/scene-craft

Try/Fail Cycles and the Five Commandments

Two scene-grain structure tools for pacing the middle of chapters and giving every scene a checkable shape. Both are widely-published craft concepts; this is a summary, not a reproduction of any commercial methodology.

Try/Fail cycles

From Dwight Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer: most scenes in a chapter should be attempt scenes — the POV character tries something and fails. Escalate across attempts within the chapter:

1. First attempt fails — the obvious solution doesn't work.
2. Second attempt fails worse — the clever solution backfires, and the situation is now worse than before the attempt.
3. Third attempt leads to a setback or disaster — partial progress at best, or the worst outcome, which forces the next scene.

Rules for planning try/fail chains:

• Each failure must be caused by the attempt itself, not by random bad luck. The reader should feel the POV character earned the worse situation.
• Never resolve an attempt with a coincidence that saves the character (deus ex machina). Coincidences may complicate, never rescue.
• Between failed attempts, insert sequel material (reaction/dilemma/decision — see scene-sequel.md) so the reader feels the rising cost, not just rising noise.
• Track each attempt in the chapter outline as try-1, try-2, try-3 with its failure and its new complication.

Scene outcomes

Record each scene's result in the scene file's outcome field, using four answers to "Does the POV character get what they want?". Swain's scene ends in disaster; the yes-but and no-and outcomes are a later extension of his scene outcomes, common in current craft teaching, not Swain's own terms:

A try/fail chain usually reads no, no-and, then yes-but or no-and. story pacing . lists outcomes per chapter and warns after three or more consecutive yes outcomes, where the story has stopped pushing back.

The Five Commandments (Story Grid)

Shawn Coyne's Story Grid describes every complete story unit — including a single scene — as moving through five stages (attributed here as a summary of the widely-discussed framework, not its full methodology):

1. Inciting incident — something disrupts the scene's status quo.
2. Progressive complications — the situation worsens or the goal gets harder to reach (this is where try/fail cycles live).
3. Crisis — the POV character faces an irreversible choice between two bad options (or a best-bad-choice).
4. Climax — the decision, and the action taken on it.
5. Resolution — the new state: what changed, what it costs, what the character now knows.

Scene-grain checklist

For each scene in a chapter, verify:

• An inciting incident opens the scene or the scene opens on its aftermath
• At least one complication makes the goal harder before the outcome
• The crisis presents a genuine either/or (no cost-free choice)
• The climax shows the POV character acting on their decision
• The resolution states the change: what is different now than at the scene's start (record in state-changes in the scene file)

If a scene fails the checklist, it is either a transition (keep it short), a sequel beat (see scene-sequel.md), or it needs a complication and a crisis added before drafting.