Words to Write by

Every composition teacher will draw out a rising action graph on the board (yes, we're old school). But how do you  translate that diagram into the sentences and paragraphs that keep your readers engaged in your story? In his book, Scene and Structure , Jack Bickham says to do it through structure (because of course he does), and gives seven different plot structures. Yes, dear listeners, we&...

Today we tackle Jack Bickham’s Common Scene Errors, and boy, are there a lot of them, 14 to be precise. According to Scene and Sequel , these simple problems will derail your scenes, rob them of their impact and drag down your novel. We go through each error, identifying if they’re a problem in our own writing and discuss Bickham’s solution. Want the list? Check out the show notes on our website:...

What writer hasn’t dreamed of leaving behind the stress and obligations of their day-to-day lives for a quiet, secluded space where they can just write? This past October, we did just that, renting an Airbnb for five days and making real progress on our memoir and novel.   During those days we recorded several short conversations documenting our writing progress and other experiences. In this “Bon...

In this episode, we’re taking a break from our usual craft book analysis and writing exercise because … Kim and Renee went on a writing retreat!  We abandoned our spouses, kids, and cats for five days to hole up in a secluded Airbnb. We’ll discuss our expectations, preparations and what we managed to accomplish on our little adventure. Besides the entertainment value, we’re hoping our experiences...

After 70 pages of Jack Bickham’s Scene and Structure we feel we’ve got a pretty good handle on how to break our stories down into action-packed, disaster-ending scenes and the more contemplative internal sequels that hold the book together. What we’ve had a harder time with is finding these scene-sequel sequences in the books we own.   So, what gives Bickham?  Apparently, there are multiple variat...

How do you take a ponderous story into a page turner? How do you take a Michael Bay paced novel and make it about more than one disaster after the next? In this episode, we explain Jack Bickham’s techniques to speed up or slow down your story’s pacing by using the structures of scene and sequel. We also check in with author Terry Teirney and editor Zoe Quinton to see if they use sequel in their wr...

When you’re bored with action-packed scenes and want to dive deep into the mind of your protagonist, maybe you should try a Sequel. In today’s episode we explore Bickham’s idea of sequel, its parts, and how it glues the scenes together. But we don’t just take Scene & Structure’s word for it, we go looking for sequels in several of our favorite books. Along the way, Renee has an existential cri...

After last episode’s deep dive into scene structure, we thought we’d ask a few published novelists and professional editors if they use scene goals in their writing/editing.  Then, for our podcast proper, we move beyond the scene basics into more advance concerns, like does that disaster you carefully crafted have the proper scope, immediacy, finality, and does it steer your story in the right dir...

If stories are made up of scenes, what are scenes made up of?  According to Jack Bickham in his book, Scene and Structure , scenes start with a character’s stated goal and rumble through an evolving conflict until they reach … a disaster. In this episode, we examine each of these elements and test Bickham’s assertions using Real Book examples. Then, for true illumination, we Bickhamize our own sce...

This episode is all about cause and effect, what it is, why it is critical in fiction despite being largely absent in real life, and how it works line by line as stimulus and response. In chapter 3 of his book Scene and Structure , Jack Bickham has some hard rules about applying and ordering stimulus, internalization, and response. We examine our own writing to see if it follows the proscribed for...

In this podcast we give our first impressions of our new book, Jack Bickham's Scene and Structure, and, being the enthusiast students that we are, we begin by identifying his central thesis. Then it's onto Chapter 2, where we answer some novice novelist questions and discuss Bickham's approach to a story's first page. To further our understanding, Kim "Bickhamizes" th...

In this episode we bid a fond farewell to Bradbury with one last conversation about his book, Zen in the Art of Writing. We discuss what's in the book, what it meant for us personally, and how readers can get the most out of this writing craft book. We send off Bradbury with our favorite Zen quotes. And then it's on to Jack Bickham's Scene and Structure . Renee gives a bit of contex...

In this episode we dive into the final chapter of Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing , titled: Zen in the Art of Writing. So what is Zen, anyway? With the help of the internet, we come up with some context. Then it's on to Bradbury's three critical words to writer success: WORK RELAXATION DON'T THINK (okay, that's four words) We do our best to figure out what Bradbur...

