I don't remember where I learned this technique, but it's the answer to a serious issue for a number of writers. "How much description and of what do I need to make a scene work?" Granted, sometimes your characters are in a generic location like "the woods" or "an open desert/field"and then what things look like is rather obvious- but even then a basic level of description is needed.

I'm not going to say that the technique I use is used by true professionals, but I have yet to get complaints about it. Use it yourself and see if it helps.

Okay, you're about to make a scene.

We open our scene with two characters in an old west town. Imagine the scene.

Kevin walked slowly across the sand, Steven walking parallel to him. They stared down at each other over the area, both chewing their tobacco and fingering their pistols. They both listened for the signal.

The mayor rang his bell and dived down. The two men whipped around and fired.

Daniel however grinned, snapping his fingers as both bullets bounced off his energy shield.

Both men put their hands up in disgust. "Oh c'mon guys, it was a nice try, maybe if you were using real guns it might actually be a challenge... c'mon don't just walk away!"

But walk away they did.

https://youtu.be/UWY5lInEOqw

A little lost? Like I never told you about... anything in the scene and just went forward on nothing but a bare bones premise. Looking back you can understand the scene in retrospect, but while reading things felt like they were just appearing and really even if we knew everyone present, we still had no idea what was happening at any point. There wasn't any tension as two men shot at a little kid- oh yeah, Daniel is a kid by the way.

That's what a scene feels like with no descriptions- but how could we remake this scene so it flows, doesn't feel awkward and we don't feel like stuff is just happening at random?

In comes a process I call "mapping a scene".

We're going to actually build this scene from the ground up- introduce the characters, say where they are, where they are in relation to each other and what the area around them looks like.

To start, a note. Yes, sometimes writers will make the bare bones of a scene and fill in descriptions later. So what was written above isn't entirely useless information. It tells us what the writer has in mind. Our final product has to use this as a guide. Thus we will proceed like detectives, what must be true if that scene were to make sense? We then have to tell our readers those things as well as fill in a number of blanks.

We need four characters, Daniel, Kevin, Steven and the mayor. We know this is an old western setting though it's clear something unconventional is going on. Kevin, Steven and the Mayor are adults and Daniel is a kid. The mayor is supposed to dive down behind something- what?

If we're saying these two men are doing a mock duel, as the scene seemed to imply, how far apart are they? Well the famous scene from many westerns will say, "walk six paces away from each other, turn and fire".

Okay, so how long is a "pace"? Welp, no cheating, get out a ruler! Take a natural step and measure the distance from back heel to front toe.... DO IT!

A "pace" is just a natural step. I took a natural step, measured the distance from my heal to the lead foot- about three feet. So do the math- six paces away from each other means twelve paces total between them. Three feet per pace so 3x12=36 feet.

In writing giving precise measurements might be appreciated, but it often isn't necessary. Thus if you just say the characters are forty feet away from each other, you'll probably be fine.

At first, actually breaking out a ruler and taking physical measurements will be a thing you should be doing regularly when making a scene. You'll be measuring your car, your house, your room, your foot steps- a good idea is to measure your arm, foot and average step so you can use those to approximate how far things are away from each other by just walking along them or stretching out your arm, no ruler required. Looking up average measurements online is a tool you can use, but don't abuse it, there's no reason you can't just find out some things yourself. Over time, do this a bunch you'll likely be able to measure in your head how far apart things should be to make certain actions and events make sense.

Since these characters are so far apart, they must be in a large open area. A good typical setting for a duel is in an old town. This would have to take place in the middle of the street to work. Now, the width of your average street is-

http://www.answers.com/Q/what_is_the_average_width_of_a_street

Yes, the internet is a great resource. So Kevin and Steven have to be crossing the street not walking on either side of it, else they'll really be pushing things. Sides, if they walk on either side of the street, they risk hitting the stores on either side.

"Hold up!" I hear you saying. "I've read lots of stories that don't constantly give measurements of how far apart characters are." Well first off, its a tool you can use, you don't have to. Second- we just used the math to tell us how the scene has to be structured for our own purposes, if we don't end up telling the audience the measurement, so what? We can still use the information ourselves.

Daniel is between these two. Where is the mayor?

The mayor needs to be somewhere where a small bell can be heard by the two men. And since he dives, likely behind cover, there needs to be cover. He's probably not in the line of fire though as he's clearly an overseer.

What does he jump behind? Well if it's something metal it won't fit our aesthetic. Barrels or wooden boxes would fit just fine. If we want him to dive whatever it is will have to be wider than tall, otherwise that action won't make sense. So let's say he dives behind three large wooden boxes. He's probably not in the street himself- so he dives behind three boxes on the west side of the street.

