Writing: Jack Bickham, my strange hero · 7:57pm Feb 15th, 2013
Scene and Structure is a good little book by Jack Bickham with several simple formulas that work to keep stories engaging. Jack Bickham wrote many action/adventure/suspense novels, although he's better-known for the columns and books he wrote for Writers' Digest, and for teaching writing at the U. of Oklahoma from 1973 to 1990.
But I noticed that Bickham only uses examples from action/adventure novels. He's always talking about car chases, gunfights, and mine accidents. And the prose in his examples is terrible. So I bought some of his novels, to better understand how to interpret his advice. It's not a good sign when you list an author's books in order of popularity, and the top seven are books on how to write books. Those who can't do, teach.
Jack Bickham was in many ways a terrible author. I say this after skimming two of his most-popular novels, Twister[1] and Tiebreaker. His minor characters are sometimes a little interesting, but his major characters always break down cleanly into good guys and bad guys—and the good guys are not very distinctive. (One of Bickham's pieces of advice is to keep the character and motivations of the protagonist and antagonist simple, clear, and free of all shades of gray, so the reader roots whole-heartedly for the protagonist and yearns to see the antagonist crushed. This makes the story less interesting, but it does keep you turning pages, at least for a while.) His stories have no themes worth mentioning. The plots, characters, and dialogue are hackneyed and uninteresting. Yet they're solid, entertaining stories that are hard to stop reading. He has a knack for description, his scenes are compact and efficient, and you always know what's happening and why you're supposed to care.
Jack Bickham had little talent or art. He wanted to write, and he studied long and hard and figured out how fiction works. And that was enough. He didn't have keen observational powers; he didn't have deep insights into human nature; he had no big ideas; he couldn't create complex characters or write poetic prose. He didn't have the gift. But he powered through with brute-force analysis and willpower, and wrote and sold novels that entertained people. He's the Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger of writing, and he actually made it for a while (though he never gave up his teaching job—perhaps out of necessity, perhaps by preference). I don't know if that's a victory or a tragedy, but it makes him a kind of hero to me. Not the kind I want to be, but one I respect, and who can give me hope of a sort.
[1] Not the basis for the movie Twister, or at least he wasn't credited for it. He did write The Apple Dumping Gang, but it was released the same year as the film, which means it must have been a novelization of the screenplay rather than an original work.
Interesting.
There is no shame, I think, in writing simple stories meant only to amuse. There is craft and ingenuity there, too, and it would not be a better world if every book attempted to ascend to some imagined lofty peak of True Literature.
That being said, what I wonder is: was he happy? Did he just want to write and have his stories read, and was he happy to do so? Or did he want something indefinably more, something he couldn't quite reach?
...I took creative writing at the University of Oklahoma.
Not until 2003, though. Shame I missed out on that.
I've read the Character and Viewpoint entry in the Elements of Fiction Writing series (albeit about a decade ago) and I remember it being helpful, especially in deciding how to devote your story-telling time in a larger work with a defined hierarchy of character importance. That one suggested largely the opposite, as I remember – using archetypes to stand in for minor characters, but spending time developing major characters into figures with individualized personalities and problems.
All that said, I may have to look into picking this up. It sounds interesting, and although I'd like my own writing to develop into something that can better approach themes and ideas, at the end of the day I think that all the lofty goals in the world won't get you anywhere if you can't create a taut, well-structured narrative that keeps people reading to see those themes and ideas.
Not to nitpick (totally to nitpick) but your usage of the phrase 'those who can't do, teach' is completely inaccurate. The actual meaning is closer to 'those who can no longer do, teach': for example, a pitcher who coaches after he severely fractured his throwing wrist, or a smith that threw out his back.
830536 You speak as if it were a translation from another language. Not as far as I know. Google tells me the original quote is, "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches." (G.B. Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903)
"Those who can't do, teach" has been around long enough to be it's own thing now, even if it was derived from something else long ago. But I would like to know if it's a variation on something older.
