I got an email from a writer who took one of my classes, and who wanted to know how to take a plot outline and turn it into chapters and scenes. I linked them to an anatomy of a scene post that I think does a good job breaking down one useful and streamlined approach to scene structure*.

This method posits that every scene should have three components: a goal, a conflict, and a disaster. Essentially, you should have a character trying to accomplish something, struggling against obstacles and antagonists, and ultimately failing to achieve their goal. That failure leads to the sequel, which is a different kind of scene in which the character reacts to what just happened, is faced with a difficult choice, and decides how to move forward. That leads to another scene with a new goal, etc., repeat this cycle until you reach The End.

The “disaster” part described in the link above is also sometimes called the try-fail cycle. If the character simply succeeds at their goal every time, there may not be enough tension and suspense to keep the reader turning the page. But if all they do is fail, then you don’t have a story, either, because they’re just spinning their wheels.

Here’s where I like to apply a model I learned from tabletop gaming. Instead of a disaster, each scene can end with an outcome ranging from extreme failure to extreme success.

The failure can be simply that the character didn’t manage to do the thing they set out to do; the mountain pass is blocked, and they have to find another path, perhaps a more dangerous one. Or they can somehow make their situation worse than it was when they started; they trigger an avalanche that sweeps them off the mountain and buries them under a ton of snow, and now they have to dig themselves out before they suffocate.

They can also have a qualified failure or success. Maybe they don’t manage to achieve the goal, but their failure points them in the right direction or provides some useful boon or new ally. The mountain pass is blocked, but a strange hermit will guide them… for a price. Or they succeed, but at a cost that immediately affects them or will become a problem later—an injury that needs treating, a new enemy on their trail, a Chekhov’s gun that will go off at the worst possible time.

They can also do the thing by the end of the scene, even if it’s difficult and they try and fail at least once, or they can do the thing stunningly well because they’re awesome and why shouldn’t they. Sometimes you do have to let your characters showcase their talents!

Usually, the qualified failures/successes are the most versatile scene outcomes, because they maintain tension but also keep the plot moving forward instead of hitting a wall. But you do want to sprinkle in the other options at the places where they’d be most dramatically appropriate.

If you’re going by a beat sheet, for example, then a total failure scene should probably happen around the midpoint and/or during the All Is Lost/Dark Night of the Soul beats. You might have an amazing success at the midpoint instead, only for the victory to end up souring, or the character’s arc being one where the success at their goal isn’t the end of their story. You might even have multiple goals and outcomes within a scene, some succeeding and some failing, though you have to be careful not to cram too much in one place.

The degrees of disaster, their vibes and variations, will depend on what kind of story you’re trying to tell. A grimdark story may have more total failures with terrible consequences that really twist the knife; a romcom may have more funny fail-forward situations; a political space opera may have complex machinations where each win or loss causes both visible and unknown ripple effects.

Your goal, as the writer, is to keep the reader interested and invested in every scene. As long as you’re doing that, you’ve succeeded!

*Not the only way, certainly. There is no One Right Way, and as the saying goes, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

Like a lot of writers and other artists, I deal with imposter syndrome, and not the kind where I toss little colorful astronauts out of airlocks. I have this spark of hope that maybe, actually, I’m not bad at creating stuff, but I also have a black hole of dread and shame and fear of rejection that swallows the spark faster than a puppy snarfing up food dropped on the floor. Every success is a fluke, every compliment is a lie, and anyone who is fooled into thinking anything positive about me or my work will soon realize they’ve been duped*.

One of the techniques used in The Artist’s Way to help people deal with these, to use an extremely scientific term, “badfeels,” is creative affirmations. The actual list in the book is strongly spiritual—”I am a channel for God’s creativity,” “My dreams come from God,” and so on—but more generally the text explores the idea of replacing negative beliefs and self-talk with positive statements. These can be things like “I deserve love” or “I deserve fair pay” or “I deserve a rewarding creative life,” but they can also be compliments like “I am a brilliant and successful artist” or “I have rich creative talents.”

When our brains object to these statements, we’re supposed to write down those objections and try to figure out where they came from. Who hurt us? Who made us doubt ourselves? Who told us the mean things that we’re now repeating back to ourselves? That exploration is meant to be cleansing, an emotional enema that will then allow us to believe in the affirmations instead of rejecting them.

For some people, this absolutely works. I wish I was one of them.

For me, affirmations are lies I’m trying to tell myself. No amount of external assurance or internal arguing will get rid of this conviction. If you tied me to a chair and clamped my eyelids open and forced me to watch video after video brainwashing me into believing “I have rich creative talents,” I can assure you, my droogs, I would go full Clockwork Orange on myself within days.

It comes back to trust. I already struggle to trust myself, so telling me I have to convince myself of things I believe to be untrue simply reinforces that I am not to be trusted. It’s the emotional equivalent of pulling myself up by my bootstraps; it can’t be done, and it ends in frustration and pain.

It also becomes a vicious cycle. I try to tell myself a positive thing; I reject it as a lie that I’m just telling myself so I’ll feel better; I lose trust in myself because I know I’m lying to myself, making me a lying liar who lies; future attempts to tell myself positive things are rejected even harder. All I’m doing is eroding any trust in myself, and that erosion spreads from my creative endeavors to all aspects of my life and thoughts and feelings. If I’ll lie to myself about this, what else?

