View source for Scènes à faire

{{Useful Notes}}{{Mechanics of Writing}}

'''[[wikipedia:Scènes à faire|Scènes à faire]]''' (French for "scenes to be made" or "scenes that must be done") are the scenes or scene elements that a fan of the genre in question ''expects'' to see in a work set in the genre, or in a particular location. You can't tell a story in this genre or this setting without them.

They're a step up from a genre's Necessary Tropes, in that they're elements that take place to establish or further the story to a greater or lesser extent. They usually contain tropes of their own.

[[Tropes Are Not Legos]], and scènes à faire are not legos, either. They have to be customized to fit the story that they're used in.

Scènes à faire don't count as copyright violations per se - while they are expressions of ideas that other people have written down in the past, they're ''necessary'' elements in a story. The first person to use them was original; everyone who [[Follow the Leader|follows in their footsteps]] is writing what they need to write in order to tell a story in the same genre or setting. For example, we'll quote from [[The Other Wiki]]:
{{quote|The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit interpreted the ''scènes à faire'' doctrine expansively to hold that a motion picture about the South Bronx would need to feature drunks, prostitutes, vermin, and derelict cars to be perceived as realistic, and therefore a later film that duplicated these features of an earlier film did not infringe.}}

Contrast with [[The Stations of the Canon]], where a [[Fan Work]] has its own spin on ''specific'' scenes that were in the original work.

{{examples}}
* Your action-adventure private detective will likely end up in [[Hot Pursuit]] of a suspect, possibly starting with a cry of [[Follow That Car!]] or involving a [[Sheet of Glass]] along the way. Depending on how far into the story the scene takes place, the detective might or might not catch the suspect - odds of apprehension are inversely proportionate to the length of story remaining.
* When - not if - the climactic ship-to-ship battle takes place in the days of [[Wooden Ships and Iron Men]], the characters will board and storm their enemy's ship.
* In Japanese mystery works, the [[Engineered Public Confession]] takes place at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea.
* Superspies use concealed gadgets, visit exotic locations, meet [[Femme Fatale|femmes fatale]] and love interests (sometimes the same person) and get into [[Chase Scene]]s while carrying out their missions - which often result in [[Saving the World]].

{{Needs More Examples}}
And the examples we have need sorting by genre, too.

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