Scene & Structure Quotes

“A simple “no!” may suffice. Returning to our example, Fred may be told after all his arguments and conflict with the banker that he simply will not receive a loan. When Fred walks out of the bank, he has been set back and is in worse shape than he was when he entered, because he has tried to take one of his hoped-for steps toward climbing the mountain, and has been rebuffed. At the very least, he has lost one option. The banker might also, however, thwart Fred – and provide us with a disaster – in another way. He might give Fred a “yes!” answer, but one with so many strings attached that Fred can’t accept it. For example, Mr. Greenback might say, “Well, Fred, all right. You can have your loan. But you must agree to pay 60 percent interest, you must deed your automobile to us, and you must sell your mother’s house and put her in a nursing home so we can be assured that you won’t be messing around trying to help her when you’re supposed to be climbing that mountain.” Such “Yes, but” disasters are often better than a simple “No!” because they put the hero on the horns of a moral dilemma, and in making an ethical choice to turn down the crummy deal, he in effect brings on his own disaster. (Of such stuff are heroes often made.)”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“It seems clear why this should be so. If a character enters a scene, has a big struggle, and comes out with exactly what he went in for, then he is happy as a lark. Again – just as if there had been no fight at all – Fred is happy, the reader is happy – and all story tension just went down the drain. This is why the scene, if it is to work as a building block in your novel, must end not well, but badly. Fred cannot be allowed to attain his scene goal. He must encounter a new setback. He must leave in worse shape than he was when he went in. Any time you can build a scene which leaves your character in worse shape, you have probably “made progress” in terms of your story’s development!”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“This particular scene in the bank will probably be almost entirely dialogue, with just enough gesture, facial expression, etc., thrown in to keep the reader physically oriented in his imagination. (Most scenes have dialogue in them – argument – but other types of scenes exist. Imagine a scene with no dialogue in it at all, one in which our heroine fights to keep her car on the road as the driver of another car keeps ramming her from behind and pulling up alongside, trying to edge her over the embankment.) So far, so good. But every scene (like all other good things) must come to an end. We don’t want this argument in the bank to run 350 pages! So how should it end? As said before, with a tactical disaster.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“No. We can’t have that. That’s why we must develop conflict. And conflict – the give-and-take between two characters – will make up 95 to 98 percent of the length of the scene. Mr. Greenback cannot under any circumstances jovially agree to let Fred have the money at once. He must instead announce his opposition to the expedition right at the outset, and may even be openly hostile to Fred as a person. He and Fred, in other words, have to fight. Such scene fights are the be-all and end-all for lovers of fiction. Readers enjoy watching the antagonists punch and counterpunch. They love sweating bullets with the hero as he struggles for the upper hand. They get their excitement in the scenes – they like to live them in their imagination. This being the case, you want to build your scenes as big as possible, and you want to make them just as believable – as lifelike – as you possibly can.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Now: We’ve opened a potential scene. We have a character, we have a goal that relates to the story goal, and this short-term scene goal has been stated in no uncertain terms. What next? It must be conflict. Why? Not just because readers like conflict, but – again – because a prompt, satisfactory answer ends the scene at once and relaxes all tension in the reader. Let’s imagine Mr. Greenback says, “I love mountain climbers, Fred, and I like you! Sure, you can have $75,000! But are you sure that will be enough? Are you sure you wouldn’t like to borrow more?” If you let this happen, the “scene” collapsed before it could get under way. Furthermore, Fred leaves happy and relaxed. The reader relaxes, too – and so loses interest in the story.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“The scene begins with a stated, clear-cut goal. Sometimes the character can carry over his clear-cut, immediate goal from the previous scene, and sometimes he can think it, going in. (Once every hundred scenes, maybe you can get away with allowing the goal to be implicit, as I did in the scene quoted in the last chapter where I thought it was rather obvious that Collie Davis set out to chase the other car.) But most of the time the character actually states his immediate scene goal in obvious, unmistakable fashion.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Development of a story depends on your ability to interpose obstacles between your hero and the attainment of his goal. Most often, this interposition of obstacles is accomplished by putting someone in the story’s cast who will provide live, ongoing opposition – a villain figure – who will be in constant conflict with the hero, either by trying to beat him up the mountain by hook or crook, or by thwarting the hero with the idea of keeping him from ever reaching his goal. Well, you couldn’t write a novel with Fred simply saying, over and over, that he wanted to be first, and Bart snarling repeatedly, “Oh, no, you’re not!” The conflict has to be developed and it has to move somewhere. How do you accomplish this? By developing a series of scenes.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Readers generally find nothing as enthralling as conflict. Most popular novels, for example, are basically the record of a prolonged struggle. But as we mentioned in chapter 2, a story of any length must have some sort of movement or progress; you can’t expect a reader to be patient very long with a story that drags out a single, unchanging conflict over many, many pages. You know the kind of static, unchanging conflict I mean; you see it when small children argue: Mary: “Mommy, make him stop! He hit me!”
