Scene Structure: How the 6 Elements of Story Work in the First Scene of How to Train Your Dragon

See the masterful story structure that undergirds the opening scene of How to Train Your Dragon.

Great stories are built on great story structure. And my favorite story structure framework is one that you can apply on every level of story.

It’s called the six elements of story, and it’s an editing tool you can use on every layer of your story.

To prove it, I’m doing a deep dive into the structure of How to Train Your Dragon. First, I broke down the six elements of the movie as a whole. Then, I took a closer look at the first act of the movie.

And in this episode, I’m breaking down the opening scene.

You’ll learn:

• The essential value shifts that change from the start of the scene to the end
• The critical, life-or-death choice Hiccup must make in the very first scene of the movie
• How that choice sets up everything to come
• And more!

Want more? You can see my full analysis of How to Train Your Dragon all on one spreadsheet. Go to alicesudlow.com/dragon to get the spreadsheet.

Then, go find the six elements of story in your scenes!

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Watch the opening scene of How to Train Your Dragon
• Watch the resolution of the opening scene
• Get the full How to Train Your Dragon analysis: alicesudlow.com/dragon
• Ep. 27: Value Shifts: How to Craft Compelling Change in Every Story
• Ep. 42: The 6 Essential Elements of Every Novel, Act, and Scene
• Ep. 43: Why the 6 Elements of Story Are the Key to All Great Stories
• Ep. 45: How the 6 Elements of Story Work in How to Train Your Dragon
• Ep. 46: How the 6 Elements of Story Work in Act 1 of How to Train Your Dragon

