I’m seeing the wisdom of breaking my work into scenes and sequels, but I’m a little confused about sequels: how long do they need to be? If a scene ends in disaster and I need to take my character from that right into another action, is what happens between those two scenes a sequel even if it’s only a paragraph or so? And more importantly, can there be action in a sequel, pushing the MC to the decision–or is that then just another scene?

“It’s possible to string together a whole series of scenes that all take place in the same place and happen one after another, each from a different POV.”

What about different POVs about events that take place at the same or at an overlapping chronological time? How can you cover the same (or not distinctly separate) time period from two different POVs?

I have a feeling it is kind of “not done” to have a following scene from a different POV which is not moving the story ahead chronologically, but is there another approach to the whole “meanwhile, back on the ranch … ” kind of thing?

In the meantime Randy, enjoy your birthday! Many happy returns and may God bless.

My critiquer complained that the story was too dark and breakneck. I intentionally added a few humerous scenes to slow things down and give the reader a breather. They aren’t sequel and don’t necessarily advance the plot, but they do deepen characterization and mileu. And, they bridge to the plot. Is this done?

I’ve found that using more than one POV character builds tension. Switching POV after a Decision or Diaster frustrates the reader but keeps them reading. It’s sneaky, but it works.

Birthday Blessings, Randy!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We have much to be thankful for all year long.

“If a character has a Goal, then you want to show Conflict that frustrates that Goal and a Disaster that destroys the Goal. All of those are a single emotive entity, and they need to be experienced by a single POV character.”

Great questions and great stuff, thanks. The words ‘frustrate’ and ‘destroy’ I can identify with. But “oatmealizing” will take a bit to digest.

So a question that comes to mind on the heels of Randy’s comment to Mary about literary fiction. Okay, a bunch of questions.

I’d like to know if, in general, the key elements to good storytelling that we talk about, like Scene/Sequel, apply more to commercial than literary fiction?

I guess I’m writing a relational drama, women’s fic. I have some chapters that move the story along but don’t have a disaster, unless it’s subtle. Can you have an emotive punch in a scene without a ‘disaster’? Isn’t humor an emotional experience? In a story about relationships and inner struggle, can inner conflict and interpersonal drama produce enough emotional experience? Or is it a hairy bore?

Don’t get me wrong, there are some major disasters in the story. But, since it’s not an action based story, I don’t have a big earth-shattering one in every scene.

Have a happy birthday and a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I’ve commented a couple of times, but don’t see it coming up in the blog, so if I need to do something different, I’m open to learning!!!!

Randy, I was glad to read your comment today about skimming through the previous day’s work to get into the right groove for your story before you start working on it again. I like to mentally “live” in my story world while I’m writing, but I don’t always get that luxury (I’m a married middle school teacher working on my masters in creative writing). The problem comes along when I’m reading something that is not written in my “style” or similar to my voice, and then I start mimicking that writer’s style! Not overtly, but in things like sentence length or sarcasm or pacing. You have mentioned reading several different types of fiction: do you ever face this challenge, or is it simply a freshman/sophomore thing?

Happy Thanksgiving/Birthday!

Davalynn

I know it will be one of those things that makes me slap my forehead and say “well duh!” when I finally understand the concept, but for now I get frustrated trying to “get it”. Yes, I have listened to your Fiction 101, Fiction 201 and also the tapes of Fiction 101 you did with Brandilyn Collins. Am I just hopeless?
Happy birthday, Randy, and Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Randy, I hope the celebration of your day is just what you love best. I’m celebrating this week too. Maybe we’re twins. NOT! I’ve got a couple of decades on you.

And Happy Birthday, Randy.