In todays episode, Bradbury tells us how loathing Ireland pushed him to becoming a playwright/screenwriter,  why these absurdest plays are no good, and the secret to successfully turning his short stories into film. Full disclosure, Renee and Kim pretty much disagree with these two chapters in Zen in the Art of Writing , and they have no clue what "Shooting Haiku in a Barrel means. But disagr...

No one succeeds all by themselves, and that includes Ray Bradbury.  In his book Zen in the Art of Writing, he credits several individual who were critical to his literary success. In this episode we examine the roles these people took on and speculate how they might fit into our modern social-media driven world. Then we have some fun with the chapter where Bradbury marvels that science fiction is...

According to Bradbury’s retelling, it took him nine days, a library typewriter, and a pocketful of dimes to crank out his first version of Fahrenheit 451 . Is such a feat possible in today’s distracting world? We decide to give it a try (or at least one day of a try) and report on the results it in this episode. If you want a play by play of the day, check out our bonus podcast on Patreon.  In ano...

Oh Muse, well-spring of creativity, why are you so unreliable? How can we entice you? In this episode, we discuss what the muse is and get some advice on nurturing and strengthening our own  from Ray Bradbury's book Zen in the Art of Writing. We also discuss Bradbury's journey to becoming a writer and how it compares to our own. Finally, we put all that muse-wisdom into practice as we de...

Ray Bradbury shares his secrets for how he wrote so many unforgettable short stories in the first two chapters of his craft book, Zen in the Art of Writing . In today’s episode we discuss his strategy to be engaged in both the ideas and the process of writing. We also unpack his technique to mine his subconscious for story ideas (and explain why so many of Bradbury’s titles were simple nouns.)  We...

Thinking of reading The Art of Fiction , "Young Writer?" Listen to this podcast first. Despite dying in a motorcycle crash in 1982, John Gardner achieved immortality (at least in the writing community) with the posthumous publication of The Art of Fiction, Notes on Craft for Young Writers . We've been studying and discussing this much recommended book over the past nine months (not...

Wow! We've gotten to the final chapter of John Gardner's book, The Art of Fiction and it's all about plotting your short story, or novella, or novel (there are, apparently differences). We also learn some fancy plot vocabulary. Oh, and the stripper? Her name is Fanny, and her story is the example that Gardner uses to explain how to devise a plot. Our guess is that most readers don&a...

Gardner promises to show us the proper way for the young writer to achieve artistic mastery. Doesn't that sound marvelous? We take him to task on his analysis and advice on the techniques of Imitation, Vocabulary, The Sentence, Point of View, Delay and Style from chapter 6 of The Art of Fiction.  Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Wednesday. Check us out.

Enough with the theoretical, in this episode we get some practical advice out of Gardner's book, The Art of Fiction. Specifically, he tells us what we're doing wrong. We discuss a few of what Gardner call's clumsy errors before moving onto Faults of the Soul - Sentimentality, Frigidity, and Mannerisms. Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Wednesday. Check us out.

After last episode's mother of all chapters, we get a reprieve - a much shorter and  lighthearted chapter devoted to those weird genres of metafiction, deconstruction, and jazzing around (that last one we're pretty sure Gardner  made up.) While we do discuss Gardner's take, we mostly just have fun geeking out over our favorite examples of the genres. But, just when you think it&apos...

Moving along to Chapter 3 in The Art of Fiction .  We go to war over the  Gardner's dichotomies that (he claims) make for great fiction, his vehement distaste for experimental fiction -- what he calls "intellectual toys," and his idiosyncratic choice of Helen of Troy to illuminate the steps to writing a novel. Let's just say there's a lot of sacking, burning, and pillaging...

Onto Chapter 2 of John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction.  We begin with Gardners’ opinions about grammar, and our opinions about those opinions, then we move on to his definition of genres and the great importance of “verisimilitude,” and, wrapping up the discussion, what Gardner thinks makes for a true artist writing great literature. For our exercise,  Renee has described a landscape as seen by a bi...