ALEC WORLEY / FANTASY, HORROR, SCIENCE FICTION
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WRITING: How to write a ‘Mission Briefing’ scene that doesn’t suck

10/8/2021

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James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) shows us how it’s done
There are certain types of scene that are just naturally boring. There’s no immediate conflict, no one trying to manipulate the focal character, fill them full of lead, punch their lights out, or get to the finish line before them. In writer-speak, you might say the focal character’s line of action has no counter-action to challenge them.
​
Maybe what one character wants is exactly the same thing the opposing character wants. A great example of this kind of stock scene is the ‘mission briefing’. Think Police Commissioner Lee Van Cleef offering Snake Plissken a do-or-die deal in Escape From New York, the Feds visiting Indiana Jones on campus and sending him off on a quest for the Lost Ark, Lt. Gorman explaining the bug hunt to his crew in Aliens.
 
Let’s take Aliens as an example of how to approach a scene like this…

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  • HOME
  • ABOUT ME / FAQs / CONTACT
  • COMICS (YOUNGER)
    • Black Beth
    • Star Wars
    • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    • Treasury of British Comics
    • Trollhunters
  • COMICS (MATURE)
    • Age of the Wolf
    • Anderson
    • Dandridge
    • Durham Red
    • John Carpenter's Night Terrors: The Coffin Road
    • John Carpenter's Tales for a Halloween Night
    • Judge Dredd
    • Robo-Hunter
    • Tales From The Black Museum
    • Tharg's Future Shocks
    • Custom comics
  • FICTION
    • Warhammer
    • Judge Anderson
    • Judge Dredd
    • Sharkpunk
    • Empires Of The Imagination
  • AUDIO
  • OTHER WRITING
  • BLOG
  • BIBLIOGRAPHY