Writing Fiction for Dummies by Peter Economy & Randy Ingermanson

Author:Peter Economy & Randy Ingermanson [Economy, Peter & Ingermanson, Randy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Writing, Amazon.com
ISBN: 0470530707
Publisher: For Dummies
Published: 2009-01-01T15:00:00+00:00

Objective: Your reader needs to be able to visualize exactly what your character wants next.

Worthwhile: Your reader must believe the character would actually make this decision, based on her values.

Achievable: Your reader must believe that success really may be just a chapter away.

Difficult: Your reader must have some doubts that this decision will work.

At 3:00 a.m., your reader needs a reason to turn over the page instead of turning out the lights. A decision that's simple, objective, worthwhile, achievable, and difficult gives your reader that reason.

Notice that this decision sounds an awful lot like the goal of a proactive scene. That's exactly what a decision is — a choice to pursue a new goal.

Coming full circle with your scenes

A proactive scene starts a character out with a goal, hits him with loads of conflict, and then rocks him back with a setback. A reactive scene picks up immediately afterward, taking that character through an emotional reaction, then working him through an intellectual dilemma, and finally taking him to a decision — to pursue a new goal.

In theory, therefore, you can write a proactive scene and follow it up with a reactive scene and follow that with a new proactive scene, alternating forever. That's a fine theory, and it works often in practice but not always. Here are a couple of reasons you may not follow this strict alternation of proactive and reactive scenes in your fiction:

To pick up the pace of your story: Modern commercial fiction often blazes through the story at a gallop. In fast-action fiction, the proactive scenes run long, and the author may fly through the reactive scene in a paragraph of narrative summary. The author may even skip the reactive scene, leaving it to the reader to figure out what reaction, dilemma, and decision the POV character worked through.

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