6. ✏️ Proactive And Reactive Scenes

Content

Proactive Scenes and Their Rules

A proactive scene focuses on the character taking action and follows a specific three-part structure:

• *Goal:* At the beginning of the scene, the Point of View (POV) character must have a clearly defined goal. The rule is that this goal must be simple, objective, worthwhile, achievable, and difficult.
• *Conflict:* During the middle of the scene, the character repeatedly tries to achieve their goal but runs into obstacle after obstacle. The rule is that conflict must dominate; roughly 80 to 90 percent of a proactive scene should be dedicated to making the character sweat and face resistance.
• *Setback:* At the end of the scene, the character hits a nasty setback. The rules state that this setback should happen as late in the scene as possible, be an objective failure, leave the character in a worse situation than before, and ideally be unexpected but logical.

Reactive Scenes and Their Rules

A reactive scene usually follows immediately after a proactive scene and focuses on the character's internal response to the setback:

• *Reaction:* The scene begins with the character reeling emotionally from the recent failure. The rule is that the reaction is raw emotion and should last only as long as the character has emotions to spend before calming down to think rationally.
• *Dilemma:* The character now faces an intellectual problem where all available options are bad. The character must analyze these options to figure out what to do next.
• *Decision:* Finally, the character makes a choice. The rules for this decision are identical to the rules for a goal: it must be simple, objective, worthwhile, achievable, and difficult.

Rules for Sequencing Scenes

The standard pattern is a continuous alternating cycle between proactive and reactive scenes. However, there are rules for breaking this pattern:

• *A proactive scene can follow another proactive scene:* Authors frequently break the strict alternation to speed up the pace of the story. In fast-action fiction, the author might skip or severely shorten the reactive scene, causing one proactive scene to lead directly into another. A proactive scene might also immediately follow another proactive scene if the author switches the POV character right after a setback.
• *A reactive scene cannot follow another reactive scene:* Every reactive scene must end with a Decision. Because a decision is fundamentally a choice to pursue a new Goal, it inherently becomes the starting point of a new proactive scene. Therefore, a reactive scene naturally transitions into a proactive one, never into a second reactive scene.

The Chapter Reset Rule

As we established earlier, when a new chapter begins, the cycle is reset from zero. Because of this structural break, the author has complete freedom to start the new chapter by writing either a proactive scene or a reactive scene.