How to Write Scenes and Sequels

This is a post I’ve wanted to write for a very long time. Scenes and sequels are the bread and butter of writing. In a sense they are the cellular structures that ensure the rest of the structure works right. This is in many ways what good fiction writing boils down to. If you’re purely a reader I advise stopping here. This is the kind of knowledge that can absolutely ruin fiction for you. Many great authors never enjoy reading as much after learning these elements of writing.

Still with me? Great!

Scenes and sequels are often misunderstood for one reason, people think that sequel means the next story in a series. That is a definition, I’m certain we all can agree that, but it’s not the only one. Where scenes show us the action of the story, the literal events themselves sequels are more subtle and set the scenes up. They are what we see when a character fails and has to come up with a new plan to move forward through the story. These elements fit in nicely rolling one after the other from beginning to end of a story. It’s just that simple, yet it’s so much more complex.

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Scenes can be broken down into three major parts, goal, conflict, and disaster.

Goal: This isn’t the end goal of the story. You need to know that. If you’re still thinking that give your head a good thump to clear it before moving on. Got it out? Good. This goal is something small. It’s something that can be solved or failed by the end of the scene. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to attempt and should almost always fail. For example sake we’ll have a super badass, yet somehow still high school attending lead singer of a local metal band wanting to invite her crush to her next show.

Conflict: What events get between the character and their goal? They need to be significant obstacles. I can’t stress that enough. It’s not enough that the lead cheerleader in your romance story just walked up to your main character’s love interest and started a conversation they need to invite them to a party and make it feel personal, or reach up for a kiss while ensuring your protagonist sees it. Conflict ratchets up the stakes and makes the goal more difficult to attain.

Disaster: This is where the goal is failed. Your protagonist doesn’t get to drop off the invite to the their heavy metal band concert and the cheerleader walks away whispering sweet nothings in his ear because when they tried to push forward through the crowd and tried to pull him aside she accidentally grabbed a random person who happens to be terrified of her who starts screaming about assault.

Those are the three elements of a scene. There is a bit more to it but I will get to that after we cover sequels because these elements pertain to both in the same way.

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Sequels are where the characters get to react to the scene that just unfolded and plan how to approach the goal better, or make a new goal altogether. These too are made of three different parts, reaction, dilemma, and decision.

Reaction: Reactions are their emotions about what just happened. Emotions happen at the speed of immediacy. That is why we have this first. So in our continuing example she probably feels angry. Not only did her quarry escape her but some punk thinks she’s trying to beat them up and steal their lunch money. The rage may be followed by embarrassment. The choice is yours really, just make sure to show it.

Dilemma: The dilemma itself is split into two parts, reviewing the facts and reviewing the options available. The key to this section is to keep all of the options bad. The worse the better. The kid is screaming and she is angry she could try to shut the kid up by forcing his head into a trash can in front of everyone and look like a monstrous bully but still have a chance to run after her crush before next class starts, or she could start defending herself and trying to explain the situation and lose the opportunity.

Decision: Usually you need to take the decision that is both the worst and drives the story toward its overall goal the most. So we have madame metalhead decide to rock and sock the screamer, placing him squarely in a trashcan so she can confront this dude. It doesn’t matter that she’ll be suspended and look like a monster she’s one track minded. That isn’t because women are one track minded, because they aren’t, it’s because protagonists going after a goal are desperate for it. They need this goal and they will pursue it like a person with a deathwish to prove it to us.

And then you start back over again with a new goal for a scene.

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I mentioned that there were something more to all of it. This is something I only just came across and haven’t had a chance to use yet but it really does help with the understanding of how these parts are written and connected. It’s a concept I’ve seen referred to as Motivation-Reaction Units, and they help you outline each of the three sections of your scenes and sequels.

There are four parts to the Motivation-Reaction Unit, reader’s sight, feeling, reflex, and rational action and speech, and they have to go in this order.