Transcript

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I want to show you just how useful and flexible these six elements are. I want to help you start to recognize them all over the stories that you consume so that you can start implementing them in the stories you create, you can use them to edit the arc of your entire plot. You can use them to structure your acts and you can use them to find targeted specific minute edits to each one of your scenes that will have huge payoffs throughout your entire book. Welcome to your next draft. Today, I'm back with the third installment of our deep dive study of how to train your dragon. We're doing a deep study of story structure using the six elements of story. And in this episode, we're going to zoom in and see them at work and how to train your dragon again. So far, we've studied the six elements in the movie as a whole. And the six elements in the first act in this episode, we'll focus on the scene level. How does six elements work in the opening scene of how to train your dragon? If you missed the previous episodes. Don't worry. I'll catch you up to speed now. And if you find this episode helpful and you want more, I'll point you to the best episodes to check out next. Also when I was growing up, my dad always told me we learn things through repetition, repetition, repetition. So, if you have heard the last few episodes, I encourage you to stick around for this recap, the more that you encounter these concepts, the more familiar they'll become and the more comfortable you'll be applying them to your own writing. With all that said, here's your crash course on story structure. Stories are about change things start one way and they end another way. We come to stories because we want to see how that change happens, where things begin, where things end up and how they get there. The thing that changes in a story is called the value shifts. I find it a really helpful practice to actually specify the value shift in a story to say things start here and they end there. Because once, you know, the value shift, you can plot your courts from the start to the end. And the course that you plot will follow the six elements of story. This is a story structure framework that maps one arc of change. And when you understand the six elements, you'll start to recognize them everywhere. Here are the six elements. First, the inciting incident, something disrupts the characters normal and kicks off the action of the story. Second. Progressive complications. The conflict escalates as more complications happen. These events might make things better or worse, but they certainly make things more complicated. Third. The turning point, the largest, most problematic, progressive complication, which forces the protagonist to respond in some way. Fourth the crisis. In order to respond to the turning point, the protagonist must make a difficult choice. This is a choice between two bad things, a best bad choice, or two good things. Irreconcilable goods. Fifth. The climax the moment when the protagonist takes action on the crisis, choice and experiences, the consequences. And sixth. The resolution. The new normal after the climax, something has changed since the story began with the inciting incident. And readers want to see what the world looks like now. And there you go. The six elements of story. One arc of change. If you'd like to dig into these concepts more, I have some podcasts episodes for you. Go to Alice southern.com/ 42. To learn all about the six elements in a lot more depth and go to Alyce southern.com/ 27. For more on the value shift. And both those links are in the show notes as well. Now, there are a lot of things that I love about the six elements of story. I use them everywhere in my editing practice. If you go to Alice southern.com/ 43, I'll tell you a bunch of reasons why I think that these elements are among the most useful editing tools that you can have in your arsenal. But for now. All you need to know, is this. Uh, one of my favorite things about the six elements is that you can find them at every level of story. Zoom out and you'll find them in the story as a whole. Zoom in a little closer and you'll find them in each act, zoom in, even closer and you'll find them in each scene. Tech, zoom out, even farther, and you can plot a series with the six elements. Everywhere you have an arc of change. You can use the six elements of story to plot it. That's why we're in our third episode, in a row studying how to train your dragon. It's not just because I'm a little obsessed with this movie, although that is also true. I'm spending so much time here because I want to show you just how useful and flexible these six elements are. I want to help you start to recognize them all over the stories that you consume so that you can start implementing them in the stories you create, you can use them to edit the arc of your entire plot. You can use them to structure your acts and you can use them to find targeted specific minute edits to each one of your scenes that will have huge payoffs throughout your entire book. Sound good. Are you tracking with me? Let's dive back into how to train your dragon and see all these concepts in action. Here's the premise of the movie. A scrawny young Viking boy whose community is frequently attacked by dragons, wants to prove that he's a true Viking by killing a dragon. All right, let's do it on the first scene and see how it's structured. I consider the first nine and a half minutes of the movie to be the first scene. That's about 11% of the movie. And you can actually watch the first scene of the movie on YouTube. And it's short enough that if you're sitting down somewhere and you can take a 10 minute break to stare at a screen, I recommend that you go watch the scene now. I'm linking to it in the show notes. So it's really easy to find. Now, if you're driving or on a walk or cooking dinner while you're listening to this podcast, first off you are my people. I listened to a ton of podcasts and audio books, and I am always multitasking. So I thank you for the honor of choosing to listen to my voice while you go about your day. Thank you. That's a real honor. And there's no need to pull over on the side of the road just to watch a YouTube video. Just put a mental pin in it and come back to it later when you've got 10 minutes of focus, time to spend watching an absolutely delightful movie clip. Seriously, you're in for a treat. I also want to mention the clip that I'm going to link to on YouTube it's about eight and a half minutes. That's one minute shorter than I personally actually cut the scene. There's a minute of resolution that we lose at the end. You'll still get the idea and you'll see the six elements in action when you watch it. But know that in my analysis, I'm going to reference one minute of movie. That's not in this clip. One more thing. While we're talking about resources that you can go look up. When you check the show notes for the clip, you'll also see a link where you can download a free