Oh, the disaster!

How to find good disasters for your scenes

Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash

So for the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about Dwight Swain’s theory of scene and structure as the basic elements of story, and today I wanted to hone in a bit more when it comes to the DISASTER that is supposed to happen prior to the end of the scene or at the end of the scene.

Once again the scene sequence according to Swain is:

Goal

Obstruction/Conflict

Disaster

The disaster at the end of the scene should make the reader wonder what will happen next. It’s part of what makes the reader want to turn the page.

This sequence mirrors the three-act structure in a sense, right?

Goal – Act One

Obstruction/Conflict – Act Two

Disaster – Act Three

And that disaster in the third part of your scene makes the reader wonder things:

Will the rabbits ever get to eat anything other than carrots?

Will the human ever find true love?

Did the doctor die in the explosion?

These disasters do not have to be ENDS OF THE WORLD moments or create a massive cliffhanger full of peril. It can actually be something much smaller if you aren’t writing a thriller/dystopian/horror.

The whole point of a disaster is that it keeps the hero in conflict, all of her wants are not fulfilled, and it sets up the question of what will they do next (this is solved in the next scene usually, that scene is what Swain calls the sequel and we talked about it before).