The title of this post may seem like a typo, but it’s not! 🙂 I just finished reading Bickham’s Scene & Structure, and I am totally geeking out about this cool new tool in my writer’s box. Coming from a background of writing poems, essays and flash fiction, the elements of structure in novel writing are totally novel to me. Now that I know about them, it is making it a ton easier to edit.
A lot of the concepts I had already incorporated intuitively in my chapters, but when something wasn’t quite right, I could sense it, but not know exactly how to fix it. Now I know! And it has given me so much more confidence.
A writer friend suggested I read this book months ago, and I wish I had stopped everything and done it right then. But honestly, there is something about the word ‘structure’ that bores the tears out of me. And the actual book is highly conceptual and written like a textbook. If the concepts hadn’t been so earth-shattering and applicable, I never would have made it through. Bickham does include great examples that helped me extrapolate how to apply the concepts.
Anyway, if you are starting down the novel writing path, and you don’t know what I’m talking about, read Scene & Structure! I found this graphic online because I’m not the only author who’s been rocked with this revelation. Swain was Bickham’s mentor, I believe, so I’m sure his book is great too, although I haven’t read it yet.
Sarah Lynne John 
I’m so excited for you, I can feel the hightened excitment in your heart. My own heart is really getting excited to see the end product of what we have both wanted to happen. This book sounds like a very helpful amount of learning.
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