Scenes, which are smaller than chapters but more self-contained, depict sequences of activities and happenings that convey place and time, as well as characters' actions, reactions, or difficulties. Scenes (in short fiction, novels, plays, and films) serve a variety of purposes. They: provide context to characters' actions; reveal attitudes or emotions hidden by facial expressions, body language, or speech; show how events unfold over time; highlight important information; and make stories more engaging and entertaining. In screenplays, scenes are often used to create dramatic tension and move the story along. Without scenes, there would be no way to tell what happens between the opening and closing credits of a film. As you write your own scripts, you will need to decide where to place scenes in order to keep the story moving forward and not get too bogged down in detail. For example, if you were writing a novel about a young woman who goes to live with her uncle in London after her father dies, you would probably start with a scene showing us meeting the various characters in the story. This would help bring the reader into the world of the novel and establish certain relationships between them. Later on, when the story needs to explain what happened to the girl's mother, you could do this by inserting a scene showing her death. This would give us a reason for the character to feel sad and would help develop her as a person through her reactions to the event.