Billy: “I did not!”
“Did so!”
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
“Did not!” Maybe the story question at the start of this little plot was: “Will Mary get mommy to make Billy stop?” And this question very quickly became: “Will Mary convince mommy in light of Billy’s denial?” But that’s as far as it got; Mary and Billy kept fighting about exactly the same issue, over and over and over again, ad infinitum. Fusses like this drive mommies nuts.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“What is a scene? It’s a segment of story action, written moment-by-moment, without summary, presented onstage in the story “now.” It is not something that goes on inside a character’s head; it is physical. It could be put on the theater stage and acted out. What is the pattern of a scene? Fundamentally, it is: Statement of goal. Introduction and development of conflict. Failure of the character to reach his goal, a tactical disaster.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“If you stop to think about it, even the most obvious stimulus-response transaction requires some internal messaging in the mind and body of the receiver of the stimulus. Even if you touch something hot and jerk back instantly, what really happened was that a message went up your arm to some part of your brain – “Pain down here!” – and your brain sent a reflexive message back down the arm again – “Jerk away from it!”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Another example, this time of a response without evident stimulus, might be the following: Mary walked into the party.
“Oh, no!” Julie groaned, and ran for the exit. What’s wrong here? Well, evidently Mary’s walking into the party must somehow be intended as a stimulus for Julie’s groan and fast exit. But if we want Julie to show a response of groaning and running, we have to give her a better, clearer reason for so doing – a better stimulus. Again, the matter might be easily fixed in several ways. Here is an obvious one: Mary walked into the party, wearing a strapless blue gown. “Oh no!” Julie – wearing an identical dress – groaned, and ran for the exit.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Stimulus must be external – that is, action or dialogue, something that could be witnessed if the transaction were on a stage. Response must also be external in the same way. For every stimulus, you must show a response. For every desired response, you must provide a stimulus. Response usually must follow stimulus at once. When response to stimulus is not logical on the surface, you must ordinarily explain it. A few examples should make these rules clearer in your mind. Let’s suppose you have a segment in your story where Joe and Sam are playing catch with a baseball in the front yard. If you show the following stimulus – Joe threw the ball to Sam. Then you must show Sam’s response, such as – Sam caught it. (or)
Sam dropped it. (or)
Sam didn’t see it and it hit him in the nose. Or something of a similar, immediate response-nature. How can something as simple as this get messed up? One sees it messed up all the time. Consider this transaction: (Stimulus) Joe threw the ball to Sam.
“Sure is a nice day!” Sam said. Now, some might think this is fine, because the reader will assume that Sam caught the ball. I’m afraid that many, many readers, however, will not make that assumption, and a tiny tickle of disbelief will begin far back in their brain somewhere – the obvious question: What happened to the ball??? How do you fix such slips? By showing the completion of the stimulus-response transaction, by providing the response to the stimulus you’ve already shown, thus: (Stimulus) Joe threw the ball to Sam.
(Response) Sam caught it. “Sure is a nice day to play catch!”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Please note that most such cause-effect story repairs can be handled in a few words. The key point here is not to exhaust the reader with great details, but simply to make sure that author-inserted causes are shown to have effects, and author-desired effects can be seen to have had causes.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Similarly, I recall another student’s novel in which the hero and the villain were together in a small starship hurtling through space. Suddenly the engines went dead and the two archenemies saw that they had only one escape pod – meaning one would live and one would die. This was all fine, but the story lost credibility for me at the instant the engines failed. Why? Because it was just bad luck. An effect had been presented without cause. (Again, it was easy enough to fix: The writer put in a brief segment ahead of the engine failure, showing the villain sabotaging it. Of course that required a bit of villain-motivation, showing why the villain thought it was a good idea, but again this could have been handled quite briefly by showing the villain intending only to slow the engines so his cronies might catch up, or some such.)”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“I remember, for example, a student story handed in to me once at the University of Oklahoma. In this particular story, there was a violent windstorm at night, to which much description was devoted. (This made it a big cause of something, right?) But in the morning, none of the story characters mentioned it, the sun was shining, and the lawns beyond the house windows did not have so much as a blown-down leaf on them. It was easy enough to fix, but the writer had forgotten entirely to show the effect of the storm;”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Much of plotting from chapter to chapter deals with this kind of juggling of events so that one thing leads logically to another, cause-and-effect fashion. Writers over the years have probably sweated enough to fill Lake Erie as they tried to figure out how to motivate Priscilla to open the locked door (cause), or what next might happen after she did so (effect). In real life, blind luck has to be accepted because, after all, there it is – it just happened, period. But the fiction reader demands more credibility than he usually gets in real life.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“In the real, everyday world, accident, coincidence and fate often play a major role in determining “how things work out” in a person’s life. Bad things happen to good people for no reason, and as today’s politics all too often proves, the opposite is equally true.