Are there buildings in this scene- probably. But the real question is-are they relevant? The boxes are what the mayor dives behind so we have to tell the reader about them. The street needs to be described so the reader understands the basic ground these characters are interacting over and how much space they have- for all the reader knows they're on two hills and one is twenty feet taller than the other. (However we don't have to go into detail about the street, as if it weren't flat over forty feet that would be truly odd.) What do buildings tell us? They tell us we're in a city. Beyond that do we need them for anything? Not really. Thus how much you describe those buildings is up to you. Describing them can add feeling and tell the reader how run down this town is. The more you describe things in the background, the easier it will be for the reader to envision themselves in the town. However, if you're looking for bare bones, just mention the buildings in passing and how worn they are or how crowded so the audience has a quick reference to what kind of city this is.

Are there cars or horses? They don't matter so it up to you if you mention them. Mapping tells us what we HAVE to mention. You can describe ANYTHING you want in a scene and often the more you do, the more the audience is drawn in. But yes, sometimes a scene is meant to be fast paced, so giving the brand names of the twenty vehicles around the two fighters in your climax- that's probably gonna slow things down more than you want. For that, best to just say there area lot of cars around and each time one becomes relevant, just say "he hit a truck on the left side of the street".

Do we have to say how far apart everyone is? Does the information serve a purpose? In this case, yes. Knowing the two men are far away from Daniel, yet relativity close, lets us know why they're using guns and that they're not likely to miss. Quick measurements will suffice though. Quick measurements are generally 1-5 feet if objects are close, and beyond that, count by fives or tens. So each man is twenty feet from Daniel.

We don't really care how far away that mayor is, in fact if he's literally on one side of the street and we just say Daniel is in the middle, the audience can probably fill in that information themselves, what a street looks like is common knowledge anyway.

What do the characters look like? Yes we do need that.

How do you "map" a person?

Mapping a person is simple really.

Height, skin color, basic form, clothes, hair color, eye color and anything unusual- things you probably note about people in real life. "Basic form" is, skinny, fat, muscular- basically what shape are they in. Something unusual would be a wheel chair or a giant mole or a large mass of freckles.

Clothes are actually easy to describe too. What's on top, what's on bottom and what's the basic color.

Get all this out of the way your reader will have a good basic picture of what a person looks like, a picture you can even use to refer to the character in a means other than by name.

Daniel is pale, red haired, freckle faced, skinny, blue eyed and wearing a red t-shirt and brown jeans. He is riding in an electric wheel chair. "Wheel chair?" Changes the scene don't it? That's why you want to mention something like that BEFORE the scene really gets going. The freckles are mentioned just to fill out his face a little. We humans identify others mostly by facial features.

Steven is tanned, brown haired, bulky but not fat, has a thick beard, brown eyes and is wearing a plaid sweater and blue jeans. "Do we need to describe shoes?" Not generally, but if you want to. How often do you look at people's footwear in real life? Most people just assume it's there and don't even look. Guess if someone's bare foot you should probably mention that.

Kevin is African black, lanky, (we don't have to mention hair color if it a person is of a race that generally only has one), has stubble on his face, brown eyes and is wearing a black business suite with a bright green tie. If someone is wearing a suit, or clothes that usually come as a set, you probably don't need to mention each piece.

Finally, the mayor is pale Asian with brown hair, fat, blue eyed and wearing a red t-shirt and green jeans.

Why didn't I mention heights? Well you can just pick heights at random like everything else was chosen frankly, but some heights won't make much sense. The mayor is Asian which means he's likely shorter than the others. Up to you if you stick to that really- however Daniel is a child, we can't just assign any height we want for him- won't make sense to say six feet will it? We don't have to say his age to the audience, but we need to know it as the writers and if we don't say his age, we have to give facial or bodily features that register to the reader as "childish". These will be things like mentioning his "peach fuzz" (a young boy's facial hair that's far too thin and short to shave) or wide eyes. Normally it's wise to just say an age with children though, as different ages can radically change how we view a child's behavior.

He's ten. So what is a reasonable height for a ten year old? Again, glad we have the internet today-

https://www.disabled-world.com/calculators-charts/height-weight-teens.php#mc

So the average height for a ten year old boy is about four and a half feet. Kids vary in height in reality, but probably safe to stay within a foot or so of that, unless you want the kid's size to standout for narrative reasons.

We're almost there, and the final product is actually not going to be incredibly long believe it or not. We haven't explained the weapons yet.

