Every scene is a love scene

You probably know that I started my storytelling career in the theatre. When I was about to graduate high school and was auditioning for college acting programs, my brother Tom gave me a fantastic gift: a copy of a book by Michael Shurtleff called Audition: Everything an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part. 

I still have that book, forty-odd years later. Thanks, Tom! 

And I still think about one of the central ideas I learned from it, which is this:

Every scene is a love scene. 

Shurtleff breaks this idea down for actors. But what does it mean for writers? 

Here’s how I’ve come to think of it: Every scene is driven by desire. Something is wanted. Something is pursued. Even when it's not a romance scene, there is desire on the page. 

And something, or someone, or even some fearful or ambivalent part of our hero’s inner landscape—stands in the way. If it weren’t so, the hero would already have what is wanted, right? There would be no need to pursue it.

Every scene thus becomes a collision between want and obstacle. A scene that lacks this combustion at its core fails to release the story energy that drives a tale forward, engages the reader, and keeps us turning pages. 

Yesterday was Valentine’s day—I hope you had a sweet one!—so it’s a perfect time to explore this idea that every scene is a love scene. What keeps our characters in the scene and on the page, fighting for what they want, page after obstacle-laden page? Love is all you need!