Holistic Instant Scenes

Hi there! I was watching Mr. Hull’s video on the great new Instant Scene feature on Subtext. He said 90% of the time, the elements in a scene/sequence will show up in a Z-pattern - for a Linear Story. That’s all well and good, but I’m curious what the case is for a Holistic Story! Apologies if he did mention it in the video, but I really just wanted to find out the answer to this question. I know it doesn’t matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but well, I’m curious! Thanks!!

@jhull is always gonna say a Z pattern is most effective. It’s the linear in him. Being a tad more holistic myself, I recommend you use the quad in the order that makes sense for the FEELING you want to create. I think Jim is working on a way to re-order the InstaScene.

One of my evidentiary pieces is the order of the Pixar (academy award winning) short Piper.

Piper is in the stratgey quad. and goes (Inaction–>Reaction–>-Protection–>Proaction)

A z pattern for that quad would be (Proaction–>Inaction–>Protection–>Reaction)

which would be ALL WRONG for Piper.

So, just go with the order that works for the story and feeling you have in mind

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Agree with @jassnip. One way I use Instant Scenes is to wait and write the scene first without using them. If I get stuck partway through the scene, then I’ll try to figure out from my ideas and what I wrote so far what quad it’s trying to be. Then I use something like Instant Scene for that quad, which often helps to identify what’s missing or what part of the scene needs to be tweaked to fit the element it was trying to be.

In this process, obviously I stick to whatever element order the scene already had, and don’t worry about Z-pattern.

If you don’t follow the Z-pattern, everyone will laugh at your story.

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LOL, smarty-pants. Not everyone knows your kidding. :stuck_out_tongue:

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In that case - :laughing:

Oh nooo!! :sweat_smile: Don’t worry, I understand the sarcasm haha. I was just curious if there was anything else said on the topic but was pretty much planning doing what jassnip suggested! Thanks all :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes::joy:

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