The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: Is there at least one nonplot element complicating the scene?

Stories must be lean, and we’ve already established you have a lot of work to do in a small amount of space. And yet, you’ll end up with a totally unappealing story if your characters only say what needs to be said to move the plot forward. The best way to combat this is to make sure that in every scene you have some element that has nothing to do with the larger story, something that doesn’t serve your purpose, something that just makes the scene feel real. 

Add a counterpoint. By that I mean an oddly funny note in a serious scene or a serious note intruding into a comedy scene. On TV, Mad Men always does this beautifully. At the movies, the Coen brothers have made a career out of this type of scene: In their noir-homage The Man Who Wasn’t There, there’s a scene where Frances McDormand, imprisoned for murder, tries to confess her infidelity to her husband, but she can’t stop complaining about the blubbering inmate next to her.

Make sure at least one character talks about something that has nothing to do with the plot. This can be an oddball distraction that adds to the hero’s frustration whenever he tries to move the conversation back to more serious topics.

• In Alfred Hitchcock’s final masterpiece Frenzy, the police inspector prefers to solve his cases by discussing them with his wife over dinner, but she’s now taking an exotic cooking class, which makes that task a lot more daunting. 
• In Unforgiven, Gene Hackman’s villainous sheriff keeps insisting on talking about house building whenever anybody wants to talk about more serious matters. He even wants to talk about it as he’s dying. 

Or the distraction can be a red herring that threatens to derail the conversation. My all-time favorite dialogue scene is not from a screenplay, stage play, or TV script, but from a novel. No one wrote better dialogue than the late Ed McBain, who wrote fifty-five novels about the detectives of the 87th precinct. My favorite scene was from way back in the second novel, 1956’s The Pusher. The detectives are trying to track down a big drug dealer, and so they arrest a small fry to get information. They ask him his last name: “Hemingway.” They ask him his first name: “Ernest.” They get mad and threaten to beat him, but he doesn’t understand why. They say they highly doubt that’s his real name. He insists he has no idea what they’re talking about. They gradually realize this guy has gone through life without ever hearing about the author of the same name, which makes it very clear how utterly bleak his upbringing was. The dealer, meanwhile, is stunned to realize that his father, whom he’d never met, gave him the name of some famous manly man before he disappeared—and that it was a message about how to act that he’d failed to receive until now.

All of this is just a distraction from the business of the scene—getting the guy to give up his supplier—but what a distraction! I can’t remember whodunit at the end of the novel, but this heartbreaking little scene has always stayed with me.

For this Scenework series, we’re examining these scenes:

