Customer Reviews

Scene and Structure

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

"Scene and Structure" by Jack M. Bickham is not about writing quality fiction or novels. It is for money-driven hacks who want merely to churn out garbage that follows a formula for "success," in the hopes that some editor will pay for it and publish it. It is for those who want write for the people who think that "A Tale of Two Cities" and such literature is boring -- for the millions of people who have been victimized by the dumbing down of America. This book provides all the stereotyped formulas and rules for such authors and their fiction. It results in such gems as the author quotes, like

As he spoke, Simpson took a .45 automatic out of the drawer and aimed it at Hero's head.
"I'm sorry," Simpson said, thumbing the hammer of the weapon back. "But now you have to die."
Hero saw Simpson's hand start to tighten on the trigger.

If you want to learn to write fiction that has any lasting value, get such books as "Crafting Scenes," by Raymond Obstfeld, "Building Better Plots," by Robert Kernen, "Stein on Writing, by Sol Stein, "The Art and Craft of Novel Writing," by Oakley Hall, etc.

Don't waste your money on "Scene and Structure" and other books like it -- unless you're interested in producing trash and know an editor who owes you big time for something.

In Scene and Structure Bickham says that, to propel a story forward, every scene must end in disaster. By "disaster" he doesn't mean natural disasters or brutal deaths, but that the viewpoint character should have his attempt to pursue a goal thwarted again and again until his desperation pushes him to risk everything in a final attempt. At first, this seems simplistic, and it doesn't describe all stories, but reading this book raised my awareness of what makes some stories compelling while others seem diffuse and uninvolving.

Bickham also dwells on the aftermath of every confrontational scene and, in laying out the total pattern, provides the most useful analysis of story I've yet seen.

If you subscribe to the school that says the Wizard of Oz is the greatest plot ever, with a character who at ever turn is diverted from her initial and all consuming goal, then this book is right up your alley. It's a wonderful and concise book about plot and action, cause and effect. For these it's terrific and you'll find yourself making lots of notes and planning, unfortunately, ways to completely revise the work you already thought you had a jump on. Yes it's that strong a thesis. But at times it begins to seem a bit formulaic, as though this simple formula can produce great results. It won't of course and the contemporary novel proves you can play with a wider range of plot structures than found here. Bickham as a writer is not very strong, so don't trust his own examples. He's like a cheapo crime writer. His examples have gross errors, and he even does what he suggests writers don't do. But not writers are both great teachers and writers. Bickham is probably a terrific teacher, if he makes his students pay attention like he does in this book. A word aside, I've looked carefully at other books in this series and none of them are close to the usefulness of this one. A definite bookshelf requirement for the writer.

It amazes me that a book club that sells books to potential writers will allow such a poorly edited book to be released with their imprint.

Bickham's message is solid gold. The advice he gives is worthy of being repeated in creative writing courses in the best universities in the world. However, a good editor with a sharp pencil is needed. Somebody please buy Writers Book Club a copy of Strunk and White. They sorely need it.

The author suggests that ending with disaster is a fundamental part of the scene. It is beyond obvious that this is wrong! In the story is to have a happy ending, then at least the last scene must end in success. Even with this excecption, it still means the protagonist still has to overcome all of the obsticles in his way in the last few pages of the book. It would be extremely difficult to pull this off legitimately.

I loved this book. I am a first-time novelist, though I've written some non-fiction. It's true, as one other customer review said, that it has some strict rules that some may feel "limits" their creativity.. These are rules to follow for a cogent story...and they work! You can always break them, if you know them. I want all Jack Bickman's books on my shelf to refer to when I am lost in my writing, or when I need some inspiration. I wish I could take a class from him.

I loved this book. I am a first-time novelist, though I've written some non-fiction. It's true, as one other customer review said, that it has some strict rules that some may feel "limits" their creativity.. These are rules to follow for a cogent story...and they work! You can always break them, if you know them. I want all Jack Bickman's books on my shelf to refer to when I am lost in my writing, or when I need some inspiration. I wish I could take a class from him.

