Scene Analysis #3 - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Hey everyone, it's that time again. Another scene analysis. This time, we're doing Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I wanted to do Terry Pratchett, but this scene actually caught me by surprise. I will explain later as we go down the page.


As a refresher from my copywork blogpost (click here to read the full post), here is the color coding on the highlights:

• Orange for Action beats
• Green for Descriptions
• No highlights for Dialogue
• Yellow for Summary/Transition
• Blue for Thoughts
• Pink for Authorial/Narrator Intrusion
• Purple for Exposition

I chose this copywork exercise because it broke two rules that are often given to beginning writers. The first one being "Do not begin with a line of dialogue." As you can see on the first page, OSC (Orson Scott Card) begins a scene exactly with that. But what sets this apart is the lack of location or setting. We only hear their voices and nothing more.

In the case of transgressing the rule, it works. Immediately we are intrigued, unsure where these two people are, and what these two voices are arguing about. We do not see them, which sets up the themes of deception and secrecy of the book.

After that scene, we are finally thrust into a setting. The grounding action here is the "The monitor lady smiled and tousled his hair." What intrigued me with this scene is the overuse of thoughts. As you can see in the second page, we get inside Ender's head for a long time, almost half the scene. In here, he thinks about his brother a lot, which was prompted by the monitor on the back of Ender's neck. It "tells" us what his relationship is with his brother, Peter.

The string of thought ends with a bit of foreshadowing: Peter calling Ender you little bastard, you little Third. We are pulled back to the physical realm with the doctor telling Ender it won't take long. At this point, we are now experiencing the scene with action and dialogue. The removal of Ender's monitor turns into a complication.

On the page below, Ender feels something change (Something changed hands), but after that, he becomes so disoriented that the narrator has to step in (Ender could not see). As we go down the page, the narrator comes in and out, relaying information to us on Ender's experience.

The scene ends with a cliffhanger. We do not know if Ender is okay after the removal. For all we know, he could be "unplugged" forever. This prompts us, the reader, wanting to know more, wanting to know if Ender will make it out okay.

This scene intrigued me because OSC off-loaded a lot of exposition through thoughts. He broke the rule "show, don't tell" by telling us what his relationship is with his brother. But why tell and not just dramatize the dynamics later on? It sets up the mood and the expectation of the book. We expect brother to love and care for one another (and maybe bust their chops once and a while). But what we see in Ender's mind is that Peter hates him. There is a sense of competition here, which is another theme of the book.

The scene structure is as follows:

• GOAL: Doctor needs to remove the monitor
• CONFLICT: The removal will cause complications
• OUTCOME: Will the doctor remove the monitor? YES, BUT Ender may be permanently damaged after the operation
• AUTHOR INTENT:
• To show the monitor
• To show Ender and Peter's relationship (by thoughts)

As for the value shifts:

• ( - / -- )
• (Caution to Pain)
• (When the removal of the monitor caused complications)

Below is a graph of the narrative modes of the copied scene. This shows the rhythm between abstract and concrete beats. It scales from -3 to +3 with the following sequence respectively: Exposition (as -3), Intrusion, Thought, Transition (as 0.5), Description, Dialogue and Action (as +3).




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