As I’ve noted before, one of the most common problems that I see amongst new writers is structure. Telling stories can be a surprisingly technical undertaking, and that’s something that your average newbie just doesn’t understand. Why should they? For reasons I’ve never understood, we don’t teach story structure in high school. I mean, your teachers might mention Three-Act structure in passing, but they never get into the actual mechanics of what makes it work, and they then compound the confusion by repeatedly asking students to do “creative” writing without first providing the tools to make that writing readable. And that causes two problems. The first is that it helps new writers learn the wrong lessons by accident, ultimately leading to a entirely false sense of security, and then, too, it makes them think that they can figure it all out on their own if they just struggle through it stubbornly enough. That’s not helpful. It’s true that some folks can instinctively find their way through some general storytelling, but even then, that’s usually because of an innate grasp of story and scene structure that they’ve learned through osmosis via excessive exposure to common storytelling media. More commonly, writers come up with workable ideas which they develop foolishly because they’re ignorant of what real story development is. This is then compounded by a lack of scene structure that makes so much amateur and fan-fiction utterly unreadable.
Story structure is the thing that prevents your idea becoming a mere series of random events that happen to the same set of characters. Scene and Sequel structure, then, are the things prevent your now structured narrative from going off the rails. They give good fiction its “I can’t put it down” factor. They drive the story by maintaining tension.
In my humble opinion, Scene structure is not too difficult so long as you remember one simple rule: in fiction, bad things have to happen to good people. In that sense, building a scene is a lot like building a story, only taken in microcosm. You start off with a character who wants something—passionately. The more he wants it, the more urgent is his need, the better. You then complicate the scene, putting as many obstacles in our hero’s way as possible. This is similar to what we saw in the Development phase of our Story structure discussion. In your scene, you want to set a goal, set an obstacle, and then make things worse. Look, when you put in twists and turns for our hero to overcome, you give him a chance to be heroic. The scene unfolds as he works his way through the issues, gradually pushing the issue to its climax. The climax is where Scene and Story structure differ. For a Story, you want to resolve all of the issues at the end, generally allowing your hero to triumph in the face of adversity. A single scene, however, doesn’t work that way. With Scene structure, you want to end on a disaster!
Why? Because if the hero wins out in the Scene, all the tension in your story goes out the window.
A great example of Scene structure comes at the beginning of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones wants to get into the tomb and get the golden idol. And although we don’t know from the start of the scene exactly what it is that he’s after, we know it’s important because we can see how determined he is. He faces a variety of traps and complications, overcoming them one by one. He looks heroic. At last, he comes into the main chamber, and we see the idol. It’s beautiful! It’s gold! Wow! Carefully, our hero crosses the chamber, pulls out his magic bag of sand, and swaps the sand for the idol, hopefully without triggering the trap. But then what happens? Disaster! The sand starts to sink, and the temple falls apart. Oh no!
And now we’ve set ourselves up for a whole ‘nother scene—Indy’s got to escape from the temple before he’s killed. And by the way, how does that scene end? Again, disaster! Indy escapes the tomb, but all his work is for naught when the evil Nazi archeologist pulls a gun and takes the idol, telling our hero, “You see Doctor Jones? There is nothing that you can possess, that I cannot take from you.” Or something like that. In any event, it’s that series of disasters that keep the story moving. We want to see Indy triumph! That’s what keeps us glued to our seats.
But although you can go from scene to scene to scene as a writer, eventually you have to slow the pace a little. Eventually, you have to stop long enough to take a breather, set up the next big thing, or otherwise let the audience catch its breath. And there’s backstory to consider. There’s simple description. Hell, there are even issues of clarity. That’s where Sequel structure comes into play.
A Sequel is the thing that comes after a Scene. And it’s what sets up the next Scene. It works like this: Following a serious reversal, our hero takes a moment to take stock of his situation, eventually coming to a resolution. He will push forward through the adversity, overcoming his challenges no matter what the odds!
For me, Sequel structure is a little more challenging. For one thing, during a sequel your characters really aren’t doing anything. They’re thinking. Plotting. Planning their next move. That’s occasionally necessary, but it’s also inherently less interesting. Sequels don’t move the plot forward. They provide a segue from one thing to the next. For that reason, you’re well advised to keep them brief—at least compared to your scenes.
Staying with the Indiana Jones theme, we get into Sequel structure when Indy gets back to America. He’s at the college, he goes to meet his boss, and he immediately starts recounting his adventures. That’s a necessary part of Sequel structure. You have to recap the situation. Put it into context for your readers. Indy then starts on about wanting to get back out there—also part of the Sequel structure, the explicit statement that Something must come Next, that our hero is still determined—but that’s when we jump into the next Scene. The men from the government are here to see Dr. Jones about the Ark. And with that, the story takes off on its new course.
Scene and Sequel structure are a little more complicated for gaming. For one thing, as a DM you don’t control the characters. The Players control the characters. And so, the characters’ drive and motivation is fundamentally up to them. You can do things to give motivation, but ultimately the Players have to make their own characters live. What you can do as a DM is keep an eye on the golden rule—in fiction, bad things have to happen to good people. The other thing you can do is utilize Sequel structure to segue quickly and effectively from one Scene to the next.
