Scene vs. Sequence vs. Act

If you are like me, you've probably heard the terms "scene," and "act," and maybe even "sequence" at least a dozen (if not a hundred) times without anyone explaining what they actually are. For most of my writerly life, I've heard about the 3-Act Structure, without anyone explaining to me what an act actually is. Sure, they may tell me what story parts go in which one, what happens, but they don't tell me what it actually is. Like, why is that stuff an act? What makes this a scene? And what is a sequence? 🤦‍♀️

So with this post, I'm hoping to help others with that, explaining what these things are, structurally, after all, they are structural terms.

(Though, as I've acknowledged before, much of story structure can get down to how you decide to slice and dice it, and people use different terminology, making writing terms ambiguous, which doesn't help.)

Scene

If you don't have an exact understanding of what a scene is, you probably at least have a vague one, thanks to the scene selection menu on movies or the high school play you saw being rehearsed in the auditorium as a teenager.

A scene is usually defined as a unit of action that takes place in a single location and continuous time. When the location changes, or the time jumps, or in some cases (particularly in plays) when a new set of characters enters the location, it's a new scene.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, the opening scene is when Peter is a kid and his mom is lying in a hospital bed dying from cancer, and it ends as he runs outside and is abducted.

Then we jump to 26 years later on a different planet--a new scene.

Seems simple enough, right?

But here's the thing, for a scene to work structurally, it actually needs to do more than that. The scene is a structural unit, perhaps even more so than a setting unit (time or place), but often, people only define it using setting terms, like we have so far.

In reality, a scene follows the same basic structure of the overall story.

And it typically breaks down in similar ways (or usually should).

Open with a hook
Establish the setup (where and when we are and what characters are in the scene)
Have a rising action with complications
Hit a climax
Have a falling action or denouement

You can even break this down further and get more detailed, but for simplicity's sake, I'll leave that there (and save the advanced stuff for my online course).

Now, the "climax" is also known as a turning point or plot turn (or even plot point). It changes the direction of the story. It was going one direction, and then wham! it's going a new different direction. The most obvious, simplistic way to look at this, is that it turns us from rising action to falling action. But if you prefer to just think of it as the climax, that's fine too.

The difference here is that in a scene, the "climax" is going to be smaller and less impactful than that of the whole story. Smaller unit, means smaller turn.

Now, there are also other ways you can look at scenes, as well. A popular one is Dwight V. Swain's scene and sequel. It goes like this:

Scene (Action):
- Goal
- Conflict
- Disaster

Sequel (Reaction):
- Reaction
- Dilemma
- Decision

Some writers argue these are two different scenes, and others say they are two parts of one scene. Feel free to read my explanations on scenes and sequels; in those articles, I talk about how this approach still fits into that basic story structure shape.

If your scene does not have that basic shape in some way, it probably falls flat. There are some exceptions to this, but almost always, it's better to have that shape.

Sequence

A sequence is a step up from a scene but smaller than an act.

A sequence is made up of scenes that are building up to a somewhat larger climactic moment or turning point.

Because a sequence includes multiple scenes, it is certainly not bound by a single location or time frame.

Let's say you are writing a story where at some point, the viewpoint character is kidnapped.

You might start with a scene where the kid is playing at the park and is approached by a predator who wrangles her into a moving van and ties her up. (Notice how that completes that basic story shape.)

The next scene jumps to the moving van slowing down, with the girl still tied up in the back. She's afraid of where she is going to go next, but as she listens, she realizes that her predator has actually been pulled over by police for speeding. She tries to bang around and cry for help, but she has a gag and isn't aided.

Next, we cut to her in the predator's dingy basement where two other girls are, every victim untied and ungagged. She talks and cries to them and tries to get out, but they are completely locked in. (This leads to a shift in the protagonist's plans; she will now try to sweet talk the kidnapper into letting them go.)

Those three scenes make up a sequence, a "kidnapping" sequence. Notice how the sequence escalates, the viewpoint character going from being safe at a park to being kidnapped and locked in a basement.

It follows this same shape.

If you slice and dice it, it will have these same elements:

Hook
Setup
Rising Action
Climax
Falling Action

You can have more than three scenes in a sequence and you can have two.

Since I used Guardians of the Galaxy as an example earlier, let's grab a sequence from that as an example. At one point in the movie, Peter, Gamora, Rocket, and Groot are thrown into prison, where they will have multiple scenes. We have a scene about them getting "checked in," a scene about them interacting with the other inhabitants, and a scene where Peter wakes up in the night and saves Gamora (meeting Drax). You could call this the prison-initiation sequence.

Notice that it too follows that shape. Hook, setup, rising action, climax, falling action.

Act

An act is bigger than a sequence but smaller than the whole plot.

An act is made up of sequences (and scenes) that are building up to a larger climactic moment or turning point.

It follows the same shape on a bigger scale.

Maybe in our story about the kidnapper, the kidnapping is the inciting incident of the whole story. So previous to that were sequences about the characters' ordinary lives and their smaller problems within that. The first act ends when the protagonist realizes she can't escape through force (she's totally stuck), and she'll have to sweet talk the kidnapper.

If you slice and dice it, it will have these same elements:

Hook
Setup
Rising Action
Climax
Falling Action

You can have more than three sequences in an act and you can have two.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, I would say the first act ends just after the prison-initiation sequence. We've been introduced to the main characters and now have a new goal, which will start the next rising action. (Similar to our kidnapped victim having a new goal or plan.)

Even though I think scenes are talked about ambiguously, I have to say that acts are talked about even more ambiguously. Most people just follow the 3-Act structure, with beginning, middle, and end. Sure, you can slice any story that way, I guess, but for me, that often doesn't tell me enough about what an act actually is. What it means, is that there should be a climactic moment near the end of the beginning (Act I), near the end of the middle (Act II), and near the end of the end (Act III).

To take it a step further, many popular approaches actually cut the second act into two parts: Act II, Part I, and Act II, Part II. This splits the story into four quarters. Frankly, this splits the story into four acts. But to prevent even more ambiguity in the writing world, I stick with "Act II, Part I" and "Act II, Part II."

All of these peaks have names, depending on what approach you use. But commonly, they will work out like this . . . 

I refer to this image as the typical structural "skeleton" of stories. However, while uncommon, it is possible to have other types of "skeletons."

So, essentially, this basic story structure shape is a fractal. The smaller the unit, the smaller the turn and impact. The bigger the unit, the bigger the turn and impact.

And when it comes to acts, typically we want the current act to be more impactful than the previous act, so we have escalation throughout the story.

. . . And there you have, a basic structural explanation of scenes vs. sequences vs. acts.