Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Tuesday's Writer's Tip - Following the Scene - What next #MFRWauthor #Amwriting #BWL

The scene has finished and it definitely hasn't shown the focus character how to reach his or her goal. What comes next? According to Dwight V. Swain in Techniques of the Selling Writer, you need a sequence. This is defined as a bridge between one scene and the next.

The main character hasn't reached his goal. He or she has faced a defeat or been pushed into a side track. What does he or she do? A way must be found to push the story further. This is the sequence.
A sequence has several goals. One is to push toward the goal. Two is to move the story forward. Three is to control the tempo of the story.

For me this is the time when the focus character reacts to what has happened and to think of what he or she must do next to reach that illusive goal. It also gives me time to allow the reader to absorb what happened and to root for the character's success.

The character may set a different goal. Time enters into this. No one can make a decision in a moment. There needs to be time to think about what happened and why the goal needs to be changed. Now this doesn't mean theis should take pages to come to this decision. Something like for a week he or she struggled to find a way to reach the goal. He had a new plan to find an answer to the conflict. This can be done by summary of the time and the new thoughts on where the character is going and how he will reach the goal. This leads into the next scene.

1 comment:

Rosemary Morris said...

Thank you for sharing this.