Today’s topic is about creating serial scenes – scenes that are meant to be served up one at a time, with a certain amount of time passing before the reader gets another. It’s the same basic premise as a TV series, just on a smaller scale.

I lay out my scenes in three parts:

- Orientation

- Plot

- Cliffhanger/Twist

Orientation is the beginning of the scene, where you have a very small amount of time to re-orient the reader into the overall story. You don’t need this in a normal scene, because presumably the reader has been reading continuously, or can simply flip back a page or two for the information. Online readers want to just jump right back in though, so I help them by giving them an orientation line at the beginning. This also helps a new reader who stumbles into a story already in progress. Join me as I show Alex, one of my alter-egos, how to accomplish this (she’s working on her first serial novel).

After the reader is re-oriented in the story, the action moves forward as it normally would (plot). It builds up to the last few lines, when something needs to happen that will bring the reader back for the next installment. This is the Cliffhanger, and it has the potential to make your readers practically salivate for the next installment. They may want to throw things at you as well if you make them wait too long, so stay behind the computer screen if at all possible.

A good cliffhanger is a plot twist – something the reader didn’t see coming. It adds conflict, and cuts off just when the reader things she’s going to get “the good stuff”. When I can’t stand to stop writing because I simply *must* know what happens next, that’s where I cut my readers off, so long as it’s near the natural end of a scene.

Cliffhangers work in every scene – not just serial scenes. They are a valuable device, so long as you don’t use one in place of “The End” in a genre where they aren’t commonly used. I guarantee you’ll be lynched if you use one at the end of a romance novel.

Writers - how do you construct your scenes? Any tips to share?

Readers – do you notice when a scene eases you back into the story? How do you feel about cliffhangers?

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