Jack M. Bickham > Quotes

“Writers write. Everyone else makes excuses.”
― Jack Bickham

“let’s just say once again that viewpoint is the technique by which the author picks a character inside the story, then tells the story from that person’s view, so that the reader sees, hears, feels, and knows only what that viewpoint character can experience. Of course it’s possible to have a so-called omniscient viewpoint, where the reader is made privy to the sense impressions, feelings and thoughts of virtually everyone in the story, but it’s a terribly difficult way to write, and not very popular today. After all, each of us lives his or her life in a single viewpoint, so why not tell the story the same way?”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“The most important way you attain this end is by presenting each scene moment by moment, leaving nothing out, because there is no summary in real life, and you can’t have any summary in the scene, either, if you are shooting for maximum lifelikeness and reader involvement.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Let’s assume for a moment that we are starting to write a novel using Fred’s goal of wanting desperately to be first to climb the mountain. The reader now forms his story question. But the story has to start someplace, and it has to show dynamic forward movement. Let’s further assume, then, that Fred comes up with a game plan for his quest. He decides that his first step must be to borrow sufficient money to equip his expedition. So he walks into the Ninth District Bank of Cincinnati, sits down with Mr. Greenback, the loan officer, and boldly states his goal, thus: “Mr. Greenback, I want to be first to climb the mountain. But I must have capital to fund my expedition. Therefore I am here to convince you that you should lend me $75,000.” At this point, the reader sees clearly that this short-term goal relates importantly to the long-term story goal and the story question. So just as he formed a story question, the reader now forms a scene question, which again is a rewording of the goal statement: “Will Fred get the loan?” Here is a note so important that I want to set it off typographically: The scene question cannot be some vague, philosophical one such as, “Are bankers nice?” or “What motivates people like Fred?” The question is specific, relates to a definite, immediate goal, and can be answered with a simple yes or no.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“For maximum effectiveness, you should start your story at the time of the change that threatens your major character’s self-concept.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“The old woman was not a quitter. She had her story goal – to get home – and I the reader had my story question: Would she get home that night? So she kept moving along intent on her story goal, and soon came to a pool of water. “Water, water, quench fire,” she urged. “Fire won’t burn stick, stick won’t beat dog, dog won’t bite pig, pig won’t jump over the stile, and I won’t get home tonight!” But – you guessed it – the water wouldn’t. So – but you’ve begun to get the idea, I’m sure. As a small child, I was not only fascinated with this story, but can still recall a certain degree of worry and tension in me as my mother read the tale to me over and over again. It was only many years later that it dawned on me that the story worked because all the scenes worked so well, all relating very clearly to the story question, and all ending in a disaster.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Today’s “fully developed scene,” consequently, tends to run shorter than it once did. You may encounter scene situations where you simply can’t develop all the complex immediate issues in fewer than a dozen pages. If so, that’s fine. But I suspect that the average, “developed” print-fiction scene today runs between four and six pages, and some are shorter than that.”
― 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

“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

“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

“None of this tells you how long a given scene should be, of course. A general rule might suggest that the length of the scene should be directly proportional to its importance in the overall plot. Thus Fred’s scene with the banker – vital as it may be – probably should be shorter in the final story than a later scene in which Fred and a competitive climber struggle for momentary possession of a rocky shelf halfway up the mountain – the loser likely to lose not only the race, but his life. The higher the stakes, the longer the scene.”
― 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

