Bio:
Keith Goodnight is a native Texan and distant relative of famed rancher Charles Goodnight. He attended Rice University where he joined the Marching Owl Band (MOB) and once performed a halftime show while dressed as a Christmas tree. Later he obtained a Ph.D. in Biology, but through all of that always had writing in mind. He began work on his science fiction universe while still in high school, and kept working on it all through the years when he was supposed to be working on something else. He published his first novel, The Child, in 2013 and was an
instructor for the Writers Path at SMU for six years. To find out more, visit www.keithgoodnight.com
Scenes, Sequels and Lego Bricks
Stories are made of scenes. The scene is the fundamental unit of drama, and a story is only as good as the design of the scenes that make it up. Like simple Lego bricks used to make complex models, scenes are simple and uniform in structure but combine to make every kind of story a writer can imagine. We’ll look at the shape of a good scene, and also at the equally important— but often overlooked— connections that bind one scene to the next. While scenes contain the story’s drama, it’s the connections that control its pacing and tone, and explore both the emotional arcs of the characters and the logic that keeps the plot coherent. Well-designed scenes connected by well-designed links make up a story that grabs the reader’s attention and never lets go.
