How to Map Out the Scenes in Your Novel

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Let's walk through an example of breaking down an 80,000-word novel into a scene plan. If we
take 80,000-words and divide that by approx. 1,500-word scenes, you get about 53 scenes. We'll
round that up to 56 scenes so that we can use an even number. Typically, the scenes and the
word count breaks down like this:

Beginning (25%) = 20,000-words and 14 scenes

Middle (50%) = 40,000-words and 28 scenes
End (25%) = 20,000-words and 14 scenes

1 2 3 4 8 9 10 14
5 6 11 12
ACT 1

7 13

15 16 18 20 22 24 26 28
ACT 2A

17 19 21 23 25 27

29 31 33 35 37 38 40 42
ACT 2B

30 32 34 36 39 41

43 46 49 52 54 56
44 47 50 53 55
ACT 3

45 48 51

Executing
the Plan

Coach's tip: You can use any word count you want to make a scene map like this. For example, if
you use 100,000-words and approx. 1,500-words per scene, which means you'll have about 68
scenes. For easy planning, round up to the nearest even number.

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