“Finally, whether you work on a story you have on the drafting table or do it strictly as an exercise, please take at least a half dozen 5 × 7 file cards and plan some scenes. At the top of each card, write the word Goal and then fill out in ten words or less what your central character wants in this scene. Two lines below, write the word Conflict and write down who the conflict is to be with, where the conflict is to take place, how long in story time the conflict is to last, and at least four twists or turns that the conflict is to take during its playing out. Near the bottom of the card, write the word Disaster. Write down what the disaster would be for this scene. These working cards do not have to link. They can, in other words, be isolated imagined scenes from as many different possible novels. But if you can make some of them hook together, one behind the other in a cause-and-effect fashion, so much the better. For that’s what you do when you plot.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“Let me urge you to go through your work and mark the scene-opening goal statement in red, the conflict portion in blue, and the disaster in black. Then, with other colors, go back through the conflict section and underline in a different color each subtle shift of argument or change in tactics you can identify. Having done all this, go back through yet another time and circle in some additional color every time you have allowed your hero to repeat or reiterate his scene goal. If you have kept things on the track, even a complicated scene with many shifts in the argument will find the hero trying doggedly on several occasions to repeat what he’s here for. (This keeps him a bit on the track, and it doesn’t hurt the reader’s continuing sense of focus on the scene question, either.)”
― 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

“1. The goal of each scene must clearly relate to the story question in some way. 2. The conflict must be about the goal. 3. The conflict must be with another person or persons, not internally, within oneself. 4. Once a viewpoint has been established and that viewpoint character’s problem and goal have been stated, it’s wise to remain with that same, single viewpoint through the disaster. 5. Disaster works (moves the story forward) by seeming to move the central figure further back from his goal, leaving him in worse trouble than he was before the scene started. 6. Readers will put up with a lot if your scenes will only keep making things worse! 7. You can seldom, if ever plan, write, or revise a scene in isolation of your other plans for your story, because the end of each scene dictates a lot about what can happen later.”
― 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

“5. Disaster works (moves the story forward) by seeming to move the central Figure further back from his goal, leaving him in worse trouble than he was before the scene started. It may seem paradoxical to beginning novelists that scenes work best when they move the lead character further from his story goal – that the best narrative progress often appears to be backwards.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“There is no simple answer. You have already noted, I am sure, that the statement of the scene goal will ordinarily be very brief, seldom more than a few lines. Even if the viewpoint character reiterates the scene goal several times during the conflict portion of the segment, all the total word-age directly specifying the scene goal will be quite small. The disaster, too, often comes in a very few words – a cannonade fired at the very end of the scene, and seldom more than a hundred words in length. This leaves the inescapable fact that the length of any scene will depend largely on the extent to which you the author develop the conflict section – how long you write it.”
― 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

“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

“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

“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

“The question: “Do I have to have the conflict outside the character? Can’t I have the character at war with himself inside his head?” Answer: The conflict has to be on the outside. If you remember the example of writing something which could be put on the theater stage, you will not forget this principle.”
― Jack M. Bickham, Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

“He has made enormous progress – backward.”
― 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

“Remember how stimulus-response transactions work, with an internalization in the middle? Simply recognize that there will be a number of sharp twists and small setbacks during the conflict portion of the scene, and your viewpoint character will experience each of these turns as a stimulus; before he replies in most cases you the author have the option of going into his brief internalization concerning what was just said or done. It is in these internalizations that you can remind the reader what’s at stake, and how things seem to be going in the opinion of the viewpoint character.”
― 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

“What if,” you say to yourself, “Mr. Greenback starts attacking Fred’s business background, and Fred angrily hurls onto the table his home mortgage and papers for an existing loan made to his company?” (With this escalation, you figure, the conflict will toughen up.) It’s highly possible that the escalation would indeed make the conflict sharper and more interesting. It’s even logical that such an escalation could take place, growing out of a goal statement that didn’t necessarily promise such huge single-scene stakes. But throwing so many blue chips on the table carries with it the danger that the disaster which must now grow out of such an escalation could have greater scope than you desired early in your story; it’s possible that Fred could leave the bank not only sans his desired loan, but with his company loan called in for immediate payment and his home mortgage in jeopardy. And maybe that’s a disaster with considerably broader scope than you intended when you started to write this scene! Occasionally such a “surprise” may stimulate you to heighten tension throughout the rest of the story; usually, however, you’re in danger of losing control of both the direction and pace of your story. In like manner, overdoing it in an effort to bolster a scene’s conflict can bring on results that are too immediate.”
― 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