The 40 Year Old Virgin	Andy goes home with a drunk woman from a Bachelorette party.
Alien	After the deaths of Kane, Brett and Dallas, Ripley becomes captain, so she has a meeting with the other survivors, Ash, Parker, and Lambert, to decide what to do next.
An Education	Jenny is amazed as David gets permission from her parents to take her on a weekend trip to Oxford by claiming to know C.S. Lewis.
The Babadook	Amelia chases her son Sam down to the basement, where he knocks her out, ties her up, and drives the Babadook out of her, temporarily.
Blazing Saddles	Bart arrives in town, then takes himself hostage to save himself from hostile townspeople
Blue Velvet	Jeffrey spies on Dorothy and Frank, then Dorothy catches Jeffrey in her apartment and has sex with him at knifepoint.
The Bourne Identity	Jason and Marie are attacked at her family’s farm by the assassin known as The Professor. Jason blows up a propane tank to distract him and kills him, but as the Professor dies he convinces Jason to come back.
Bridesmaids	Annie is driving angry after feuding with Helen when she gets pulled over by a cute cop, who gives her his number under the pretense of recommending a place to get her tail light fixed.
Casablanca	Sketchy crook Ugarte asks cool club owner Rick to hold onto the letters of transit for him.
Chinatown	Jake confronts Noah Cross with the glasses
Donnie Brasco	Lefty seeks to go behind Sonny Black’s back to set up his own meeting in Florida with Trifficante. He has Donnie borrow a boat for this purpose, but Sonny Black knows everything, and he crashes the party.  Lefty bitterly assumes that Donnie has betrayed him, and shuns him.  Sonny takes Donnie aside and elevates him above Lefty.
Do the Right Thing	Buggin’ Out notices that there are no brothers on the wall of Sal’s Pizzeria and decides to organize a boycott.
The Farewell	Billi finds out about Nai Nai’s diagnosis from her parents.
The Fighter	Micky and Charlene confront Micky’s family about his career.
Frozen	Anna confront Elsa in her ice palace
The Fugitive	Gerard confronts Kimble atop a dam, but Kimble leaps off.
Get Out	Chris sneaks out for a smoke in the night, has creepy encounters with Georgina and Walter, then finds Missy drinking tea.  She implores him to sit down, he repeats that he doesn’t want to be hypnotized, but she does it anyway with her teacup.  She gets him to admit the facts of his mother’s death, then sends him to a “sunken place” in his mind.
Groundhog Day	Phil takes Rita to a cafe and tries to convince her that he’s living the same day over and over. He convinces her by predicting what Larry will say.
How to Train Your Dragon	Hiccup and his students are in an arena competing to defeat a dragon, but Hiccup is quizzing their instructor to find out how to better commune with his own dragon, Toothless. Along the way, he uses what he learned from Toothless to peacefully subdue the dragon they’re fighting, infuriating the others.
In a Lonely Place	Laurel has made secret plans to leave town, but Dix makes her go to his favorite restaurant to celebrate their engagement with his agent, his alcoholic friend, and others.
Iron Man	Tony has built a better chest-device to keep shrapnel out of his heart, so he calls Pepper in to reach into his chest and replace the old one with a new one.
Lady Bird	Lady Bird flirts with Kyle in the parking lot.
Raising Arizona	During Hi and Ed’s first night with Junior, brothers Gale and Evelle show up having just escaped from jail, and begin to suspect the truth.
Rushmore	Max introduces himself to Ms. Cross on the bleachers.
Selma	King meets with Johnson in the Oval Office to try to get him to commit to a new Voting Rights Act
The Shining	Jack finally takes a drink from the ghosts in the ballroom. A waiter spills a drink on him, and takes him to the bathroom to clean it off.  While he does so, Jack realizes that the waiter is actually Grady, the former caretaker that killed his family.  Grady encourages him to do the same, but Jack is uncertain.
Sideways	Miles has struck out with Maya, but Jack comes back to the motel after a wild night with Steph, intending to go back out. Miles tries to get Jack to stay by forcing him to call his fiancé, but she doesn’t answer and Jack takes off with Steph after getting Miles to return his unused condom from the night before.
The Silence of the Lambs	Clarice first meets Lecter in his cell, under the pretense of getting him to fill out a questionnaire, but he quickly figures out that it’s really about Buffalo Bill, and that Clarice is hiding other things as well.
Star Wars	The gang takes over the Death Star command office.
Sunset Boulevard	Joe discovers Norma, who assumes that he’s there to plan her monkey’s funeral, but when he explains that he’s a screenwriter, she hires him to rewrite her screenplay for Salome instead.

So how do those scenes answer this question?

 

The 40 Year Old Virgin	YES. The song she’s singing, her dancing, the contents of her vomit.  Really her whole drama, actually.
Alien	NO.
An Education	YES.  The Goon Show, etc.
The Babadook	NO. Not by this point.
Blazing Saddles	YES. How excited the official is to hand over the laurel, etc.
Blue Velvet	YES. oddball bits of conversation that go nowhere.  The nitrous.
The Bourne Identity	YES. the dog, the kids, the birds, the mention of the headaches.
Bridesmaids	YES. The fact that the mechanic’s name is Bill Cosby.
Casablanca	Not really.
Chinatown	YES. Cross starts pontificating about tide pools.
Donnie Brasco	YES.  the party, Florida trivia.
Do the Right Thing	YES. Who is the little girl that Mookie is talking to?  Smiley is outside.  We can hear snippets of unrelated conversations.
The Farewell	NO.
The Fighter	YES. The sisters’ nicknames.
Frozen	YES. Olaf.
The Fugitive	YES. the water and the geography of the tunnels.
Get Out	NO. Not really.
Groundhog Day	YES. The lives of the customers, the dishes dropping, etc.
How to Train Your Dragon	YES. Snortlout’s crush, etc.
In a Lonely Place	YES. the drunk friend just adds a note of pathos and humor.
Iron Man	YES. He yells at his robots about his desk
Lady Bird	YES. Jenna is making out with her boyfriend, distracting Lady Bird.  His dad has cancer.
Raising Arizona	YES. They tunneled through a sewer, so they stink to high heaven.
Rushmore	YES. Cancelling Latin.
Selma	NO. A little bit with Nobel talk, but that’s really part of the meeting.
The Shining	YES. the stain.
Sideways	NO. Not really. It’s a slim scene.
The Silence of the Lambs	YES. Miegs, her bag and shoes, Florence
Star Wars	Not really
Sunset Boulevard	YES. the monkey funeral, the organ, etc.