Readers want action in the stories they read…but incessant action is not only tiring, it also gets to be boring as well. Following an action scene with a moment to pause and reflect on that action gives a rise and fall feel to your story…ebb and flow, inhale and exhale, yin and yang. Just another aspect of nature, though an important one. As day follows night, sleep takes turns with wakefulness, and up succumbs to down, your story needs to follow the natural flow. In the writing world, these two phases are referred to as Scene and Sequel, and they each have their own structure…which we will discuss in detail.
Note: When we talk about a scene (lower case ‘s’), we are talking about a single location, time, and POV. Every time we change location, time, or POV, we have a new scene…and that is indicated by a break of some sort: section, chapter, or dinkus. (Avoid using just a blank line as it may end up at a page break, and thus be invisible to the readers.) When we talk about a Scene (upper case ‘S’), we mean that part of a scene where the action occurs…which is then followed by a Sequel.
Scene
Each Scene is composed of three parts: Goal, Conflict, and Disaster. Leaving out any of these parts makes a Scene fall flat, so when Plotting out your story, list the GCDs for each Scene.
Now, let’s examine each of these parts.
- Goal
Your Hero wants or needs something. It must be some precise item, plainly identifiable—you should be able to point to it and name it. Without a Goal, your Hero is at the whim of the universe…passive and boring. You need a Hero who is going to do something because he wants to do it. Characters who want something are much more appealing than puppets…even if he’s a bad guy, he still has ambition, and that’s what readers want.
- Conflict
Despite having a Goal, he shouldn’t be able to achieve that goal…in spite of his actions towards it (sometimes because of his actions). There will always be some kind of difficulty…again, refer back to nature: there must needs be opposition in all things. Eventually he will accomplish something on his way to the Goal, but success has no worth if it comes without effort.
- Disaster
Now comes the good part. Regardless of his intent, his efforts turn sour, making his simple Goal now even more impossibly far away. Whatever he had wanted at the beginning, he now has more to deal with just to get things back to normal…so he can start working towards his Goal all over again.
If he did somehow manage to reach his Goal, the story would be over—no more reason to continue reading. The narrative would have ended. Even when you get to the actual end of your book, you can always leave a few questions open, yet to be tied up…leading to the next book in the series!
Sequel
Each Sequel is also made up of three parts: Reaction, Dilemma, and Choice. As with Scenes, listing out the RDCs for each scene as you plot helps keep the story in line.
Now that your Hero has messed things up even more than before, it’s time for him to sit back and ponder his next move. A Scene is for action…now is a time for re-action.
- Reaction
The first thing your Hero does is react emotionally to the Disaster that he’s just created, a gut reaction. He’s knocked off balance for a bit…he’s distraught and doesn’t know what to do. If you need time to pass, now is when you do it…not too much, though, because you can’t suffer indefinitely. Sooner or later he has to accept his mistake and check out the remaining opportunities.
- Dilemma
Unfortunately, there are no good opportunities, and if his Disaster was serious enough, there aren’t any opportunities at all. This is where he has to consider what to do next. Your readers will worry along with him…wondering what he could conceivably do next. Expanding on the horrific possibilities, he finds that none are what he wants, but he has to pick one.
- Choice
As with the Goal, your Hero is not a wimp—he doesn’t wait for someone else to do something. He is active and boldly goes forward and makes a choice, even though his options are few, and none of them are preferred. Hopefully, he selects the least bad one, but any choice is better than doing nothing. After this monumental choice, he now has a new Goal…and we circle back to another Scene where he is about to do it all over again.
Put Them Together
After a Scene comes a Sequel…and after a Sequel comes a Scene. Alternating through your story, those two elements give readers a feeling of tension, then relief, then more tension and more relief. Although the relief is never quite enough to eliminate the tension, so the tension continues to build.
When you’re ready to end your story, you can let the cycle come to a close…by either letting your Hero finally accomplish what he’s been trying to do all along…or by dishing out some final setback he will never recover from. Remember that throughout your whole story, the Hero is facing a Transformation…reaping either success or failure, life or death, renewal or destruction.
Properly done, the only complaint from your readers will be that they missed dinner because they couldn’t put your book down.