Reader’s sight: This is what we have shown the reader for them to understand the rest of the reactions that drive it. When miss metalhead pops up on the scene with a concert ticket in hand that’s what this is.

Feeling: This is the character’s feelings about what is going on. Is she nervous? Good. You don’t need to directly say this part but it’s important for the next part.

Reflex: Reflex is the instinctual reaction. This is us showing the protagonist is nervous by having her tug at her wrist bands as she approaches her goal.

Rational action and speech: This is the conscious behavior she exhibits. It’s when she heads straight to where she knows her crush is between classes, it’s how she es her locker on the way knowing she’ll have to come back before the next class. These are the decisions that while may be poor decisions drive each segment into the next, and the next, ad infinitum.

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That is all of it. Let’s go ahead and use this to create a sample outline of a scene and its sequel so you can see how this works to create an outline.

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Scene:

Goal: Madame Metalhead Kate wants to invite Tod to her next concert.

Sight: Kate head down the hall clutching the concert ticket. She looks determined.

Feeling: She’s nervous. Inner monologue she’s nervous about asking this guy out to see her band. She wants to impress him.

Reflex: She tugs at her arm bands and scratches at her arms as she walks.

Rational Action and Speech: She walks past her friends, her locker, and everything she needs for the next class to try and make it to where Tod can normally be found at this time.

Conflict: Sabrina the cheerleader approaches Tod and audibly invites him over to her house after school for a party.

Sight: Sabrina moves in on Kate’s goal beating her there.

Feeling: Twisting guts. The butterflies in her belly turn to daggers. She skips a step and almost trips.

Reflex: Kate curses that interfering harpy in her head and moves a little faster toward her quarry.

Rational Action and Speech: As Tod and Sabrina turn away Kate dashes forward and grabs at his arm. Only she gets pushed to the side as she darts forward and grabs a smaller student by the shoulder, slamming him to the wall.

Disaster: Kate has grabbed the wrong man, and worse yet it’s Bill Joe a scrawny pipsqueak of a boy who is terrified of Kate. He starts screaming about assault.

Sight: Kate collides with a burly football player and is misdirected into poor Bill Joe who ends up pinned to the wall in a compromising position.

Feeling: Bill Joe pales in terror, and Kate growls in frustration.

Reflex: Kate grips Bill Joe’s shoulder harder

Rational Action and Speech: Bill Joe begins screaming that he is being assaulted.

Sequel:

Reaction: Kate is absolutely livid and embarrassed that Bill Joe thinks she is assaulting him.

Sight: Kate scrunches up her face in frustration and let’s Bill go.

Feeling: She’s angry and red in the face

Reflex: She lurches aggressively at Billy.

Rational Action and Speech: She pulls herself back and clenches her hands into fists to think.

Dilemma:

Sight: Kate pulls off of Billy giving him room to escape.

Feeling: She looks like she wants to run away but the shouting is keeping her there.

Reflex: She looks over her shoulder at the growing crowd and opens her mouth to start defending herself.

Rational Action and Speech: She pauses on that. Why should she have to defend a clear accident? This punk shouldn’t start making problems for her, right? She threatens to throw him in the trash if he won’t shut up and steps up to him menacingly.

Decision:

Sight: Bill panics and tries to run as Kate grabs him by the collar and his belt.

Feeling: Kate smiles

Reflex: Kate talks trash and digs herself into a deeper hole.

Rational Action and Speech: As the entire hallway is stunned into silence she makes her break to talk to Tod and try this whole thing over again.

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These clearly aren’t the best examples of how each of these mechanics works together but they should serve to give you an idea of how you can begin practicing with them. Using this should help to improve most of our writing games and really improve the quality of the content we create for this Amino and our chances of telling a memorable story.

Feel free to use this as a prompt and share what you create using #scenesequelworkshop I hope to see some stories and outlines out there soon. Until then, best of luck and keep writing.