I've Been Thinking About...Sequels

Though probably not the kind you think I'm thinking about

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This is my somewhat-random-but-lately-it’s-been-on-Thursdays series about things related to writing that occur to me as I work. I try to make these posts helpful but not too lengthy. The hope is to offer information you can use in your writing immediately. This week the topic is sequel. As in scene and sequel. Which, if you haven’t heard about, it quite the handy thing to know.

The Problem

A question for you: how do you handle those quieter scenes that come between active chapters, where you need to show your character in her ordinary world or give the reader some information? Nothing big is happening, no inciting incident, turning point, or bleakest moment. How do you keep those scenes from becoming flat, one-note, and boring?

This is the issue I faced this week. I needed to show my character in her daily milieu, allow her to think about her backstory, give the reader a clue into her thought process. But man oh man was it ever boring. And it just didn’t feel right to me. The whole thing was off.

I wasn’t even sure what you’d call such a scene. In my mind, I was referring to them as transitional scenes, which in a way, they are. They are in-between-ish.

So then I realized, perhaps my proto needed a goal. What was it? Well, c’mon, it was to get the information out to the reader. So that didn’t work. But suddenly from the deep recesses of my brain a word surfaced.

A light dawns

And that word was sequel.

It applied more specifically to the writing concept called Scene and Sequel, which, once I refreshed my memory by checking with the Google, turned out to solve my problem.

Here’s a simple way to look at it:

Scene = action

Sequel = reaction.

In a scene, shit happens and the proto has to deal with it. In a sequel, the character processes the action of the previous chapter and decides what to do next. A sequel gives you, the author, the chance to let your character rest a bit. It gives you a chance to delve into what she’s thinking. It gives you opportunity to reveal backstory and motivation.

How to work it

The thing is, the sequel idea also gave me a template for making the chapter interesting. Because, a sequel follows this sequence:

Reaction—dilemma—decision

Reaction

Your character is thinking about what happened previously. But, since we are not yet at the end of the book, she can’t just think about it and sashay off into the sunset. She needs to think about it because something happened before that confronts her with a problem. The action from the preceding scene needs to lead somewhere. That somewhere is what she’s pondering.

Dilemma

What will she do? She is presented with no good options, because you are writing her story and you are a mean author who likes to give her lots of conflict in her life. As she is pondering her plans, you, the mean author, can give the reader access to her mental life, memories and thoughts that inform who she is at this juncture. And finally…

Decision

Et voila! She reaches a decision about what she will do next to overcome those obstacles. And that catapults her into the next action scene.

This is a quick overview of the concept of the sequel. I have found it enormously helpful and so of course I offer it to you. This article about it goes into more depth and also has a nifty recap of the elements of a scene.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Lay them on me!

If you found this information helpful, please click that little heart to like it. And feel free to share it with a writing or creative friend.

See you on Sunday for my weekly love letter. And Artist Way-ers, I’ll see you tomorrow for the zoom!