"Scene and Structure" by Jack M. Bickham is not about writing quality fiction or novels. It is for money-driven hacks who want merely to churn out garbage that follows a formula for "success," in the hopes that some editor will pay for it and publish it. It is for those who want write for the people who think that "A Tale of Two Cities" and such literature is boring -- for the millions of people who have been victimized by the dumbing down of America. This book provides all the stereotyped formulas and rules for such authors and their fiction. It results in such gems as the author quotes, like

As he spoke, Simpson took a .45 automatic out of the drawer and aimed it at Hero's head.
"I'm sorry," Simpson said, thumbing the hammer of the weapon back. "But now you have to die."
Hero saw Simpson's hand start to tighten on the trigger.

If you want to learn to write fiction that has any lasting value, get such books as "Crafting Scenes," by Raymond Obstfeld, "Building Better Plots," by Robert Kernen, "Stein on Writing, by Sol Stein, "The Art and Craft of Novel Writing," by Oakley Hall, etc.

Don't waste your money on "Scene and Structure" and other books like it -- unless you're interested in producing trash and know an editor who owes you big time for something.

With due respect to other reviewers (below), I think they overlook the central strengths of Bickham's "Scene & Structure" and home in on peripheral weaknesses.

An absolute prerequisite to success in any craft is acquiring its vocabulary. If you go in for graphic design, you'd better know how to use concepts such as contrast, repetition, proximity and alignment. And if you go in for fiction-writing, you'd better be able to use concepts such as scene, sequel, conflict, stimulus-response, and so on.

You might have a layman's understanding of what a scene is, but from the writer's standpoint, exactly what is a scene? What is its purpose? What work does it do in the overall structure of a story? What are its elements? What sorts of variation are possible? How do you control the pace of a scene? How do you effectively connect one scene with another?

These are the kinds of questions Bickham answers in useful detail and with comprehensible illustrations. If the excerpts from his own writing in the appendices aren't masterpieces, as some reviewers complain, they do serve to illustrate specific principles and techniques discussed in the text, and these are what make the book worth studying. To mention just one example, before encountering this book I had never grasped -- never even heard of -- the distinction between a scene and a sequel. Yet it's an essential distinction that a fiction-writer must know how to use. Bickham tells you, shows you, how to use it -- and many, many others.

Bear Bryant was no Joe Namath. Bob Fosse was no Fred Astaire. The best coaches and teachers are rarely top-notch practitioners of their arts. Jack Bickham is no Charles Dickens, granted. But he is an insightful teacher whose book can be of value to any writer who approaches it as a source of instruction rather than a model of artistic excellence. And as for "rules" about ending every scene with a disaster or explicitly stating the goal of every acene, if these strike you as wrong, vary them. If you aren't creative enough to think of exceptions to an "all or nothing" rule, are you really creative enough to write fiction?

...and this is one of the Edward Hyde parts of the series. Jack Bickham spends 163 pages telling you how to write about the most formulaic structure imaginable: a scene (which consists of some kind of disaster) and sequel (time to breathe and start off on some new, goal-oriented action). He continues with instruction on building these into a novel.

Bickham's two-step is rather repetetive and uninteresting, and will produce the same sort of book. Characters aren't really important here; in fact, you can't do much of anything cognitive except the sequel, which is reserved for recovering from the last scene and planning for the next one. If you take Bickham's advice to heart, you'll write the kind of paperback pot-boilers that people buy in airports and forget more quickly than they read them. Sure, the disasters can be emotional; in that case, you get the kind of melodrama that fills stuff like your average trashy romance novel. Et cetera.

If you really, self-honestly, just want to write entertaining melodrama, pick up this book along with another member of the Elements of Fiction Writing series, William Noble's Conflict, Action, & Suspense. If not, go toward Orson Scott Card's Characters & Viewpoint and Nancy Kress's Beginnings, Middles, & Ends. It's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a series of writing advice books.