Scenes and sequels

[Kessie]

I found Jim Butcher's livejournal recently (author of the Dresden files). He has a whole bunch of writing advice. All of it is excellent, but I wanted to repost his formulas for scenes and sequels in here, since so many of us are struggling with basic writing techniques.

Scenes:
(http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/2647.html)

The basic structure of a scene is simple. Your POINT OF VIEW character sets out in pursuit of a SPECIFIC GOAL. Someone else (usually, but not always, the antagonist) actively, knowingly tries to stop him. There is a CONFLICT. The reader is left to wonder whether or not the POV character will succeed (which can also be thought of as the SCENE QUESTION). The result of the conflict is *always* a SETBACK of one kind or another (also thought of as the SCENE ANSWER)--at least, until you get to the end of the book.

Let me break that into a simple format. This is the one I use every time I write a scene. I fill it out, like a freaking class worksheet (which at one time it was):

POINT OF VIEW CHARACTER:
GOAL:
CONFLICT (SCENE QUESTION):
SETBACK (SCENE ANSWER):

SEQUELS

(http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/2880.html)

And no, we're not talking about book 2. We're talking about the original meaning of the word sequel--the part that comes after, the next in the sequence. In the scenes of a book, you're getting all your plot-pursuing and action-taking and choice-making done.

Now you get to the hard part.

Getting your reader to give a flying frack about it.

To do that, you've got to win them over to your character's point of view. You've got to establish some kind of basic emotional connection, an empathy for your character. It needn't be deep seated agreement with everything the character says and does--but they DO need to be able to UNDERSTAND what your character is thinking and feeling, and to understand WHY they are doing whatever (probably outrageous) thing you've got them doing.

That gets done in sequels.

Pay attention. This is another one of those simple, difficult things.

Sequels are what happens as an aftermath to a scene. They do several specific things:

1) Allow a character to react emotionally to a scene's outcome.
2) Allow a character to review facts and work through the logical options of his situation.
3) They allow a character to ponder probable outcomes to various choices.
4) They allow a character to make a CHOICE--IE, to set themselves a new GOAL for the next SCENE.

Do you see how neat that is? Do you see how simply that works out?

1) Scene--Denied!
2) Sequel--d**n it! Think about it! That's so crazy it just might work!--New Goal!
3) Next Scene!

Repeat until end of book.

See what I mean? Simple. And you can write a book EXACTLY that way. Scene-sequel-scene-sequel-scene-sequel all the way to your story climax. In fact, if you are a newbie, I RECOMMEND you write your book that way. You can always chop and cut the extra scenes (or sequels) out later, and you will have a solid bedrock structure for getting your book done. We'll talk a little about balancing them in a minute.

First, let's outline exactly what happens in a sequel--and WHY the basic outline I'm gonna show you works.

Here's the basic structure to a sequel. It's another little worksheet you can fill out when you're thinking about it ahead of time:

1) EMOTIONAL REACTION:
2) REVIEW, LOGIC, & REASON:
3) ANTICIPATION:
4) CHOICE:

And it MUST happen in THAT ORDER. Why you ask me? Because we're all human beings, and THAT is the order in which we respond, psychologically, to events that happen around us. Especially to big nasty events that bring out a lot of emotion.

Totally go read the full articles. They really go in-depth on these concepts and how you write them. He also has great ideas for making and writing characters and other things.

[j2starshine]

thanks for posting this! I read this somewhere, but I can't remember where. It gives my brain a cramp thinking about it. Course, it might be sleep deprivation as well.

[Kessie]

He explains it in depth in the full articles, and he's clear and very funny. I enjoyed all his articles and it's helped me get my story into much better focus.

[firestorm78583]

I see now where I need to go back through a lot of what I've written and flesh it out more. Thanks for posting this!

[newburydave]

Ummm;

Here is another source for the Scene Sequel method. It's a fantastic, free, online reference for this in Randy Ingermanson's website, Advanced Fiction Writing.com.

