Units of Fiction

We all want to write effective fiction.

At its most basic, fiction is just words in a row on page.  We organize the words into sentences, the sentences into paragraphs, and the paragraphs into larger units. In fiction, we can think of these larger units in a variety of ways. These ways of thinking inform how we craft our stories even when we aren’t totally conscious of using them.

Taxonomy is the practice of classifying things or ideas.  It breaks the whole into understandable units.  We can apply the practice of taxonomy to fiction, but what units of fiction should we classify?  Scenes, maybe?  Or how about chapters?  Then, there’s the more esoteric idea of “scene/sequel” pairs.  Each of these units of fiction includes valuable seeds from which effective fiction grows. 

This is a look at these seeds and how they relate to each other.

What is a scene, anyway?

In The Art of Fiction, John Gardner writes that a scene is

…an unbroken flow of action from one incident in time to another…The action within a scene is ‘unbroken’ in the sense that it does not include a major time lapse or a leap from one setting to another…

This is a good, even excellent, intuitive notion of what constitutes a scene. Gardner’s advice tended to be densely written and thus we can deduce much from the above kernel.

A scene is a unit of storytelling where the character or characters engage in action and in interaction with each other and the fictional world. This action takes place at a single point in time and in a single location. Scenes should

• have a purpose;
• advance character or plot, and preferably both; and
• have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

A story is a sequence of related scenes.

Not all scenes advance the plot in the same way, which brings us to the next topic.

Scene and Sequel

All scenes have a purpose, but not all scenes have the same purpose.

In 1965 Dwight Swain wrote Techniques of the Selling Writer, the first and probably still the most influential “how-to” book for aspiring authors. The ideas in his book influenced an entire generation of screenwriters and authors, an influence that continues today in countless successor how-to books.

Gardner gives us an objective definition of a scene, kind of like a scientist answering the question, “what is magnetism?” Swain, on the other hand, gives us a functional definition of the units of fiction. This is more like an engineer drawing up the design specifications for an electric motor.

Both the objective and functional approaches have value. Indeed, one could argue that Swain’s approach really divides Gardner’s “scenes” into two different types, depending on their purpose in advancing the story. But it’s the engineering aspect of Swain’s approach that explains why it’s still so influential: it tells the author how to effectively construct and string together fictional units to make a compelling story.

One small problem is terminology. Swain divided the units of storytelling into what he called “scenes” and “sequels,” depending on the role they play in advancing plot and developing tension. Technically, Swain’s units of storytelling are both “scenes” in the objective sense of Gardner’s definition, although they are quite different in the functional sense of their purpose in the story.

Swain’s use of the terms “scene” and “sequel” makes perfect sense in the context of his analysis. It’s unfortunate—and confusing—that today there are two different uses of the term “scene” in the theory of fiction, but it is what it is. It’s important that the thoughtful author understand both and be able to apply each where appropriate.

So, here we go.

For Swain, a “scene” is a unit of conflict in a story. It involves action to attain a goal in the face of opposition. A scene has three elements.

• Goal;
• Conflict; and
• Disaster.

The purpose is to stimulate interest and advance the plot.

A sequel, on the other hand, is a unit of fiction that links two scenes. A sequel has three elements

• Reaction;
• Dilemma; and
• Decision.

The purpose of a sequel is to translate disaster into goal, establish the new reality, and control pace. It gives characters the opportunity to reflect and adjust, so it provides momentary relief from tension. For Swain, a successful story is a sequence of scene/sequel units strung together. Each scene sets up the next sequel, and each sequel sets up the next scene. The process repeats over and over, in a loop.

This simple idea has incredible power. Pick almost any successful film starting in the 1970s, and you’ll these ideas in practice. The same is true for many successful novels appearing beginning about the same time. Sometimes the “sequel” section is brief, but it’s almost always there. These ideas tie the structure of the story to tension, which is the engine that propels fiction.