resource that I've put together for this episode series. I've compiled my full analysis of how to train your dragon full movie act and scene into a spreadsheet for easy reference. You can download that spreadsheet and get a great visual guide to how the story structure works. Get the spreadsheet at alisando.com/dragon or at the link in the show notes. All right. That's enough about the clip and the spreadsheet. Let's get to the analysis. The first part of our analysis is the value shifts. What changes from the beginning to the end of the scene? Here are the most important value shifts that I see in this scene. At the beginning of the scene. Hiccup has never killed a dragon. He's tried a bunch of times, but he's never succeeded. By the end of the scene, he has knocked the dragon out of the sky. This is a shift from failure to success, or more specifically from never hit a dragon to has hit a dragon. Next value shift at the beginning of the scene, hiccup is safe. His village is under attack and there are dragons everywhere setting buildings on fire, but hiccup has been sidelined from the battle and is safe and secure in the blacksmith's shop. The dragons don't notice him or see him as a threat. At the end of the scene, hiccup is in danger, running from a dragon who saw him knock toothless out of the sky and who was chasing him specifically and trying to set him on fire. This is a shift from safety to danger. And the third value shift. At the beginning of the scene, hiccup is sidelined from the battle and ignored by the other Vikings. There are fighting dragons and he gets to sharpen swords alone. At the end of the scene, hiccup has drawn the full attention of the whole community for what they perceive as another failure. Every one of hiccups, proceed failures lowers his status in the community and he gets publicly shamed for his screw up. This is a shift from ignored to shamed. So those are three core value shifts, failure to success, or more specifically has never hit a dragon. Two has hit a dragon. Safety to danger and ignored to shamed. Now that we know our starting and ending values, let's look at the path between them, the six elements of story in the scene. Keep those values in mind, as we break down the events of the scene. First step. The inciting incident. Dragons attack Burke. All is quiet on this early morning and Burke the camera pans over the village as hiccup, narrates, and introduction to his community. And then chaos hits the dragons attack. Our normal is disrupted the action kicks off. Next. The progressive complications. At this point, I could mention a lot of things. The progressive complications encompass, everything that happens between the inciting incident and the turning point, which is a lot of story. But we don't need to know everything that happens. I'll give you the highlights, the things that I see as the most important progressive complications. First step. When hiccup runs out to join the battle. Everyone tells him to go back inside. And by everyone, I mean, every single Viking that he passes, including his dad stoic the chief of the village. Hiccup once a chance to join the fight, kill a dragon and prove himself as a Viking, but he's told over and over to go home. Next hiccup has joined GABA in the blacksmith's shop, repairing weapons and sharpening swords for the other Vikings. He tries to negotiate with GABA to let him go out and fight. And Garber tells him that if he wants to get out there and fight dragons, he needs to stop being all of himself. GABA refuses to let him go fight and tells him that hiccup just as he is, is not enough. And third. The battle intensifies when in night fury attacks and GABA runs out to join the fight. On his way out. He tells hiccup to stay put. But hiccup is now left unattended. So of course he grabs the custom built dragon shooting machine that he's crafted. And he runs out of the shop and through the village, into the top of a hill to seize his chance at shooting a dragon. So there you go, three moments that I've marked as progressive complications. First. When hiccup runs out to join the battle, everyone including stoic tells him to go back inside. Second GABA refuses to let him fight and tells him that hiccup just as he is, is not enough. And third. Hiccup is left unattended and takes his chance to sneak into the battle and test his machine. Each one of these moments makes the situation more complicated. Some of these things are negative. Hiccup is denied the chance to fight and is told repeatedly that he's not enough. That last progressive complication though is positive. He's left unattended and has an opportunity to test himself in battle. This is great. We have some things that make the situation better and some that make it worse. All of them raise the stakes and make things more complicated. Next step, we have the turning point. Hiccup readies. His weapon waits for his moment, sees the silhouette of the night fury blocking out the stars and shoots. And he hits it. He hits the dragon and toothless the dragon falls out of the sky. This is huge. For the first time hiccup has hit a dragon for the first time. He's had success as a dragon killing Viking. For the first time he's accomplished his goal, the achievement that will bring him glory and honor among the Vikings and maybe even help him get a girlfriend. This changes, everything. In the scene and beyond. We're no longer in the normal world of hiccup, the failure, unable to kill a dragon, unable to find his place in the community. We have entered an entirely new realm, a space where hiccup has proven himself by doing something no Viking has ever done shooting a night fury out of the sky. But that's not quite all of the turning point. The shooting a dragon out of the sky is one part. A half second later, it becomes clear that someone witnessed hiccups, victory. Another dragon, a monstrous nightmare who now sees hiccup as a threat and is ready to attack. So our turning point is this Hiccup shoots the dragon out of the sky. And the only person to witness it is another dragon. This leads us to the crisis. The choice that hiccup miss make, as a result of the turning point. The turning point demands action. Hiccup cannot just keep doing what he's been doing all through the scene. He'll have to make a new decision and do something new. And the crisis is a dilemma. It's a choice between two options, this or that. And each option has consequences. Each option has teeth in this scene that has literal teeth. What's hiccups choice. What two options does he face? I can sum up his crisis really succinctly like this. Brag. Or survive. Remember the whole reason that hiccup has run out to this hill in the middle of a battle with a machine that he built himself. It's to gain status in his community by killing a dragon. Every moment up to this point has emphasized how low his status is among the Vikings, his route to glory in his community, or even his route to just equal footing is by killing a dragon. So this victory matters a lot. But it only matters if the