Google says:
"Those who can't do, teach": About 872,000 results
"those who can no longer do, teach": About 4,080 results
Hmm, you really didn't make much a case for the guy; he seems like a robot that spits out novels as opposed to someone to hold in regard. Care to elaborate on why you consider him a hero? In any case, he seems like a better teacher of how to get published than of how to write.
830536 I've only ever heard it used the way BH does here; it's always held that derogatory tone to it as far as I'm aware.
831027 It's the gifted people who spit out novels thoughtlessly. Hacks like me and Bickham have to work at it. It depresses me every time a fimfiction author who wrote a story that I really liked says they wrote it in a few hours. That happens a lot. Whereas the story I spent much of the past week working on is one I began 11 months ago. I've probably spent at least 50 hours on it, and it's only 9000 words. I don't feel very gifted, but I want to write. I write like Bickham, relying on brute-force analysis, not inspiration.
831170 Ah, that makes sense. I agree, that kind of dedication is something to look up to I'm the same way; I'm not an author, but the projects I do work on are definitely labours of weeks rather than hours. You gotta do the best you can with what you have, I suppose, and then make up the rest through sweat and blood.
Talent can make the gifted lazy.
Perseverance can accomplish miracles in the hands of the everyman.
831170
Yes. This.
I also like how the man's story dispels a popular image that all writers are just somehow magically able to sit down and vomit forth a proper story with characters and themes and everything. Knowing that it actually does take mountains of hard work is oddly reassuring. It's better than the alternative world that some people are simply magically writerly.
831406
THIS, for all the bits in Equestria.
Being somewhat talented in some endeavors, I'm very familiar with this. And let me say, from that side of things, perseverance is a helluva lot more important than talent for most things, or at least most things that are hard and/or important.
I would far rather read something that an author has poured his blood, sweat and tears into than an Athenian tale that springs from the proverbial brow of Zeus, fully-formed and ready to do battle. Why? Because what you get in that extra work may not be obvious, but it's critical. Theme, tone, and structure, notably, are things I associate with the hard days of working.
Having both talent and perseverance would, admittedly, be the best. But talent just gets you a few good ideas. Perseverance is what gets you to the point where your ideas are worth reading.
831170 There's a bit of 'Wellhead pressure' in writing too. Both "In Celestia We Trust" and "The Sacrifice of the Knight Bolo" were just one long spontaneous painful writing session where I did nothing but type until I hit the end (which was normally around 3am with work the next day). If I had tried that with "Tutor", I would have starved to death. (100k words) "Monster" had been scratching at the back of my head for several months until it broke out, but that scratching process let me mentally block out the whole sequence of events (I can't write outlines on paper) until I was ready to start. Now I'm putting out a chapter a week (although at my low quality level)
A lot of what might be called "wrote in a few hours" is actually "Thought about for months, mentally outlined, revised, and then typed out one night." although sometimes the Muse does really sit on our computer chair with spiked mace in hand, urging us onward. Or else.
830566 Y'know... I've always had a gut reaction against that truism. Maybe it's because I'm a martial arts nut. Believe me, all of my sensei could do very well. Same for most of my upper-level education. Come to think of it, all my art and animation teachers were very competent professionals as well.
I think Shaw was dead wrong and only provided fodder for bad students to use as an excuse to disrespect their teachers.
830457
"There is no shame, I think, in writing simple stories meant only to amuse." Absolutely none! In fact, I would assert that entertainment value should be the primary goal of literature. Sure, there are many other aspects that can raise a work into the realm of the sublime, but if the work isn't entertaining at its heart, it's like a castle built on sand.
I hear a lot of emphasis being put on theme, but it seems to me that most authors who put overmuch value in theme end up with bloodless cut-outs plodding around to illustrate a point instead of believable characters.*
Language use that approaches prose poetry can be awesome when it doesn't get so thick that it... ah... I seem to be headed toward a major rant. Nobody wants that.
TL:DR A story better be amusing or I won't read it, no matter how masterful it is otherwise.
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* See the latter works of Heinlein, for unfortunate examples.