My post on Friday drew quite a few comments. I’m going to answer some of the questions that arose from that post:
Pam wrote:
Thanks for all your help! Would you be able to give an example of this type of scene writing. I think I’m doing it right, but I’m not sure. Can you name a few authors that write in this style?
Another question if you have time to consider it:
Alive Communications will not assign you an agent unless you have been published commercially or unless you have a referral by a published author. I haven’t had a novel published yet. This means I need a referral. And how do you do that? Any secrets?
Virtually all modern writers write in Scenes and Sequels. Some of them don’t know they are doing so. Most of them are somewhat aware of the structure of scenes. So, I’ll choose a book at random from my shelf . . .
Very good, PATRIOT GAMES, by Tom Clancy. An oldie but a goodie. Let’s analyze the first scene:
Our hero Jack Ryan is walking through the streets of London to meet his wife and daughter. (That’s the Goal.)
Just after he finds them, there’s an explosion not fifty feet away. Jack turns and sees three terrorists shooting up a Rolls-Royce which has been crippled by an RPG. No cops are in sight, so Jack races into the firefight, chop-tackles one terrorist from behind, grabs his pistol, shoots the terrorist in the hip to disable him, then gets into a gunfight with another. Jack gets shot in the shoulder, but he kills his opponent. The third terrorist speeds away from the scene. About that time, the London cops arrive and are none too sure whether Jack is a good guy or a bad guy. Jack persuades them that he’s a right fine Yank. (All of the above is the Conflict. Notice that the Conflict takes up most of the Scene. It’s supposed to.)
As the Scene closes, Jack suddenly realizes that he’s been shot in the shoulder and he’s bleeding like a pig. His wife, a doctor, takes charge and an ambulance arrives. About then, Jack passes out from the pain, but he is vaguely aware that his body is Seriously Damaged and May Not Survive. (That’s the Disaster.)
Folks, when Tom Clancy is on, he’s really on. This is a very strong scene, and PATRIOT GAMES is one of my faves by Clancy.
Homework: Study the following scene (which is a Sequel) and see how Clancy handles the Reaction, Dilemma, and Decision, if any.
Hmmm, Pam asked a bonus question on how to get an agent. With a top-level agency like Alive Communications, your best bet, if you have no books published, is to take a really, really good proposal with strong sample chapters to a writing conference and make some appointments with good agents. You should do your homework in advance to be sure the agency fits your needs.
Does it work to meet an agent at a writing conference? Of course it does! There is only one reason why major agencies allow their busy agents to take 4 or 5 days out of their life to travel across country to go to a writing conference. It’s not for their health. Good agencies are always looking for good clients, but they can’t ethically go trolling for clients of other agenices. So their #1 option is to meet unagented writers at conferences. If they find a good writer, they typically make decisions very quickly.
Camille asked:
How important is the S&S alternating pattern in the first couple chapters if you’re introducing people and cleverly disguised background info?
I have 2 characters who don’t meet for a while, and the chapters leading up to it ALTERNATE.
Maybe I’ve errantly assumed that a scene or sequel comprise a full chapter, and what I should be asking is: are scenes or sequels bound by chapter, are they combined in a chapter, or are they spread across chapters?
Randy sez: It is not so important to be alternating Scenes and Sequels. It is very important that any scene that you write should be EITHER a Scene OR a Sequel. It is very rare for me to see any scene in a book that isn’t one of those two. It is rarer still to see such a beast that actually works. Scenes work. Sequels work. Hardly anything else does.
I am a little concerned about your mention of “cleverly disguised background info.” This can work, but it needs to be quite subtle. Most writers (including me) believe that we just have to tell all that backstory or our reader won’t understand what’s going on. Well, what’s wrong with the reader not knowing everything? He or she will survive. The only truly fatal mistake you can make is to bore your reader so they set down the book and never pick it up again. When it comes time to edit your story, ask yourself just how much backstory is truly necessary in the early chapters. You may find that it’s a lot less than you imagine.
As for Scenes and Sequels, you can lay them out however you like in a chapter. I typically include 2 or 3 scenes (a “scene” here means either a Scene or a Sequel) per chapter, depending on how long they are. Each one averages 4 or 5 pages. I feel no obligation to put the Sequel in the same chapter with its preceding Scene. I feel no obligation to show all the Sequels. (I do know what they are, but I may choose to not show them.)
The only obligation I feel is to give the reader a Powerful Emotional Experience. That’s the only goal. Whatever choice of Scenes and Sequels I make is designed to do that as well as I can. If I omit Sequels, that’s the reason. If I switch POV characters, that’s the reason. That’s the only criterion.