At its most fundamental, Swain’s idea is that a story is a sequence of action/reaction units. Tension drives the story, but unrelenting tension is exhausting. The sequel interludes give the characters—and the readers—time to pause and reflect. The sequel is what elevates the next round of tension, often increasing the opposition or raising the stakes of failure. The pianissimo prelude powers the fortissimo coda.

The basic notion of action/reaction is so fundamental it’s even useful at more granular levels. It’s an interesting exercise to apply it sentence by sentence in a (conventional) scene. You show a character acting in one sentence, and in the next sentence you show the consequences (reactions) of said action. It’s the way we experience life, so it makes sense that this approach breathes life into fiction.

Chapters

Chapters can also be a structural element of fiction, especially longer pieces like novels. Chapters can serve any number of purposes. For example, almost no one will read your two-hundred page novel in one sitting, so chapters provide a natural breaking point for readers.

Chapters also can serve broader purposes in your story’s narrative arc. For example, in The Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell provided an outline for the monomyth, i.e., stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure or quest, is victorious in a decisive battle, and returns home changed. George Lucas famously used these ideas in scripting the Star Wars movies. If he’d been writing a novel instead, the chapters might have had titles that aligned with Campbell’s ideas, such as “Call to adventure” or “The Abyss.” These are milestones in the superstructure of the narrative, each building on the prior one.

For another example, a romance novel might have a structure that includes steps in the developing relationship between the romantic leads–things like “the precipitating incident,” “the first kiss,” and “all is lost.” Romance novels might all have similar plots centered around love found, then lost, and finally regained, but the variations are endless and the story arc has critical stops along the way.

The three act play structure is another guide to segmenting a story into recognizable units.

Finally, sometimes an author will use a chapter break whenever there is a change in the point-of-view. In romance novels, it’s not uncommon for the point of view to alternate between the romantic leads, for example.

The point is that chapters can and usually do serve a different purpose from scenes or scene/sequel pairs. A chapter can be all one unbroken scene, consisting of continuous action in a single time and place, or it could consist of several such scenes. Chapters could alternate in scene/sequel pairings, but they could also end in the middle of such a pairing.

One thing a chapter needs to do is give the reader a reason to turn the page. Sure, you want to provide a break for your readers so they can fix dinner, sleep, or whatever. But you also want to be sure that they come back to find out what happens next. In particular, every chapter except possibly the last should end in a hook–a little barb that pulls the reader back to the story. Indeed, the most compelling hooks are taken from the scene/sequel structure: disaster, dilemma, decision. These three all have a “pending” element to them that increases suspense and hence tension. Less compelling but still serviceable are the other elements of the scene/sequel structure: goal, conflict, and reaction. These have more closure to them, and are thus more difficult to work into a hook.

One final note. A novel may, and often does, have more than one point-of-view character. Usually, but not always, chapters and short stories have only one point-of-view character. The reason is that the readers are connected to your fictional world largely through the point-of-view character, and every change in point of view threatens to break this connection and thus disrupt the story. In longer pieces like novels, you have time to establish a new point of view, while in short stories you generally do not.

I’m not a big fan of absolute rules in fiction. In fact, I’d say almost no rule is absolute. But one that comes close is that each scene–“scene” in the conventional sense of Gardner’s definition–should have exactly one point-of-view character. The reason is precisely because a break in point-of-view breaks a fundamental connection between the reader and the fictional world. Readers are fragile critters, and once this break happens it’s difficult to repair. Establishing a new point of view within a scene adds an additional burden on both author and reader and should be done only when absolutely necessary and then with great care.

Conclusion

Writing fiction is easy. After all, it’s just words in a row about made-up people in made-up places doing made-up things. However, writing effective fiction is hard work. It involves planning and purpose. It involves understanding and vision. It involves imagination and discipline, emotion and intellect. It eats your heart and consumes your soul. You have to be crazy to do it.

But it’s worth it.