CONTEST: A Scenic Tale?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 23 July 2009

A quest, a quest...

The basic building blocks of a story are scenes and sequels. But what do we mean by that? Jim Butcher explains over here at http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/

A scene is one interaction between a point of view character trying to achieve a specific goal and someone else blocking him, producing conflict. Will the point of view character succeed? Basically, until the end of the book, the answer is no.

What are the pieces that you need to figure out to build a scene?

1. Who is the point of view character? Who has the most at stake emotionally?
2. What is their goal in this scene? Needs to be a specific goal that they are actively trying to achieve.
3. What is the conflict? Usually a specific person tries to make the character fail or tries to achieve a goal that blocks the character. The conflict is the scene question -- what is happening in this scene?
4. What is the result? The character tries to accomplish a specific goal, and doesn't get there. Disaster. There are three possibilities:

• yes, but...: they accomplish the goal, but there are complications
• no: they simply fail
• no, and furthermore: they fail, and make things worse

Those are the key points about a scene. Who is trying to achieve what, what gets in their way, and what's the outcome.

Sequels are the tails that wag the doggy scenes. The character goes to do something, runs into opposition, and fails. They have to drop back and think about what to do next. This is where the thoughts and feelings of the character are revealed, and it's really what makes readers connect with the character. So what is the peanut butter that you need to spread here? Basically, there are four steps in a sequel:

1. Emotional reaction. How does the character feel about what happened?
2. Thinking. Review, logic, reasoning. How does the character interpret what happened?
3. Anticipation. What could the character do next? What do they think is going to happen next?
4. Choice. Make a decision, choose a direction, let's do it.

Another way to think about it is that scenes are where we put together the plot -- the events and actions. Sequels are we put together the characters, showing the reader how the character reacts, thinks, and makes decisions.

Now, a quest is normally thought of as an action story. Sequels tend to be fairly light, focusing on making a choice and getting back into the action. You don't have to do that, you can do a full blown sequel, but you might want to think about what works best for your story.

So between the inciting incident that starts things off and the climax, you've got some stepping stones. What are the scenes? And in between scenes, you've got sequels where the character reacts to what happened in the scenes.

Write!