Scenes and sequels are the building blocks of fiction. Following the way in which we live our lives in pursuit of goals as humans, scene and sequel provides a logical yet flexible structure for fiction writers. Scenes engage the reader by creating drama and moving the story forward with conflict, action and dialogue. sequels clarify the meaning of scenes that went before summarizing events between scenes and giving characters new goals to move forward with. In techniques of the selling writer Dwight the swings 1965 writers guide, Swain defined a scene as a unit of conflict lived through by character and reader and a sequel, as a unit of transition that links to scenes. As humans, we live our lives in pursuit of goals.

Following the same pattern of seen and sequel that Dwight Swain recommends to writers, we form long term goals and short term goals. We're motivated to take action toward our goals. When we take action, we often experience opposition. When we fight the opposition, we sometimes lose. Even when we win, the victory frequently comes with a price. After each battle, we experience a variety of emotions.

We review what happened experience the dilemma of trying to figure out what to do next. And finally, we form a new goal. When we put our new goal into action, the cycle begins again. We may win a battle only define there's another obstacle ahead. We fight that next battle and another If we're persistent and perhaps lucky, we finally win our goal. Victory.

This is the story of human life goals conflict and struggle wins and losses disasters, regrouping and rising again to fight the next battle. When you write good fiction that follows your life patterns as our life patterns as humans, you enable the reader to suspend disbelief and step into your story world. That's what you want. And it's what your reader wants. When Dwight Swain taught writers about scene and sequel in the 1960s he wasn't suggesting anything new. What Swain did was to focus on the goal motivation conflict pattern of human lives, omitting the in consequential details.

I love the simplicity of the scene in SQL model that Swain gave two writers here it is The structure of a scene one goal to conflict three disaster swaying suggest three possible disaster answers in response to the question, does the focal character achieve the goal? They are no focus character point of view character does not achieve the goal. The second one, no And furthermore, something else went wrong. The third yes the focal character does achieve the goal but there's a catch. So the focal character in every one of those leaves the scene with a problem. What's next wonders the reader.

The answer comes in the sequel. The sequel structure is equally simple. One reaction to dilemma three decision when I first read about seen in secret Well, I asked the same question that may be in your mind right now. Must the scene always end in a disaster? I can't think of any better answer to this question than the one Swain gives in his book. The disaster says swing must raise an intriguing question for the future a question designed to keep your reader reading.

To that end swaying continues, no better device has ever been conceived than the confrontation of your focal character with disaster. Given the popularity of disaster written stories, I've come to the conclusion that Swain is right. If everything is resolved, at the end of a scene, there's nothing left to maintain reader suspense. So my suggestion is that the wise author will keep the reader wondering about the outcome until the very last satisfying scene, but feel free to give your character complete victory in the final scene of this story, unless you're writing a series let's look at a simple example of seen in sequel. The same goal, our viewpoint character, Alex has entered a debate she wants to win the debate and the prize money. conflict.

The debate begins. Alex's three bonus also want to win. But Mark is the only one she's worried about in the debate. The exchange conflict between Alex and Mark becomes heated. disaster. Let's pick disaster number two No.

And furthermore, Alex loses the debate. That's no And furthermore, she discovers that Mack who she called an idiot in the debate is her new boss at the part time job she desperately needs in order to pay her University fees. The sequel this Alex does reaction. emotionally. She's furious with Max for winning and with yourself for letting him win. She's also deeply disappointed and worried about money.

Dilemma. Emotions exhausted she ponders her financial dilemma, revealing her options her mom has no money to spare and she hates the thought of approaching her estranged father. Finally she comes to a decision. Point three. She decides that the only option is to apologize to Matt for calling him an idiot and beg him for more shifts that are part time job and just hope that works. Note that the characters decision at the end of the sequel leads right into a future scene.

So the scene with the disaster leads into the sequel leads into the scene. And with each scene and sequel, train to the next the reader is constantly in a page Turning state of wondering what's going to happen next. So now that we've explored scene and SQL in a little more detail, it's time to look at what happens when scene and sequel, meet those modes of discourse that we've been using in the course, to control pacing. We'll do that in the next video. Thanks for watching.