Vikings recognize it in order for him to rise in status, he'll have to show them his success. He'll have to shout, draw attention to himself. Brag. On the other hand. This monstrous nightmare did see him and now it wants to kill him. It's a massive dragon it's right in front of him. And it has the ability to set itself on fire. If he stands here next to his machine and shouts and yells to the other Vikings about his success, he will definitely die on this hill. Yet, if he doesn't manage to show the Vikings, what he's done. They'll only see the catastrophe that's currently happening. They'll only see hiccup once again, running from a dragon, disrupting the battle, destroying the village, failing yet again, to be a Viking. Every time he fails his status drops a little bit more. It's not just that he won't gain status for his success, his status will actually go down. So here are his options. Option one. Run. Abandoned his dragon killing machine abandoned his victory and the status that's so close. He can taste it. Except the coming drop in status. And stay alive. Or. Option two. Stand his ground, do his best to draw attention to his success in the seconds that he has left and sacrifice his life for his status gain. Essentially the question at hand is, is hiccup willing to die for his status. Is he going to die on this hill? This choice has really significant consequences. But it's not really a hard choice for hiccups to make. He does not have to waffle or weigh his options, which is good because he doesn't have time to make up his mind either he runs now or he dies now. So the crisis and the scene lasts only a few seconds before we hurdle into the climax. And the climax. Is that hiccup runs. That's the climax, the choice that hiccup makes he runs from the dragon. No, he is not willing to die for his status as badly as he wants to be recognized among the Vikings. He's not here to get eaten. So he runs. We get nearly a minute of hiccup running from the dragon, the dragon breathing fire at him, stoic running up to rescue hiccup, and punch the dragon in the face and a pillar of fire tumbling down through the village and releasing all the sheep to be stolen away by all the dragons. Leaving Berk. There is no status gain here. Hiccup has chosen a status loss and he's gotten it. Not only that his night fury shot go entirely unnoticed by the Vikings, but he managed to make the battle much worse, destroy a lot of village infrastructure and lose all their sheep to the dragons. Which leads us to the resolution. Stoic tells hiccup that he's not a dragon killer and since an out of the battle and humiliation. Stoic is livid. From his perspective, hiccup has once again, disobeyed orders, once again, tried some cockamamie plan to kill a dragon and failed once again, disrupted the battle. Once again, cause a loss of precious Viking resources. Stoic drags hiccup down the hill by his collar and chastises him in front of the whole village. Hiccup tries to tell him about the dragon that he shot out of the sky. And he claims that he's a dragon killer, like all the other Vikings. But, so it says you are many things hiccup, but a dragon killer is not one of them. Then he sends hiccup away so he can clean up hiccups mess. And then just to really drive the point home. As Garber walks hiccup back to his house hiccup complaints about how stoic is constantly disappointed in him. GABA explains. It's not so much what you look like. It's what's inside you, that you can't stand. And then Gobert tells hiccup to stop trying to be something he's not. And hiccup replies. I just want to be one of you guys. By the end of the scene, hiccup feels even more rejected and isolated and outcast and different from the Viking community than he ever felt at the beginning. Do you see it? Do you see the arc of change at work? Do you see how the six elements have taken us on a journey From the starting values to the ending values. Notice how, by the time we get to the resolution, all of our values have shifted. Hiccup went from never having hit a dragon to successfully hitting a dragon for the first time. Failure to success. He went from safety when all the Vikings and all the dragons were ignoring him to danger. When he drew the notice of the monstrous nightmare. And then by the end of the scene, when the battle ended, he and everyone else returned to safety again. And hiccup went from being ignored by the Vikings low in status, but not drawing too much attention to being publicly shamed and having all the ways in which he's not like the Vikings broadcast for everyone to see. Ignored to shamed. His low status is now even lower. And the way we journey through that arc of change was a long, the six elements Here they are again. Inciting incident. Dragons attack Burke. Progressive complications. Everyone tells hiccup to go back inside. Gobert tells hiccup to stay out of the fight. When hiccup is left unattended, he sneaks out to try to kill a dragon. Turning point. Hiccup shoots the night fury out of the sky. And the only witness is a monstrous nightmare. Crisis. Brag. Or survive. Climax. Hiccup runs and causes chaos that makes the Vikings lose the battle. Resolution hiccup is publicly shamed. Failure to success, safety to danger. Ignored to Shane's. One full arc of change. This movie is masterfully done. I love studying it because it holds up to scrutiny. So well, We could keep digging into the scene and talk about how the choice that hiccup makes here, mirrors and foreshadows. The choice I'll have to make in the crisis of the movie as a whole. He'll have to choose once again between running or not between surviving or risking his life. It's a sacrifice he's not willing to make for status, but it's one he is willing to make when his community is on the line. Or we could keep digging and talk about how the turning point of the scene is also the turning point of this act. And then the act adds on a few more scenes to take us to an even greater crisis and climax. But I'll go ahead and wrap it up here. If you haven't seen the scene, I highly recommend that you go watch it now. So you can see everything that we've talked about in action. And be sure to download the spreadsheet where I share my full analysis of each level of the movie. Get that download at no.com/dragon. I hope this helps illustrate how the six elements of story work in practice. If you haven't yet, I highly recommend that you check out the two previous episodes where I dig into how to train your dragon at the level of the full movie and the first act. So you can see how the six elements work when you zoom out. And when you zoom in. You can find those episodes@alycesobo.com slash 45. And Alice said though.com/ 46. And if you have any questions about the six elements of story, I would love to hear them. What's making sense to you. What's confusing. Where are you feeling? Stuck? Send me an email@aliceatalicesouthern.com. You might just hear the answer on a future episode of your next draft. I'll be back here next week with another episode until then happy editing.