Scene and sequel is Dwight V. Swain's way of building a story from two kinds of unit that take turns: a scene, where a character goes after a goal and fails (goal, conflict, disaster), and a sequel, where they react, face a dilemma and decide on a new goal (reaction, dilemma, decision). The new goal starts the next scene, and the chain runs to the end of the book.
Swain set it out in chapter 4 of Techniques of the Selling Writer (1965), "Conflict and How to Build It", which opens: "A story is a chain of scenes and sequels." Swain taught in the University of Oklahoma's professional writing program for over twenty years, and the book is still in print with the University of Oklahoma Press. Every quote from it below is from that press's edition (1973).
What Is a Scene in Scene and Sequel?
Swain: "A scene is a unit of conflict lived through by character and reader." He calls it a blow-by-blow account of somebody's "time-unified effort to attain an immediate goal" against opposition, and gives it three parts, "Goal . . . conflict . . . disaster."
| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| Goal | What the point-of-view character wants, right now, in this scene |
| Conflict | Whatever stands in the way, met head on |
| Disaster | The scene ends with the character worse off than when it began |
He gives a scene two jobs: "To provide interest" and "To move your story forward." The opposition itself can take many forms, from a rival or a storm to the character's own fear, and the types of conflict in literature sets them out.
The disaster is the part writers resist, and Swain is blunt about why it is there: "Disaster is a hook." It is the reason a reader turns the page. Jack Bickham, who also taught writing at Oklahoma, keeps the same three parts in Scene & Structure (1993), "in that order", and names two kinds of disaster that don't need a catastrophe: the "Yes, but!" (the character gets the goal, with a new problem attached) and the "No, and furthermore!" (they don't, and things get worse).
What Is a Sequel?
Swain: "A sequel is a unit of transition that links two scenes." Where the scene is action, the sequel is "aftermath": the character takes in what just happened and works out what to do next. Its three parts, in his words, are "Reaction . . . dilemma . . . decision."
| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| Reaction | The feeling first: the disaster lands |
| Dilemma | The options, none of them good |
| Decision | A choice, which is a new goal |
He gives the sequel three jobs: "To translate disaster into goal. To telescope reality. To control tempo." The last two matter in practice. A sequel can cover a night of brooding in a paragraph, and a long one slows the book down where a reader needs to breathe. Sequels are one of the main tools of pacing in a novel, alongside scene and summary and sentence length. At the end, the character "pinpoints it in a decision to attack a new goal", and the next scene begins.
Bickham splits the sequel into four: "emotion . . . thought . . . decision . . . action", with the new action leading into the next scene.
How Do Scenes and Sequels Fit Together?
They alternate. Scene, sequel, scene, sequel: the disaster of one scene is what the sequel reacts to, and the decision at the end of the sequel is the goal of the next scene. Nothing in the chain is idle, because every unit is caused by the one before it. What the chain doesn't tell you is where the book should start and stop; Orson Scott Card's MICE Quotient is a tool for exactly that.
The alternation is a rule of thumb, not a law. Asked whether you can open on a sequel, Swain answers "Yes, of course." Bickham gives a whole chapter, "Scene-Sequel Tricks to Control Pace", to bending the pattern: stretching sequels to slow the book, cutting them to almost nothing to speed it up, or running scene after scene in a chase. Swain's own conclusion is the encouraging one: "If you can write scene and sequel, you can write stories."
Randy Ingermanson, who designed the Snowflake Method, brought the pattern to a wider audience online in his article "Writing the Perfect Scene", in which he calls Swain's book "the finest book ever written on how to write fiction."
A Worked Example
A ferry pilot, Mara, has to get medicine to her brother on the island before a storm closes the strait.
- Scene. Goal: take the ferry out tonight. Conflict: the harbourmaster has closed the port, and he won't hear her. Disaster: he takes her keys.
- Sequel. Reaction: fury, then fear for her brother. Dilemma: wait for morning and he may not last; take the ferry anyway and lose her licence. Decision: her uncle's old fishing boat, which nobody has started in years.
- Scene. Goal: get the old boat out of the harbour. Conflict: the engine won't turn over, and the harbourmaster's lantern is coming down the quay. Disaster, "Yes, but!": she gets out, and the storm arrives early.
Each disaster is the next sequel's starting point, and each decision is the next scene's goal.
How Do You Plan Scenes and Sequels in Deckle?
Deckle is a novel-writing app, and its Outliner is a board of cards, one for every document in the book, each with a synopsis. That is enough to plan a scene-and-sequel chain before you write it.
- Open the Outliner on the Draft and add a scene for each unit with Add › Scene, in order.
- In each scene's synopsis, write its three parts: goal, conflict and disaster, or reaction, dilemma and decision.
- Read the chain. Each disaster should lead to the next synopsis, and each decision should be the next goal.
- Mark which is which. Open one scene, make two labels called "Scene" and "Sequel" (the pencil beside Status in the Inspector's Properties opens Edit labels & statuses), and set one on every card.
- Switch the Outliner to its list. Every unit is a row with its label, so long runs of scenes or a sagging stretch of sequels show at a glance.
A unit in this sense isn't always a separate document, and a scene is not the same thing as a chapter: a chapter can hold a scene and its sequel, or several of each. The Outliner is also where you move them around when the draft changes the plan, and where a larger shape such as the three-act structure can sit above the chain as folders.
Common Mistakes
- Ending a scene with success. If the character simply gets what they want, there is nothing to react to. Use a "Yes, but!" instead.
- Making the disaster random. It has to come out of the conflict in that scene, or it reads as the author interfering.
- Skipping the sequel. Scene after scene with no reaction leaves a reader breathless and the character flat. Even one paragraph of reaction and decision helps.
- A sequel that never decides. Brooding without a decision stalls the book. The sequel ends on a new goal.
- Treating the pattern as a law. Swain and Bickham both vary it for pace, and both say so.
FAQ
Who created scene and sequel?
Dwight V. Swain, in Techniques of the Selling Writer (1965). Jack Bickham developed it further in Scene & Structure (1993).
What are the parts of a scene?
Goal, conflict and disaster. The point-of-view character wants something, meets opposition, and ends the scene worse off.
What are the parts of a sequel?
Reaction, dilemma and decision. Bickham's version is emotion, thought, decision and action.
Does every scene have to end in disaster?
In Swain's pattern, yes, but a disaster can be partial. Bickham's "Yes, but!" gives the character the goal along with a new problem.
Do scenes and sequels have to alternate?
No. Alternation is the default. Both Swain and Bickham vary it to control pace, and Swain says a story can open on a sequel.
Sources
Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer (University of Oklahoma Press, 1973; first published 1965), chapter 4, "Conflict and How to Build It". Read through the Internet Archive's lending copy (archive.org).
- Jack M. Bickham, Scene & Structure (Writer's Digest Books, 1993), chapters 4, 7 and 8 (archive.org).
- Randy Ingermanson, Writing the Perfect Scene, Advanced Fiction Writing.
- Dwight V. Swain, Wikipedia, for his years in the University of Oklahoma's professional writing program.