, take risks, endure the consequences, and struggle to realize her dreams. I totally forgot the drama. And also, maybe, in the back of my mind, I’m keeping my hero out of trouble because, in a way, I’m keeping myself out of trouble. 

If my hero isn’t in a tough spot, then neither am I. And I don’t have to do the work to get her out of it! It’s sooo much easier for me as the novelist to let a character ramble for ten pages in an interior monologue than to put myself in the character’s position and think of a way for her to escape this locked room and overcome her predicament and come up with a new plan for getting what she wants. That sounds like work! Can’t we just go to the restaurant and talk about our childhoods?

So yes, I know it intellectually—that I have to put my hero through hell—but emotionally, as the author, I have to remind myself to do so. That’s where the +/- notations come in.

Keep in mind the chapters in your final draft may not line up perfectly in this way. For example, I’ve written chapters that were -/+/-. Oops. Whatever. I made it work. Because I knew what had happened, I was able to line things up again. 

And this strategy of aligning +/- to -/+ helps me keep the reader’s experience aligned with the hero’s experience. 

For example, it keeps me from adding a negative note when the hero needs to stop and enjoy their positive progress. I often move too fast. I think of something, and I want to write it down. I’m moving way faster than the hero. I need to chill, and this strategy slows me down. 

Let the hero feel what they’re feeling, positive or negative. Pump it up! And then I’ll be on my way taking the hero into the next emotion.

I use +/- and -/+ for every chapter as I block out the forty chapters, ten chapters per act, of my novel. This is big-picture planning, but this kind of scaffolding helps me organize my thoughts as I lay out a coherent story for my hero. Can I write more than forty chapters? Of course. Can I write fewer? Who cares? I’m just in the planning stage, and I need to use my tools to build scaffolding to get started.

When I drop down into my chapters and start writing my scenes, I have these +/- notations to orient me to my hero’s experience. I don’t want my hero in stasis mode, at least not for long. I don’t want my hero to walk a straight line. I want my hero to ride a wave. These notations help me enhance the crests and depress the troughs in the right proportion as my hero moves through the story.

I also have beats for my chapters. I’ll discuss those next.

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