Scene Outline Template — Goal, Conflict, Disaster

Goal–Conflict–Disaster is a scene-level outlining framework from Dwight Swain's 1965 book Techniques of the Selling Writer, in which every scene has three elements: a viewpoint character's goal, the conflict that opposes it, and a disaster that forces the next scene to happen.

Most plotting advice works at the book level. Beat sheets and act structures tell you where the big hinge points go. But plenty of drafts fail at a scale much smaller than that — they fail scene by scene. The plot is sound; the chapters just don't do anything.

Swain's scene-and-sequel model is one of the most useful scene-level frameworks in fiction. It's old, mechanical, and deeply practical. Once you've internalised it, you can diagnose a flat scene in about ninety seconds.

Scene vs. sequel

Swain's insight is that drafts have two types of unit, and most writers only think about one of them.

• Scene — a unit of action. A character pursues a goal against resistance.
• Sequel — a unit of reaction. The character processes what just happened and decides what to do next.

A draft made entirely of scenes feels exhausting and emotionally flat. A draft made entirely of sequels feels static. Strong novels alternate.

Scene template

Every scene has three elements, in order.

1. Goal

What does the viewpoint character want in this scene? Specifically. Externally. Nameably.

• Not "she wants to feel better." That's a sequel.
• Yes "she wants to find out who sent the letter."

Prompt: In one sentence: what is the protagonist trying to achieve by the end of this scene?

A scene without a clear goal is a scene with no shape. The reader senses this even when they can't name it.

2. Conflict

What stands in the way?

• An opponent with a competing goal
• A situation that resists
• An internal fear or doubt that surfaces
• Information that complicates the original plan
• A cost that rises as the character pushes

Prompt: What specifically is preventing the protagonist from getting what they want on this page?

Conflict doesn't have to be a fight. It can be a negotiation, a confession, a silence, a refusal. It just has to be resistance.

3. Disaster

How does the scene end?

Swain's original prescription is blunt: end the scene with a "yes, but" or a "no, and." Not a clean win.

• Yes, but — the protagonist gets what they wanted, but a new complication arrives with it
• No, and — the protagonist fails, and something makes it worse
• Yes, and — (rare, reserved for pivot moments) — success that opens a bigger problem

Prompt: How does this scene end in a way that forces the next scene to happen?

A disaster isn't necessarily dramatic. In a quiet literary novel, it might be a small realisation. But it has to leave the character somewhere they weren't at the start, and it has to create forward motion.

Sequel template

After a scene comes its sequel — the character's processing time. Sequels have three elements too.

1. Reaction

The immediate, emotional response. Not thought — feeling, sensation, physical state.

• Anger, grief, shock, relief, numbness, euphoria
• Physical manifestations — trembling, tears, stillness, tightness
• Time and place — the reaction is felt in a specific moment, not described in summary

Prompt: What does the character feel — in their body — in the minutes after the scene's disaster?

2. Dilemma

The character surveys their options. None of them are good.

• Option A — risky in one way
• Option B — risky in another
• Option C — maybe possible but costly
• The "do nothing" option — often tempting, rarely available

Prompt: What are the three worst choices the character has now, and what's bad about each?

A well-written dilemma is where theme shows up. The character's worldview, their flaws, their beliefs about what kind of person they are — all surface when they're forced to choose.

3. Decision

The character commits to a course of action. This decision becomes the goal of the next scene.

• Active, not passive
• Specific, not vague
• Tied to what we just saw them choose — so the reader feels the continuity

Prompt: What does the character decide to do, and what does that decision tell us about who they are?

The cycle

The two structures chain together:

Scene: goal → conflict → disaster → Sequel: reaction → dilemma → decision → (which becomes the goal of the next scene)

When you map a chapter onto this, you can see immediately where the seams are loose.

Using the template

You don't have to outline every scene in advance. Use the template in three modes.

Before drafting

Sketch upcoming scenes by filling out goal / conflict / disaster in a single line each. If you can't — if the goal is vague, the conflict is soft, or you can't picture the disaster — the scene probably isn't ready to write. Think about it more, or skip it.

During drafting

When you're stuck inside a scene, stop and ask: what's the goal? What's the resistance? What's the end-state? Eight times out of ten, the stuck place is one of those three not being clear enough to you.

After drafting

Go through your chapter and name each scene's goal, conflict, and disaster in the margin. Flat scenes will usually have:

• A goal that's fuzzy or implicit
• Conflict that's aesthetic rather than structural
• An ending that resolves cleanly instead of complicating

Rewrite those three elements, and most of the scene fixes itself.

What this template doesn't do

Goal/conflict/disaster is a structural tool, not an atmospheric one. It helps you make scenes that move. It doesn't tell you what the prose should feel like, what the images should be, or what the voice should carry. Those come from somewhere else.

The template is most useful when the writing is technically clean but the draft is inert. If your reader is saying "I can tell this is well-written but I don't know why I should care" — the problem is almost always here.

Goals give us something to root for. Conflict gives us something to watch. Disasters give us a reason to turn the page.