And then too, a big problem with Scene structure for gaming is that although encounters make good natural scenes, they also tend to end in triumph. Your PCs defeat the evil monsters, and the world is a somewhat safer place. Which would be fine if each scene were a separate story unto itself, but it presents a problem when you’re trying to link Scenes into a larger framework. Each time your PCs triumph, you risk letting the tension out of the story. And that’s no good. So then, you need to have an idea of what’s going to come next BEFORE you start each encounter. That way you can segue into it. You can set up some kind of non-combat disaster that will propel your PCs and your story onward.
With apologies to my own gaming group, here’s an example of a Sequel that I wrote just this morning for the Sellswords. After being stranded on a remote desert island, the group challenged and defeated a powerful black dragon named Scylla. They then defeated a group of elven mercenaries led by a young and impetuous silver dragon named Baelthus. In so doing, they’ve taken a prisoner—and possibly stirred up the wrath of a much more powerful ancient mithral dragon named Typhon. In this piece, I’m trying to use the threat of Typhon to turn their triumph into a little disaster that will keep our story moving. I also tried to set up the fact that our heroes need to make some important decisions—as part of the story’s Sequel—which will set their next course of action. Structurally, this is set up by our prisoner, who recaps the situation in order to put it into context and set up the decision. Our next Scene can then flow organically from whatever my Players decide they want to do.
Oddly, now that the battle’s over, the eladrin spear-sorcerer seems pleasant. Even charming. If he bears you any ill will over the deaths of his comrades, it’s buried deeply under his innate elven reserve. He drops his spear to show that he is unarmed and willing to surrender, but he’s still wearing a golden circlet upon his brow, and a close examination of his person reveals a sheathed wand hiding in his left boot. He was clearly holding this in reserve.
“My dear boy,” he says in response to Jaeron’s question, “where else could you possibly have gone? You didn’t follow us into the Feywild, and it’s not as though this is a big island. When Baelthus overflew the area and saw that you’d wrecked the lizardling village, well, it wasn’t hard to guess what you were after.” He gestures at the beached caravel. ”A chromatic dragon preys upon the pirates of the Sword Coast. It’s only natural that she’d have acquired a little ship as part of her horde, no? Of course, most Blacks wouldn’t go to the trouble of restoring a prize to quite this extent, but even so, Scylla is hardly unusual for her species. Why even Baelthus knew of this ship’s existence, and he’s hardly a member of Great Typhon’s inner circle. I doubt he’s ever even seen the Scrying Room.”
At that, the eladrin’s reserve cracks. But only for a moment. An instant later, his icy reserve is back. With a show of dignity, the elf brushes a bit of unseen dust from his shoulders one at a time.
“Well, you have me now, gentlemen. But what shall you do with me?” He looks directly at Baslim. “I tell you truly, Dead Man, that you cannot outrun Great Typhon forever. And whatever fate finally finds you, I can assure you that your companions will share in it—completely. What’s more, though I doubt that the Great One will care personally for the fate of one foolish Silver youngling and his followers, she was very interested in YOU. In all of you, actually. I do not pretend to be in the Mistress’s confidence, but I strongly doubt that she will allow you to simply sail away unmolested. It is, after all, no secret that she has been locked in the Divining Room ever since that massive storm blew you off course—and into her sphere of inlfuence. Alas, it goes without saying that the contents of her divinations are unknown to me, but I am aware—as you must be—that she possesses enough of the Spark of the Eternal to follow you wherever you might run. At this point, she probably knows your future course better than you do.
“Ahh… the Court has been pondering it all for days. As you might imagine, the mystery has only added to the intrigue. They were divided on the meaning of the portents—and upon your personal fate in general, Baslim—even before you ran. Now… Well, Baelthus’s actions speak to belief of the larger faction, I think. Desmond spoke for caution, but the more senior members—the dragons, you understand—they wanted action. Quite apart from your inclination towards violence and mischief—and your association, however casual, with evil deities—I think that the Court members were afraid that our haven’s existence might be discovered because of you, and that this might ultimately compromise the Great One’s mission… whatever it might be. The, uh, lives of a few inveterate slavers were but a small price to pay for our continued secrecy—at least as far as most of the Court was concerned.”
The eldarin shrugs. “Well, it matters not now. By right of victory the next move is yours.”
So. It’s little cut-scenes—or as in this case, cut-sequels—like that that I find useful in keeping my story moving. Not because I want to railroad the Players but because I want to be able to keep things in the proper context. The Players control the characters, but I control the World. We have to work together to keep it rolling along. My half of that is setting things up in such a way that the flexibility of the characters makes sense inside a larger context of the story through which they’re moving.
Anyway, that’s a few words on Scene and Sequel structure. If you want to see it done by a master, go pick up one of Jim Butcher’s many very readable novels. Note the Scene and Sequel structure of his storytelling and the way it keeps the plot humming along. The man is a master. I merely offer him up as an example of how to do this right.
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