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“1. Consider your story materials as presently imagined. Look for and identify, in terms of days, weeks or months, that briefer period of time when “the big stuff happens.” Plan to eliminate virtually everything else. 2. Think hard about your most major character and what makes him tick – what his self-concept is, and what kind of life he has built to protect and enhance it. (Make sure that this character is the type who will struggle if threatened. Wimps won’t form a story goal or strive toward it.) 3. Identify or create a dramatic situation or event which will present your character (and your reader) with the significant, threatening moment of change. 4. Plan your plot so that your novel will open with this event. 5. Decide what intention or goal your most significant character will select to try to fix things after the threatening opening change. Note what story question this goal will put in the reader’s mind. 6. Devise the start of a plan formulated by your most significant character as he sets out to make things right again. 7. Figure out how much later – and where and how – the story question finally will be answered. You should strive to know this resolution before you start writing. Granted, the precise time and even the place and details of the outcome may be changed by how your story works out in the first draft. But – even recognizing that your plan for the resolution may change later – you should have more than a vague idea when you begin. (To use a somewhat farfetched example, a ship captain might begin a voyage planning to unload his cargo in faraway England; war or weather en route might finally dictate that he would unload in France; but if he had set sail with no idea of his cargo and no idea of an intended destination or route, he might have wound up in Africa … or the North Sea … or sailing aimlessly and endlessly until he ran out of fuel – or sank. A novelist, like a ship captain, should have a good idea of where he plans to end up.) 8. Plan to make the start and end as close together in time as you can, and still have room for a minimum of 50,000 words of dramatic development.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Thus, if your story began with the secretary shocked and scared because of the change in her office environment, your next step had to be the selection of her intention designed to fix things. Let’s say you decided that she decided to learn how to operate the new computer system, or bust. The reader at this point can be trusted to translate this goal into a story question, and begin reading to learn the answer to “Will she learn the new computer system?” When you answer that question, the story ends. This answering, which takes place at the climax of your story, must answer the question you asked. You can’t cheat here. You can’t end with a climax that shows her accepting a marriage proposal, for example, or falling down a flight of stairs, or winning the Florida lottery. Your reader has worried about “Will she learn the new computer system?” and that’s what you have to answer; nothing other or less will do!”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“So a story starts with change, which leads to a goal, which raises a story question in the reader’s mind. But how do you end the novel? You do so by answering the story question you posed at the outset.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Now consider your reader’s psychological reactions when confronted with a concept-threatening change in the opening of your novel. Mr. Reader begins to worry. So far, so good; he may be willing to worry for a long time. But in today’s hurried, impatient world, that Reader can’t be expected to worry passively about the same vague and unchanging bad situation for several hundred pages. He needs something a bit more concrete to worry about.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“To put all this another way: Significant change that threatens your character’s self-concept is where your story starts.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“You will determine what this change will be in your story by thinking about your main character in considerable depth. Having done so, you will then write down his self-concept in a maximum of ten or fifteen words.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Any significant change can and probably will threaten the self-concept. Suppose the woman who defines herself as an efficient secretary is suddenly confronted by a new office situation so chaotic (or filled with new and confusing computer equipment, let us say) that she no longer can feel that she is operating at peak efficiency. In other words, some external change in her environment (the office situation) has put her out of kilter vis-à-vis her self-concept. In such a case, the woman who defines herself as an efficient secretary is going to be worse than unhappy; she is going to be profoundly shaken. If she is to be happy again, she will have to take some action. She may struggle to learn about computer systems to regain her old efficiency; she may quit her job and find a simpler one; she may try to convince the boss to go back to the old way of doing things in the office; she may elect some other course of action that will somehow get her self-concept back in tune with her everyday reality. You may be thinking that the simplest thing for our secretary to do would be change her self-concept to something like, “I’m an old-fashioned kind of office worker who doesn’t learn new tricks.” But it’s been psychologically proven that the self-concept is so deeply engrained, and so devoutly protected, that most people will go to almost any lengths to protect it as it stands today.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Because each of us carries around inside ourselves a mental picture of the kind of person we are. “I’m an efficient secretary,” we may say. Or, “I’m an outdoorsman who loves to hunt.” Or, “I’m a hometown boy not interested in travel far from home.” This self-concept is at the heart of our opinion of ourselves – how much we like ourselves, how much confidence we feel, etc. – and we live our lives in large measure to be in consonance with this self-concept, and to enhance it. Our self-concept is our most precious mental and emotional possession.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure