Sunday, September 25, 2011

USING SCENE AND SEQUEL AS CHAPTER HOOKS


by Pam Zollman

When most readers reach the middle of a chapter, they start counting the pages to see how many are left.  They do this to find a good stopping point.  The problem is that sometimes, if the book is slow, the reader will not pick up your book again and you’ve lost him.  The trick to keeping him turning pages and keep your story fast-paced is to use scenes and sequels to create hooks at the beginning and end of chapters.

Your story should start with some sort of hook to make the reader want to continue.  Most often action is used to sweep the reader along.  After using the scene-sequel pattern, you come to the end of the chapter and must decide where to stop.

Chapter Endings:  If at all possible, try to end each chapter with a cliff-hanger to force the reader to turn the page.  The cliff-hangers can vary in intensity, but should make the reader curious enough to find out what happens next.  The best way to do this is to use one of the following:

1)  Disaster – End the chapter at the end of the scene with the point-of-view character being hit with the disaster.  The reader will want to turn the page to see if the character survives it and what happens next.

2)  Dilemma – End the chapter in the middle of the sequel with the point-of-view character having to decide what to do.  His choices aren’t great, but he has to do something!  What will he do?  The reader must turn the page to find out.

3)  Decision – End the chapter at the end of the sequel with the character having made up his mind what he will do.  He’s picked the best of his bad options, and the reader will turn the page to see if the decision was a good one or not.  Plus, now the point-of-view character has a new goal, and the reader will want to read on to see if he can achieve this one.

Ending a chapter with Goal, Conflict, or Reaction are weaker choices.  However, even these can be very effective with the right plot situation.
 

Chapter Middles:  End chapter 1 with either Disaster, Dilemma, or Decision, so that chapter 2 starts out in the middle of the scene-sequel cycle. By the time the reader reaches the middle of the chapter and starts counting pages, you’ve started the scene-sequel cycle all over again.

Chapter Beginnings:  Whichever part of the scene-sequel cycle you ended the previous chapter with, you start the next chapter with the next part of the cycle.

Next time we'll discuss how to use Scene and Sequel to pace your story.  Feel free to contact me at pam (at) anauthorworld (dot) com, if you need help with your writing.

4 comments:

  1. I like this, Pam. Thanks for posting it.
    ~ John Johnson

    ReplyDelete
  2. thanks I agree with what you said. This is good info for a writer :) glad someone recommended it to me!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, this is good food for thought. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hiv disease for the last 3 years and had pain hard to eat and cough are nightmares,especially the first year At this stage, the immune system is severely weakened, and the risk of contracting opportunistic infections is much greater. However, not everyone with HIV will go on to develop AIDS. The earlier you receive treatment, the better your outcome will be.I started taking ARV to avoid early death but I had faith in God that i would be healed someday.As a Hiv patent we are advise to be taking antiretroviral treatments to reduce our chance of transmitting the virus to others , few weeks ago i came on search on the internet if i could get any information on Hiv treatment with herbal medicine, on my search i saw a testimony of someone who has been healed from Hiv her name was Achima Abelard and other Herpes Virus patent Tasha Moore also giving testimony about this same man,Called Dr Itua Herbal Center.I was moved by the testimony and i contacted him by his Email.drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com We chatted and he send me a bottle of herbal medicine I drank it as he instructed me to.After drinking it he ask me to go for a test that how i ended my suffering life of Hiv patent,I'm cured and free of Arv Pills.I'm forever grateful to him Drituaherbalcenter.Here his contact Number +2348149277967...He assure me he can cure the following disease..Hiv,Cancer,Herpes Virus,Lyme Disease,Epilepsy, ,Bladder Cancer,Colorectal Cancer,Breast Cancer,Kidney Cancer,Leukemia,Lung Cancer,Non Hodgkin Lymphoma,Skin Cancer,Lupus,Uterine Cancer,Prostate Cancer, fibromyalgia ,ALS,Hepatitis,Copd,Parkinson disease.Genetic disease,Fibrodysplasia disease,Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva,Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Syndrome,Liver/Kidney Inflammatory,infertility, bowel disease ,Huntington's disease ,Diabetes,Fibroid...

    ReplyDelete