## Structuring Your Story’s Scenes, Pt. 5: Options for Scene Disasters
Source URL:: <https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/structuring-your-storys-scenes-pt-5/>
Scene disasters (or outcomes) complete the first half of scene structure. Here are eleven possible varieties to consider for your story.
### Highlights
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> Disasters come in every variety imaginable, but we can attempt to narrow them down into the following basic categories:
>1. Direct obstruction of the goal (e.g., the character wants info which the antagonist refuses to supply).
>2. Indirect obstruction of the goal (e.g., the character is sidetracked from achieving the goal).
>3. Partial obstruction of the goal (e.g., the character accomplishes only part of the goal).
>4. Hollow victory (e.g., the character reaches the goal, only to find out it’s more destructive than helpful).
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> These disasters can manifest in any and every way your imagination can dream up, including:
>1. Death.
>2. Physical injury.
>3. Emotional injury.
>4. Discovery of complicating information.
>5. Personal mistake.
>6. Threat to personal safety.
>7. Danger to someone else.
> [!quote]+ %%Updated on Mon Apr 17 2023 02:40:02 GMT-0400%%
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> Sometimes in order to advance the plot, your disasters are best left incomplete. The “partial obstruction of goal” and “hollow victory” disasters we talked about in the section above are two examples. In his book Scene and Structure, Jack M. Bickham refers to these partial disasters as “yes, but…” disasters.
>“yes, but…” disasters occur when your characters get a qualified or even total “yes” in answer to the scene question. They fulfill their scene goals… but there are unforeseen complications