We’ll talk more about all this tomorrow . . .
This is really great stuff, Randy. I love the scene / sequel concept – but the things you’ve explained in these last couple of posts have taken me well beyond what I’d understood about them.
The idea of not all sequels having to occur “on screen”, and that it isn’t necessary to always have scene, sequel, scene, sequel ad infinitum really makes the whole structure seem much more dynamic to me.
Thanks for this.
Yes, thank you again, Randy. This is so much clearer than what was in your article on S&S and Fiction 101 and 102. I’m beginning to understand this a whole lot better.
Just one request, if possible. Could you please show us an example from one of your books where you deal with one character’s Scene and another character’s Sequel at the same time? I’m a visual learner; I like examples I can study rather than just instruction. 🙂
When I learned about Scenes and Sequels a while back, it opened a whole new world for me with regards to writing my novel. I was reworking the outline of my novel and I suddenly started seeing a lot more structure in my story.
What I found especially interesting was visualizing this structure. I began to write out my scenes by putting keywords on a timeline which represented my novel through the various acts. I then associated these scenes by writing down if they were Scenes or Sequences. What I saw was truly amazing. There was a definitely exciting plot in my story.
I started drawing arrows between my scenes. I drew them going up if the tension rose, down if it dropped and level if nothing much happened. Luckily, most Scenes had tension rising and a few Sequels had a somewhat level arrow (but still going slightly up). I actually added some elements to my timeline through quick notes that would make a scene be more exciting than the previous one, in an attempt to keep the suspense rising.
This timeline is going on my wall as a clear roadmap of how my novel should turn out once I start on my first draft.
The only obligation I feel is to give the reader a Powerful Emotional Experience. That’s the only goal. Whatever choice of Scenes and Sequels I make is designed to do that as well as I can. If I omit Sequels, that’s the reason. If I switch POV characters, that’s the reason. That’s the only criterion.
Thanks, Randy. That helps answer my previous question.
LOve this site. I am so grateful to Randy for listening to the Lord to help all of us be better writers.
I have another question, or rather an observation. :-S
Often when I critique new writers work, I notice their Scene and Sequel elements aren’t always clearly defined. A scene can start off as a Scene but end as a Sequel, or vise versa.
It obviously gets a bit tricky trying to balance the two in one scene.
If a writer is attempting to incorporate a Sequel into a Scene, how much Sequel detail should they get into?
On a side note: I’m also a bit of a mapper when it comes to writing. I love Randy’s spreadsheet idea and use my own version for my wips. Last week I completed a 10,000 Words in a Week Challenge and before I started a new scene, I looked at my spreadsheet, decided what scene I was going to write, then worked out if it was to be a Scene or a Sequel. I then noted down the key elements to keep me on track as I wrote. It really helped me write in a more organized manner.
I also have a separate form I’ve made up with all the key factors laid out for when I critique work, including a one line summary. It helps me to keep track of the important details and see how well the tension mounts throughout the wip.
Like Camille, I also have two characters that do not meet for a while. Although there are three chapters containing the loose threads, which will eventually make up the total strand of the story, each of these three chapters contain enough of goal, conflict, and disaster to create a need for their sequels later when the threads are tied together. These chapters are technically backstory, but it is written at the time these events happen, and there is very little narrative in there. Mostly action and dialogue. Will that be okay?
Randy, thanks again for answering my questions about alternating Scene – Sequel, that really helps!!
It actually clears up much of the trouble I was having in clearly defining/recognizing those 6 different elements. I don’t know where I got the idea that there would ONLY be goal/conflict/disaster in one chapter, followed by ONLY reaction/dilemma/decision in the next. Probably the same place I got the idea that if you feed teenagers they’ll go away. Whew! I feel free now. I can even see some S&S’s properly at work in MY story, and I didn’t even know I was doing it.
Of course, now I’m tempted to take the 22 chapters I have so far and use each chapter like a textbook exercise, practicing everything I’ve been learning here. (I’ve been out of school way too long.)
And fear not… I was loosely using the phrase “cleverly disquising background info”. I understand there is no backstory dumping allowed. I was thinking more along the lines of sneaking in description of people or places, or pertinent memories of people you’re about to meet, during dialogue or mental monologue. But… maybe that still counts as dumping???
Camille Says:
I don’t know where I got the idea that there would ONLY be goal/conflict/disaster in one chapter, followed by ONLY reaction/dilemma/decision in the next.
Probably the same place I did. 🙂 When I first started reading about Scenes and Sequels, that’s how I read it to be. Things are much clearer now.