  We explore reprocessing models for a sample of 17 hypervariable quasars,
taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM)
project, which all show coordinated optical luminosity hypervariability with
amplitudes of factors $\gtrsim 2$ between 2014 and 2020. We develop and apply
reprocessing models for quasar light curves in simple geometries that are
likely to be representative of quasar inner environments. In addition to the
commonly investigated thin-disk model, we include the thick-disk and hemisphere
geometries. The thick-disk geometry could, for instance, represent a
magnetically-elevated disk, whereas the hemisphere model can be interpreted as
a first-order approximation for any optically-thick out-of-plane material
caused by outflows/winds, warped/tilted disks, etc. Of the 17 quasars in our
sample, eleven are best-fit by a hemisphere geometry, five are classified as
thick disks, and both models fail for just one object. We highlight the
successes and shortcomings of our thermal reprocessing models in case studies
of four quasars that are representative of the sample. While reprocessing is
unlikely to explain all of the variability we observe in quasars, we present
our classification scheme as a starting point for revealing the likely
geometries of reprocessing for quasars in our sample and hypervariable quasars
in general.