First, do we want the audience to understand this is just practice, or feel like two men really are trying to kill a kid? The second scenario does have more tension. Thus we should wait till later to say the guns have red caps on their barrels.

Call the guns by simple names like "hand gun", "revolver", "colt"-just make sure you aren't naming two different kinds of weapons like "he pulled out his Winchester and quickly fired the colt". Colt and Winchester are two different gun makers. Sometimes you'll just have to look things up if you don't know.

Finally the shield. If we don't want that shield to come out of no where for the reader (some elements can but it depends on what feeling you're going for) the reader has to have some clue that his power exists and what it does.

The best way to get a reader accustomed to something that doesn't exist in the real world is to show it in action. Thus we have to show the shield, show it blocking something and show that it's triggered by the boy snapping. Blocking anything will do so- how about a fly? We'll have to give Daniel time to do this, so a lead up to the scene will be necessary.

Okay, time to bring it all together. We know what our setting, characters and weapons have to look like and we know what our reader needs to know. Let's try not to be awkward either- which will be a challenge.

Remember, make sure the story is told through a consistent set of eyes- in this case we're going to use Daniel's as that will make incorporating the shield easier.

Okay, so WHERE to put the information? You'll have to decide for yourself where it feels the least forced for information to appear but a good rule of thumb is to follow when the person commanding the POV would likely register what something looks like. For instance, since everything is happening from Daniel's eyes, it's natural to explain things as he first looks at them, however Daniel isn't going to examine his own body, so we have to find excuses to mention bits of his appearance in passing. Some will be more blunt than others.

Ten year old Daniel tapped the control on his wheelchair, propelling it forward down the street. He felt the dust as he rolled, seeing the run down buildings pass him by, even seeing a broken down saloon with broken swinging doors.

He rolled to a large intersection and turned left. As the red haired child went, a fly started buzzing around his head, the irritated child snapping the fingers on his right hand. Each time Daniel snapped his fingers, a blue field formed around him, staying up for about three seconds. On his third snap, the fly bounced off the field, shredding as it was electrocuted. Daniel smirked, the ten year old's freckles forced to crease at how satisfied he was to be left alone by the bug. He continued forward. Daniel rode to the middle of the street about thirty feet down from the intersection and stopped.

Daniel turned his chair right, seeing the mayor sitting on the middle of three large wooden boxes on the west side of the road in front of a small bank. The mayor was a large brown haired Asian man, but only five feet tall, about a foot taller than Daniel would have been if he could stand. The mayor wore a red shirt, like Daniel's, and green jeans- Daniel's jeans were brown. The mayor's brown eyes met Daniel's blue.

The mayor cocked his head to the right. Daniel turned his chair right and saw a tall black man dressed in a black business suite and a green tie with thick stubble on his face about twenty feet from him. The man's brown eyes met Daniel's and directed the boy to look down. Daniel's eyes widened as the saw the small revolver in the man's hand.

Daniel tapped the controller on his chair to roll back, stopping as he heard a stomp behind him. Daniel turned his chair. There stood another man,this one bulky and tanned with brown hair and eyes, wearing a plaid sweater and blue jeans. Daniel quickly realized this man was also carrying a hand gun.

Both men started walking into the street from opposite sides, both an equal distance away from the child, Daniel grinding his teeth and raising his right hand, ready to snap.

The men moved parallel to each other, each twenty feet from the boy.

The mayor took out a small bell and grinned as both men stopped with the boy between them.

The mayor rang his bell and then quickly rolled over the boxes dropping to the ground behind them.

The two men pulled up their guns and fired Daniel snapping as the guns were just leveled at him.

The bullets pinged off.

Both men put their hands up in disgust, the red caps on the ends of the barrels of the toys becoming more obvious in the sun light. "Oh c'mon guys..." he waved a hand at the black man, "Kev?" but Kevin just shook his head. "Steve?" But Steven rolled his eyes. "It was a nice try, maybe if you were using real guns it might actually be a challenge... c'mon don't just walk away!"

But walk away they did.

Much longer, yes, but now the reader can feel much more like he's watching something he can understand, and understand on the same level as you the writer. Things aren't just popping into existence, we have a fully realized scene before the first shot is fired.

Kevin and Steve could have had their descriptions abbreviated if they weren't going to show up again in the story, but they're apparently Daniel's friends, so that's not an option here.

I guess another rule of thumb was kind of implied, try to get the entire scene at least somewhat down BEFORE major action scenes.

Once you have already described an element, you don't have to do it again- though a reminded of what a person or object looks like once in a while may be appreciated. We don't all have the best of memories.