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Messing with your reader

Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
Chesterama posted a link describing scene and sequel in another post:

Writing The Perfect Scene: Advanced Fiction Writing Tips

It was a good reminder for me, and looking back in my very horrible first draft I see some places where I definitely needed to add in some disasters lol.

But, I got this idea, and it is probably not super brilliant... In fact, I'm probably a total idiot for not thinking of it sooner, but I thought I would share anyway just on the off chance there is anyone else here who didn't think of it :)

Ok, so based on scene/sequel the scene must end in a disaster, or else the reader will get bored and turn the light out and go to sleep. If you make things too easy and the sequence goes like:

Goal
Obstacles
Success!

Then that is boring. Success shouldn't come until the end.

So then I was thinking, but wait, what if they need to get the magical amulet half way through the story in order to move the story forward? What if they can't do the next thing in the plot without the magical amulet? Boo to you Scene/Sequel.

But then I started thinking, what if I (the ever clever and brilliant author) made getting the amulet appear to be a disaster? What if I set up the scene so that the team started out searching for something else, like the princess, or a magical headband, or a fortune telling rabbit, and they failed in that quest, ending up with this dumb amulet? Oh! The Horror! The devastation!

But wait... Oh... is this amulet more than it seems?

Lo and behold it was what they needed all along!

Reader: Ohhhh, clever writer. You set it all up so it would appear like it was a disaster when really it wasn't.

So, that was my idea re: messing with the reader in terms of scene and sequel. Make it appear like it is a disaster, even if it isn't.

Thoughts on this?
 

Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
Yeah, I literally today wrote this super lame mini-heist scene where:

Goal: Ascend the brick building to the roof, then access the attic window.
Obstacles: Rain, the wind, ice, an unexpected person can see through one of the second-floor windows.
Disaster: None. They achieved success and reached the roof.

After rethinking scene/sequel today I'm going to re-write the scene, but change the goal so that reaching the roof is not a success, but a disaster.

So the new scene will look something like:

Goal: Scale the wall and access the second story window.
Obstacles: Rain, ice, the wind, brittle bricks falling apart.
Disaster: Oh No! Someone is in the second story room who shouldn't be there! Now, what? Change plans quick, go to the roof! Go to the roof!

So by the end of the scene, the reader has to read on because the goal has changed. Now, what are they going to do? They are on the roof and that was not the plan...

Except, it was my plan... (cue evil maniacal laughter).

It makes so much sense when I think about it now lol.
 
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Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
A scene doesn't have to end in disaster. There are four possible outcomes to a scene:yes you succeed, no you fail, yes you succeed but something bad happens because you succeeded, and finally no you fail and something bad happens too because you tried.

Be careful what you wish for, right?

So with the magic amulet it could be success you get the amulet, BUT it's cursed and a marshmallow dinosaur demon is now after your soul.
 
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Incanus

Auror
This reminds me of a part of my novel when I was working on the first draft.

I had a certain obstacle being set up for a while, and I had my characters come up with a plan for dealing with it. I kept writing, but as I neared the big scene, I realized that what they planned for was exactly what I was going to have happen.

When I recognized that, I said to myself, "Ah, crap. What the hell was I thinking? This can't go according to plan--how boring would that be?"

I was stumped for a day or two, until I realized that this was the perfect opportunity to bring a developing sub-plot crashing into the main plot, causing complications for both. It immediately felt right. Now, the plan goes awry (though it still gets resolved) and the sub-plot takes a new twist, all in the same moment.

There's still all the bad and mediocre writing in that section to deal with, but I'm pretty sure the structure behind it is OK.
 
Yeah, I literally today wrote this super lame mini-heist scene where:

Goal: Ascend the brick building to the roof, then access the attic window.
Obstacles: Rain, the wind, ice, an unexpected person can see through one of the second-floor windows.
Disaster: None. They achieved success and reached the roof.

After rethinking scene/sequel today I'm going to re-write the scene, but change the goal so that reaching the roof is not a success, but a disaster.

So the new scene will look something like:

Goal: Scale the wall and access the second story window.
Obstacles: Rain, ice, the wind, brittle bricks falling apart.
Disaster: Oh No! Someone is in the second story room who shouldn't be there! Now, what? Change plans quick, go to the roof! Go to the roof!

So by the end of the scene, the reader has to read on because the goal has changed. Now, what are they going to do? They are on the roof and that was not the plan...

Except, it was my plan... (cue evil maniacal laughter).

It makes so much sense when I think about it now lol.

Ha ha, clever!

I'm also reminded of something Mary Robinette Kowal mentions from time to time on Writing Excuses. Try-fail cycles usually take one of two paths, "no, and" & "yes, but."

So consider your original plan, where they are aiming to reach the roof. And, success! They do reach the roof. But on the roof is a hungry wyvern waiting for them. Uh oh. This is "yes, but." They do succeed in reaching their goal, but it's a little like out of the frying pan and into the fire.

But if the window is their goal and they can't make it, so they look to the roof instead and see a hungry wyvern staring back down at them, that's a "no, and." I.e., not only do they fail in their original goal, but their situation is made even worse than merely failing to enter through the window.

As for your original post....I do think that you need to be careful when toying with the reader. The goal of a scene should be persuasive in order to lead a reader through it, but if they fail and in the sequel you're like, "Surprise! They actually succeeded!" that can make readers feel they've wasted their time reading through whatever happened in the scene. What, you mean they never needed that magic bird cage, after all?! I think readers get into a flow, cycles of dread/tension and hope that build up, but when you introduce a surprise success like that, it can be jarring. Maybe the result depends on how important the original goal was (the build up, also) and what kind of surprise success you introduce afterward.

Edit: AND I see Penpilot commented as I was typing the above.....
 
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Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
To amend my post about only four possible outcomes, I haven't checked this out, but I think there maybe a fifth. No you fail, but something good happens.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
I'm fine with disasters being specifically just that: shit getting worse, etching slowly but surely towards the story's climax. I've never found satisfaction when an author pretends something is bad when it really isn't. So I don't write this way. Scene disasters can be really tiny things anyway. For example, I'm in the midst of writing a scene where the MC doesn't want to leave the house at all but her sister drops by to invite her out and is eventually persuasive enough. It's a disaster to the MC because she's kind of forced into going out (and we've all been there when we feel obligated to go do something social when we don't want to). But the outcome of that is she meets the dude of her dreams on that outing...just in the next scene. :)
 
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