PENGUIN Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

Great book.

This is everything you ever need to know to write fiction that hooks the reader - and something you definitely should know if you want to stay out of the rejection pile! Bickham first presents the most basic prinicples underlying fiction: The story starts with a major change and a story goal, and the character moves from beginning to end following the prinicple of cause and effect. This he breaks down to scenes: The character enters scenes with a clear goal, meets a conflict and leaves the scene with a desaster. Scenes need to follow logically. Well, nice - but seems trivial, you might think. But Bickham goes far beyond this. After describing the structure of sequel (emotion - action - decision - action), he describes multiple variations of these basic structural elements and which plot and story problems might make these variations necessary. Later in the book, he gives advice about how to plot a novel-long story using these basic principles. In all the abundance of advice, he always comes back on the basic, most important principles, so that in all exceptions, you will still more fully understand why these principles are so essential to get readers hooked. Bickham ends with an Appendix with several examples of published works (mostly his own - well...), which are not my taste (neither in genre nor style) but are very instructional. I bought this book when I was blocked in writing my first novel: I had an idea of the characters, of where they start and where they should arrive at but no idea how to get them there, the less which scenes to write. This book made me sit down, plot, and write the story. Wonderful!

I needed this book for my school course. It contains great tips on how writing should be. If you want great information get this book.

J'ai énormément appris de ce livre de même que tous les autres de la série.

This is the only book in this series, of the ones I have read, which I found at all helpful, and I found it helpful five stars' worth. I am a literary snob, educated at the finest institutions in English and American literature. I abjure the best seller, the murder mystery, the thriller, the romance. I was writing a high-class novel. But, unfortunately, my novel had a problem. The other novels from my critique group had the same problem. There was a lot of great material in our novels, but there was no reason for our readers to keep on reading. Now, only a couple of us were trying to build page-turners. I certainly wasn't. But I had to admit, my reader had no reason to read chapter two after reading chapter one, paragraph two after paragraph one, or sentence two after sentence one. I figured that could not be good. What Jack Bickham taught me in this book is simply how to string my words together in the most straightforward possible fashion so that my reader has a reason to go on reading. Bickham isn't teaching style, plot, or genre. He is describing a way to give your writing forward motion. It can be a furious forward motion, or gentle, that's up to you. You can write high literature this way, or pulp, whatever you want. What is Bickham's secret? The linear narrative, a story built on a straight line, a chain of cause-and-effect. No flashbacks. No shifts of viewpoint. His tone is modest. He admits that there are other ways, maybe better ways, to structure a story, but he is not teaching those ways. Here is my question to you: if you can't write a story in a straight line, how do you ever expect to write one in circles and curlicues? It's a sound, simple instruction, an essential lesson, and I have not seen it taught so clearly anywhere else.