I don’t spend all my time wallowing in a pit of despair—not about this, anyway—so clearly I have developed coping strategies that allow me to get my work done. Maybe they’ll work for you, too.

The thing I do most frequently evolved from a technique I learned from a meditation app: noting. It goes like this: I have dark thoughts about myself, my writing, my career, whatever. I have to get stuff done in spite of the thoughts. I note that I’m having those thoughts, the same way I’d note the weather outside my house. “Look, it’s raining.” “Look, there are those ‘my writing sucks and I’ll never amount to anything’ thoughts again.”

I don’t force myself to ignore the thoughts, because that actually ends up paradoxically putting more focus on them and thus they stick around longer—it’s like yelling “I’m not looking at you!” at the rain, which, to do that, you’re kind of definitely looking at it, aren’t you? Or at least covering your eyes and thinking about how you’re not looking at it, no sir. And arguing with them? Same deal: then I’m having unpleasant conversations with the voices in my head, and I really would rather be writing, or cleaning my bathroom, or doing almost anything else that is either more productive or relaxing.

Instead, I try to shift my attention to the thing I’m supposed to be doing, even though those thoughts are still there, the same way I’d look away from the window as it’s raining outside. The rain hasn’t stopped, I’m not ignoring it per se, it’s just there but I’m not staring at it. I’m starting a sprint timer, possibly in a Discord with other people or while watching a Twitch stream, and I’m getting back to work.

You may have seen a comic at some point, of someone yelling “I don’t like thing” and then the clouds part and an angel descends from heaven and hands them a piece of paper, upon which is written, simply, “ok” in block print. Noting is basically me, the angel, handing my moody brain that piece of paper and then returning to heaven to get back to my angel duties. The yelling person isn’t gone, but I’m not standing there letting them continue to yell at me. I acknowledge them, and I move on.

It took a lot of practice to get this technique to work consistently, but it’s been way more successful for me than affirmations because I’m not actually telling myself anything. I’m not trying to force my thoughts to be positive, or convince myself that my badfeels are wrong. All I’m doing is… working anyway.

Is it spite? I don’t feel spiteful, but maybe it’s a little bit that. I think, weirdly, it’s more similar to defeatism, or perhaps acceptance. Maybe I can’t stop that mean little voice, but I can put my headphones on, crank up the lo-fi beats, and let it fade to background noise.

Sometimes, going back to The Artist’s Way methods, sharing the badfeels with friends can also help me move past them. I can say, “I’m feeling like crap today in this specific way, I know it will pass, but I had to get it out.” And they’ll remind me that, yes, it will pass, just like the weather does, eventually. And even if it doesn’t, I can grab an umbrella or a raincoat and go get the groceries anyway.

Okay, this analogy is getting away from me, but you see what I mean.

Can “writer lies” ever work? For some people, absolutely. And some ways of constructing them may succeed better than others.

A friend of mine (AJ Hackwith) coined that term, specifically, for the “lies” we tell ourselves to be able to get our writing done. They can be things like, “I’m going to pretend I’m writing a fanfic of my own story,” or “I’m only going to write two sentences and then stop.” These may not even be lies, technically speaking; maybe you ARE going to treat your story like it’s a fanfic, or you’ll stop after two sentences instead of getting hyped enough to continue. Part of what makes the assertions work is that seed of truth or possibility.

Which leads to the next note, which I got from someone (Susan Alia) on Bluesky: sometimes an affirmation can work if it’s built on something you know to be true. One example that I’ve deployed, to mixed success—because, again, affirmations are not For Me as a rule—is, “You’ve done this before and you can do it again.” I tend to use it when I’m having, perhaps not writer’s block exactly, but writer’s inertia, where I can’t make myself start working out of fear that the writing will be bad.

The first half of that affirmation is demonstrably true; I have written many things! There’s a whole page on my website dedicated to the ones that have been published. It then stands to reason, even if it’s not certain, that the second half of the affirmation COULD be true, that the odds of it being true are good enough that if I get back to work, maybe I can MAKE it be true.

Ultimately, that’s what this all comes down to: building our truths, and weathering our storms. You may not be able to shut down intrusive thoughts, but you also don’t have to stop what you’re doing and give them your attention. You may not be able to chant the rain away, but you can close the curtains, make some tea, take your meds, and let the clouds do their thing while you do yours**.

*As a side note, a thing one of my therapists mentioned regarding compliments: if I reject a compliment that someone gives me, I am effectively calling that person a liar. Am I actually going to sit here and consider all my friends and all the fans of my work to be liars? Or fools that I’ve somehow tricked into liking me or my art? Of course not! That’s really messed up! Thinking about my imposter syndrome this way helps me get past it when it flares up, because I am highly susceptible to guilt even if logic doesn’t always work.

**People who are in a crisis situation should not be reading this and going, “But I am stuck outside in the rain and I have no way to get dry, so this makes no sense!” Or rather, yes, that’s the natural response, because if you’re in a crisis situation then the first thing you need to worry about is finding a way to get out of the crisis. This is not an essay for people who need solutions to extremely serious life problems; this is not a “this, too, shall pass” or “just keep swimming” or “stay positive” kind of reply to hardship. You can’t bootstrap your way out of poverty or war or political turmoil or illness. Anyone who pretends there are easy solutions to complex problems is probably trying to sell you something.