The free resource is "Writing the Perfect Scene" (hotlink). It is an exerpt from Dwight Swain's excellent book "Techniques of the Selling Author"

I've found that this technique is key to writing effective stories. It is a discipline that must be practiced, but definitely worth the effort.

Write on Sibs

SGD
dave

[Kessie]

I went through that article and tried it. And holy smokes, it works like a DREAM. My first chapter is a million times better than it started out.

The trouble is, it's introducing so much more conflict to my story that the whole plot is changing as I have to figure out how to solve things. I guess that's good? :-)

[yoda47]

Awesome link, Dave!

I'm so going to run my stories through that process!

[newburydave]

Kessie;

To quote our own Jeff G. "Story is Conflict". Just make sure that all your (little c) "conflicts" serve the main (big C) "Conflict" that is the plot driver of your story.

They say after you practice a while writing this way gets to be like riding a bicycle, you just hop on and go. ;D

Happy trails

SGD
dave

[Kessie]

Dave:

What I'm running into is things like I have too many Yes resolutions to scene conflict.

Hero's goal! Conflict! Does he achieve his goal?

The best answers to this are,

Yes, But!

No!

No! Furthermore ...

And for a lot of these (admittedly boring) scenes, I have Yes, and not even a Yes But. By adding a different outcome to these scenes, the sequel is changed, too, and therefore the next scene is changed ...

Which might lead to a much better book in the long run. I shall now go off and edit some more. :-)

(This was easier when I was writing fanfiction, when I had a whole bunch of characters who hated each other and were always trying to kill each other off/capture each other/avoid each other.)

[yoda47]

I like the "yes but..." answer the best.

To me, it keeps things positive, but still maintains conflict. (not that that's all I use though...)

[newburydave]

Kessie;

A tip I got from Randy and Jeff is the following.

Write a short (no more than 20) word sentance to describe the: main POV and the central conflict. (15 words is ideal)

This is your main sales tool to sell the novel to someone.

It is also the "Dramatic Spine" of the story.

Unfold this down to the scene level (See the Snowflake Method. Also a free resource at Advanced Fiction Writing) and then ruthlessly test every scene/sequel pair to make sure it moves this main conflict forward somehow.

Don't follow no rabbit trails that don't tie to the "Dramatic Spine" of your story.

Yeah okay ; physician heal thyself, I know...I'm workin' on it. ;D

But according to the Experts (not me) that's how money making novels are crafted.

If your conflicts don't seem to be going anywhere to you (the author) they probably aren't going anywhere that your reader will want to follow them. Chop them.

Okay, nuff said. Now go build your novel!

Write on sis

SGD
dave

[Kessie]

Dave: I've been working on my summary sentence (I have one I think I like). I've pretty much Snowflaked out my plot. Which is good, because I haven't written past chapter 6 yet and I needed to know where the heck I was going with this.

That's when the eldritch abominations came in, and I started beating my head against whether or not I really wanted to write one of those. But what else travels behind the universe, eating worlds?

[newburydave]

Well, in my Curatoriumverse I have a unidimensional singularity into which every thing not upheld by Ya-Elone's hand is sucked into oblivion. (aka The Abyss or Hell)

Why not the mother of all Black Holes (MOABH) ;D

It's your story, if you don't like where it's going change it, invent something. Don't let your created characters push you around, show them who's boss.

Just remember, the map is not the territory. The territory is your inspiration in this case; all those tools are just the map. If the map lies then redraw it.

Write on Sis

SGD
dave

[Kessie]

Yeah, I'm thinking this story will only ever get posted on our website and not get pushed for publication. It'll just hang around as backstory.

My Mom and I have been doing this experiment. She noticed that she has lots of inspiration for her blogs when she's been reading her Bible regularly. I joined in her reading program, and my writing is working so much better since I started. Coincidence? :-)