A Scene vs. “In Scene”

On the difference (in memoir) between writing about what happened versus being an avatar for your reader

I read thousands and thousands of words every single week, mostly from new and aspiring memoirists. As a teacher and a student of the genre, I’ve also of course read hundreds of published memoirs, bestselling memoirs. It’s a privilege, this work, but being a teacher also means seeing the same execution mistakes week in and week out, some of which drive me to posts like these.

Today, I want to talk about scene. I find that even though writers logically understand scene, that doesn’t necessarily translate into execution. Which is why I want to discuss the difference between a scene versus being “in scene.” A scene is a setting where something happens, whereas being “in scene” requires the writer to be situated inside of the moment, in the era/body/mind of when the something happened.

A popular entry point into understanding scene is the senses. Sensual details—meaning taste, texture, smell, the quality of something, how something feels, the experience of being in a particular place or with a particular person—all give contours to a scene.

Most writers understand that details and specificity matter, and it’s possible to write scenic details about an experience. Let’s take a county fair:

Every summer, I eagerly returned to the county fair. As soon as I stepped through the gates, I’d be enveloped in a dazzling world of sunlit banners and twinkling fairy lights. The colors—rustic reds, golden yellows, vibrant blues, and playful pinks—swirled around me.

I’d hear the soft creak of the Ferris wheel, its slow, steady rhythm mixing with the cheerful laughter and triumphant shouts from game booths. The air would be alive with a medley of aromas. I mostly looked forward to the funnel cake, its delicate crunch giving way to a pillowy, warm center. My favorite summer indulgence.

There are sensory details here, yes. There are colors and sounds and smells and tastes. This is setting a scene, but it’s not “in scene.”

The problem with the fair that you went to every year is that the reader can visualize it, even evoke the experience of it, but they are not there with you until you land them on a particular time you went to the fair. That particularity (specificity) sets the groundwork for embodied writing, which involves you getting out of your head and into your body. In the memoir classes I teach with Linda Joy Myers, we often evoke the great Mary Karr, who wrote in The Art of Memoir about the notion that the reader is “zipped up in your skin.”

“I think the writer's body should act as an avatar for the reader,” Mary Karr said in another interview. “That the reader gets zipped into the writer's skin.”

Let’s take a look at what this might feel like, to be zipped up into the skin of the writer:

The summer I turned thirteen, I returned to the Orange County Fair as I did every year with my dad. Only this time it was different. I didn’t run to the funnel cake booth, despite the smell that made my mouth water. I’d already committed that I wouldn’t be eating any sweets this year since it would mess up my chances to make the cross-country team, and tryouts were next month.

Dad encouraged me. “Let’s get some,” he said, but I wouldn’t dare compromise everything for that kind of calorie intake.

The entire fair, once so magical, looked sad. Small. How had I ever thought this place was so cool? Everything here was for babies. There was nothing I wanted to do—not the dumb roller coaster, not the face-painting, not the 4H Club brag-fest, where I’d once cheered on my best friend when she won a blue ribbon for showing her horse. I saw the fair in a whole new light this year. Pathetic, I thought.

Dad reminded me how much I loved this place. He talked about previous summers and the good times we’d had. He didn’t get it. The fair was the same, but I wasn’t.

What makes this scene “in scene” is the character, the “I” narrator, who’s having a typical teen experience of rejecting everything she used to love about the fair. It’s a particular point in time: the summer the narrator is thirteen. There are other characters—the dad directly, the best friend, indirectly. There’s dialogue, which places us “in situation.” We are getting thoughts and interpretations from the teenager and what it felt like to her at that time without interjection from the adult writer. The avatar analogy is a great one. As a reader, I’ve been invited into this thirteen-year-old’s experience. I am walking around at that fair refusing to have a good time. I am a surly thirteen-year-old again, refusing my dad’s encouragement to enjoy myself.

Here are some ways to keep in mind how you can be an avatar to your reader:

• Be inside a particular moment
• Stay in time/era, meaning you are a particular age (not every summer)
• Embody the self you were (and the sensations you had) in the particular moment
• Interpret from the self you were in the particular moment and era (and avoid breaking the fifth wall with your observations from current time)

I’ve worked with writers long enough to know that part of the trip-up here when it comes to writing a scene versus writing “in scene” is that they don’t remember. It’s easier to harness the way things always were, what the fair was like every summer, because the details forty years later are murky. Please do yourself a giant favor and expand your parameters to include how it “would have been” or “could have been.” Memoir is about emotional truth. You may not remember the specifics of the fair the summer you turned thirteen, but if you remember going to the fair every summer to the extent you can recreate it for the reader, and you know that your thirteen year was the summer you started to be too cool for the fair, hormones raging, everything changing, then you can write this scene as it would have been. You can put the reader there, and you can allow us to embody your thirteen-year-old self. Your thirteen-year-old is the avatar, and the reader is taking their seat for the ride.

If you struggle with this, read. Read a lot. Ask yourself when you’re in a particular moment. When do you feel like you’re in the reader’s skin? When are you “in scene” and when are you not? I want to be clear that memoir does not only need to be a series of “in scene” moments, but a memoir without those moments is a very boring thing to read. Being “in scene” is where storytelling happens. It’s where the reader feels what you felt, understands how you saw the world, enters all the way into your lived experience. And this is where the magic happens. It takes practice, yes, but doing the work to control your moments will eventually make you the author of the kind of memoir that touches hearts and minds.

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If you found today’s post helpful, Linda Joy and I will be teaching “What Made Maggie Smith’s You Can Make This Place Beautiful a Bestselling Memoir?” The answer, in part, is the way she controls her scenes. We will be teaching the difference between a scene vs. “in scene” and we’d love to see you there. It’s running 4 Tuesdays: April 22, 29 and May 6, 13. Find out all the details here.