Outcome: Your Crossroads of Consequence (Scene Alchemy #5)
The outcome of a scene is where we find out if all the character’s hard work has paid off.
Will they get the thing they’ve been fighting for, or will everything go horribly wrong and leave them further away than ever from their goal?
The seed of the outcome is planted right at the start of the scene: when we establish the temporary goal—be it breaking into a library, convincing a guard to look the other way, or crossing a treacherous marsh.
To properly nail the end of a scene, we must return to that compass, and see where we’ve ended up.
Success, Failure, and Everything In Between
Immediately, we have a few different options here:
The character achieves the temporary goal we established at the start of the scene.
They achieve their goal, but it turns out to have dreadful consequences or be awful for some reason.
The character fails, and something happens that means that goal is lost forever.
They fail, but they can try again.
Their goal is lost, but the character is rewarded with something else instead. Something that they (and the reader) didn’t expect.
Of these, the first and fourth options are the least interesting to our readers, because there’s no innate tension here. The character has the thing, or they don’t have it but can just try again, we’re still stuck in the same place we were at the start.
Options 2 and 5 are much more tempting, since they pull the story somewhere the reader wasn’t expecting—adding a change of direction, and a little jolt of excitement and adrenaline.
That said, all five outcomes have their uses, and we’ll likely want to employ all of them. Most importantly, each of them answers the question: did the character succeed or fail? And that is the most vital part. It’s how we end up with a story that feels cohesive, focused, and like it’s making progress.
Clarity: The Most Important Guy in the Room
I work on so many novels where maybe the protagonist wants something, or maybe they don’t, and by the end of each scene they might have made progress, but aren’t sure.
Maybe they’ve learned something, but have no idea how it will help them. They might have escaped, defeated an enemy, or scored some political points, but there’s no clear sense of how this brings them closer to their goal—or if it brings them any closer at all.
Outcomes like that are poison for one reason and one reason only: the reader has no way of understanding whether the character is “winning” or “losing” in any given moment, and as a result, they have no reason to care. Instead, they’re left wandering around in the fog with no idea of where the story actually is, what’s on the line, or what the character needs to do next.
Uncertainty between two options can be powerful. The character has achieved something important, and it’s either going to be an absolute gamechanger, or it will blow up in their face, and everything will go sideways. There’s tension in that.
But vagueness? When an outcome might be good or bad or completely unrelated? Or when the reader has no idea of how close the character is to their goal, or what they need to do next?
It makes the whole story feel meaningless, lacking in direction, and predetermined: like the character is just going to wander around vaguely, not really achieving anything tangible until the story decides to move them along.
Fortunately, if you find this happening in your own writing (and all of us do at some point), then it’s extremely straightforward to fix. We just have to ask:
What does the protagonist/point of view character want in this scene?
How are their actions a concrete, tangible step towards their goal for the whole novel?
Do they achieve this temporary goal before we move on? Do they fail? Or are we using one of the other five options above?
Implementing the revisions might be tiresome, but by the time you’re finished, your scene will be much stronger.
The Power and Mechanics of Failure
Failure is one of the most undervalued tools in a writer’s arsenal. We tend to avoid it for two reasons:
It’s scary, uncomfortable, or we just love our characters and really don’t want to hurt them.
We know where the story needs to go, and are so focused on getting there that we draw a straight line. The character does a thing, succeeds, and takes a step closer to the next thing we have planned.
Our aversion to failure is great news for the characters (who doesn’t want an easy ride?) but it’s dreadful for our stories.
Think about the books that have gripped you the most. The ones that kept you up until two in the morning, desperately reading to find out what happens next. Remember the intoxicating mixture of anxiety and excitement? How you genuinely weren’t sure how things would turn out and you wanted, you needed, to know?
If you look back at those stories now, you’ll probably find the same mixture of things: the characters fail, often badly. They hit setbacks and unexpected twists. They make a plan and the story smashes it to pieces with a wrecking ball. Everything gets bad, and then it gets worse, and the reader cannot look away—they have no idea how the character will get out of this mess, and will keep reading until they find out.
That’s what makes failure the accelerator (or “gas pedal”) of our stories: it increases the amount of excitement, builds momentum, gives those little jolts of something unexpected. And that makes the story real—hitting the characters with the full consequences of what they’re fighting for. It puts the outcome in danger, and makes that doubt physically, painfully real.
Don’t be afraid to hit your characters with that. And then make it even worse.
By default, we tend to try and keep things the same. To follow the map or idea we have of our story. But we have to fight that unconscious urge. Fight it with every fibre of our being.
Because grabbing our readers means punching the protagonist down in the dirt and making them get up again. Strip them of something important. Take a scene where they get what they want and ask: “What if everything went horribly wrong instead? What’s the worst thing that would happen? And what if it actually did? What would this person do next?”
Be brave.
