Last week, I wrote about doing a scene-writing exercise short story writer and teacher, Ron Carlson, invented. This week, I am posting 20 ideas I’ve put together for practice writing scenes that will help you develop dexterity in presenting your story, fiction or nonfiction, with the kinds of phrasing and details that absorb readers. Try these ideas, taking a playful approach and have fun. You can use the material you are working on right now or just invent scenes out of nowhere. Your use of images and details and your confidence in using them will grow. If you’d like to, post one of your results in our comments section at the end of this article.

1. Introduce a character mid-action–stealing away under cover of night, stepping onto a bus, finding lost jewelry. What is the character feeling? Show the feelings by the way the character thinks about where she or he is at the moment.
2. Introduce a character who travels from point A to point B in the course of one scene–across a room, from inside to outside, from end of the block to another, from home to the airport, from one bus stop to another. What is the character’s reason for going from A to B? What is the character’s emotional state and primary concern? Describe them through the character’s thoughts and sensory perceptions of Point A and Point B and the journey between them.
3. Write the opening scene of a story, play or essay. Who is where, doing what? Now, make that scene a flashback. Where is character as he or she has the flashback? Write that scene.
4. Describe where you are sitting now: write a paragraph in which you have one sentence each that has information that appeals to each of the five senses: what do you hear, taste,
   touch, smell and see where you are? Invite someone into the scene. How does that change what you receive through the senses?
5. Imagine that you are a child. Write a description of the place you are sitting now that shows what you as a child hears, tastes, touches, smells and sees. Make one of the sensory inputs disturbing. What action does the child take because of the disturbance? What does the child think?
6. Imagine you are a dog or a fish in the room where you are sitting now. Write a scene from the point of view of that creature. What senses does the creature use to ascertain what is happening? What action does the character take using the senses and body?
7. Put three people in a particular setting. As an omniscient narrator, reveal some of what is in each character’s mind and no matter what each is thinking about, register some information from the setting.
8. Pretend you have just gotten away with something (or for the moment, believe you have). Describe what you see in front of your eyes from the perspective of someone who is anxious but elated and relieved.
9. Pretend you have just been found out. Describe what you see in front of your eyes from the perspective of the fear or frustration you experience.
10. Pretend this is the moment that you have just lost something or someone very significant. What do you do now–this very moment? Write a one to three paragraph scene about what you do using the first person.
11. Pretend this is the moment that you have just gained something you have wanted very much. What do you do now–this very moment? Write a one to three paragraph scene about what you do using the first person.
12. Pretend you are directing an actor who is playing someone who has just learned she has lost something or someone very significant. What do you tell her do as stage business? Write a paragraph in the second person (you) showing her actions in the setting.
13. Pretend you are directing an actor who is playing someone who has just learned she has been given something very significant. What do you tell him to do as stage business? Write a paragraph in the second person (you) showing his actions in the setting.
14. Imagine you are on the phone, needing a blind person to locate something you’ve left behind in a place you know very well. In the second person (you) or third person (Harry) write what you say over the telephone while directing that search.
15. Does your scene writing contain suspense? Imagine a child who needs his mother–perhaps he has drifted away in a department store or park. Write three scenes–the one where he recognizes she is not close by, the one where he takes some action but is not successful, and the one where they are reunited. How did you hold off on having the reunion?
16. Create a character–age, sex, physical characteristics–and a setting for this character–time of day, place, reason why there. Now provide the character with three unusual objects–a suit of armor, a coin collection, a gem stone polisher. Write a scene in which the character uses those objects in the setting now.
17. Choose a simple plot: boy loses something he likes, boy looks for the thing he likes, boy finds the thing he likes. Write the scenes that show the story of a particular boy in a particular place losing a particular thing, searching for it and encountering obstacles, and then finding it. After you have written the scenes, see if the mood and tone and action suggest a title for your work. Now that you know the details of the story, are there idiosyncratic things your character would do or observe in the scenes you have written? Flesh out the scenes with this behavior.
18. Practice “building up to” kinds of scenes. Imagine a difficult situation–a couple fighting, a person discovering the house has been robbed, a mother not knowing where her child is. Now write the scene just before the disturbance happens or the crisis begins–a couple starts off on a nice trip, a person is carrying groceries home, a mother is in the laundry room straightening detergent bottles. After you have the before scene, write a sentence depicting the event or observation that spins things in a new direction.
19. Write a scene in dialog. Without being expository, the words must indicate where the characters are and what their problem is.
20. As a writer, take a normal scene you encounter everyday. Now dramatize it by changing the size of things or the weather.