Jack M. Bickham’s Scene & Structure, chapter 5: Scenes with Results

Scene goals, conflicts, and disasters should be considered in terms of the scope, immediacy, finality and direction of the result.

A scene goal, for example, should be big enough to affect the course of the story, but not so large as to derail or end it entirely.

The goal must lead to a result with immediate effect, but not so much so that the action never pauses for a moment and the character can’t think, plan, or breathe.

A result that’s too final will end the story, but one that’s not final enough won’t be interesting (example: if turned down for a loan, there are four more banks in town to try).

A result that changes the direction of the whole story is also not good.

The conflict must be proportionate, not escalating too much or, on the other hand, blocking off angles of escalation for fear that it will get out of hand, only to leave it bland.

Ducking the conflict comes from shyness, fear or fatigue: being conflict-averse in real life (this is me), afraid you can’t write well enough to do it justice, or being mentally and emotionally weary from too many powerful scenes earlier in the book.

Overescalation is sometimes misinterpreted as “the characters taking over the story”. If your plot has gone off the rails, track back through your disasters looking for one that overshot (or undershot) in scope, immediacy, finality or direction.

If all that seems fine, perhaps you picked the wrong disaster, one that affected the later plot too much.

Scene planning exercise:

Write out a goal in 10 words or less.

Who is the conflict with, where, for how long?

At least four twists and turns in the conflict.

What is the disaster?

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