It might feel like it will spoil all of your carefully laid plans, but your own creativity will surprise you.
I promise.
Asking the Alchemist—Questions & Answers
Can the outcome ever be ambiguous? Should it always be clear success or failure?
There are always exceptions. But for the most part, we want to stick to the five outcomes above: the character succeeds, they succeed but it’s awful, they fail forever, fail for now, or end up gaining some other/unexpected thing.
As we’ve talked about, an outcome with two potential options can be good. A door opens, and inside? Only darkness. It seems too quiet, but what our character wants is inside. Is it still there, or is it a trap? The reader is caught up in the tension between those two possibilities, and will keep reading to find out the truth.
But when the door opens, and the character doesn’t know what’s inside? If they don’t know how (or if) it will help, or even if there’s anything there at all? That’s where things get vague, and the story gets in trouble.
What if a scene ends in partial success? Can that ever work?
Sometimes. But I’d be careful of relying on it too much. It can create the feeling that the story isn’t getting anywhere: the character doesn’t have the thing yet, they just get the chance to try again, and we’re essentially still in the same place that we started.
An easy fix is to break the goal down into multiple steps.
Say our protagonist is trying to reach the top of a tower. In one version of the scene, she fights up halfway and now gets to keep going in the next. A partial success that leaves things feeling a little flat. In another, there’s a locked door halfway up the tower. Same fight up the winding steps, but now she must find the key (or pick the lock) before she can advance. Now we have two smaller goals instead of one, and two potential points of success or failure, rather than the foggy middle ground of partial success.
How do I avoid the end of a scene feeling deux ex machina, or like the character gets lucky/unlucky?
Follow one of the most useful pieces of writing advice: everything should happen for a reason, and that reason is the actions our character takes in pursuit of their goal.
If the grumpy alien from three chapters ago appears out of nowhere to haul our protagonist out of a fight, it feels random and predetermined. If the protagonist worked hard to win that alien over when he met her (and especially if he takes a risk to open a door, send a signal, or call for help now) then the problem is fixed—now she’s there for a reason, and it’s because of what the protagonist did.
What if the outcome changes nothing? Can that work?
Not really. There’s always going to be that one scene where it makes sense, but in 99% of cases, when nothing changes, the story doesn’t move. And when the story doesn’t move, the reader is stuck.
Trust your own abilities. What if the outcome did change something? Let the character win in chapter 3 and grab the magical weapon that will kill the bad guy forever. What would happen then? Maybe the magical weapon is cursed, or it draws an enormous counterattack that kills all of the protagonist’s friends. Or let them fail in the worst possible way and ask: What would they do now?
Let things change, then look for ways to keep the story going. You’ll find them.
And it will probably be more awesome than whatever you had planned before.
How do I stop my scenes feeling predetermined, flat, or inevitable?
This is another place that planners struggle. The story feels predetermined because we know how things will turn out. So, we have to be vigilant, and rely on that felt sense of when the story feels flat.
Try to genuinely consider multiple outcomes. What if they failed here instead? What would they do next? What unexpected thing might happen in this moment?
Sometimes we must put our outline away, grit our teeth, and throw a massive spanner in the works. Something we hadn’t planned to keep things fresh.
Something I’ve missed? Drop your own questions in the comments below, and I’ll answer them before the end of the series!
Conduct Your Own Experiments
Want to do a quick temperature check on the outcome of your own scenes? You can try this!
Find the resolution of a scene, chapter, or important section of your WIP.
Does the protagonist/point of view character achieve the thing they were fighting for? Does it fit one of the five possible outcomes?
They succeed.
They get what they want, but it’s awful.
They fail and lose the thing forever.
They fail and can try again.
They fail, but find something different or unexpected that helps in a new way.
Is this outcome earned? Does it happen because of the character’s own actions as they pursue their goal, or does it arise at random?
Is it clear? Will the reader automatically understand if the character is “winning” in their attempts to reach their goal, or if this has set them back?
Addressing any problems that come up will likely give the scene and immediate boost!
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I guess the uncertainty is to keep the reader in suspense in an expected fashion of storytelling with x happened then y happened which caused z to happen. The character's goals/desires color the way the reader reads into these events.
Vagueness, at least how I read it, is the character experiencing events with no desire/goal setup at the beginning. So the reader can't track if these events are good or bad. I think the way to avoid it would be very clear setup at the opening of the scene.
The 1-5 scenarios described reminded me of yes, but & no, and. I use that one a lot in the outline, but without an outline,I have to go back add the yes but and no and's. I can't imagine maintaining momentum with a simple yes and no.
Thank you for the article! I look forward to these!
The uncertainty and vagueness was a little jumbled if I think of it from a reader's perspective, but I understand it from a writer's perspective. It makes sense that to me, I never want my character to be certain of any outcomes of their choices even though I want them to know that there are choices (even if the choice is as simple a plain vs flavoured water). Thank you for sharing.