Tokyo Godfathers: Progressive 90s Christmas Movie! #WritingAdvice #WritingCraft #StoryStructure

Should every scene in your novel end in disaster?

According to Jack M. Bickham’s classic craft book "Scene & Structure", pretty much.

In this episode of The Dialogue Doctor Podcast, Jeff Elkins sits down with JP Rindfleisch IX to work through Bickham’s influential approach to fiction and ask a simple question:

Does this advice still hold up?

Published in 1993, "Scene & Structure" lays out a highly structured, plot-driven method for building fiction. Bickham argues that stories should begin with significant change, give the reader a central story question, and then move forward through a chain of scenes built around goals, conflict, setbacks, and consequences.

Some of it is remarkably useful.

Some of it feels very 1993.

And some of it leads Jeff and JP into arguments about thrillers, cozy fiction, character-driven stories, Miyazaki movies, haunted amusement parks, "The Goonies", and whether writers should spend an entire novel making their readers feel threatened and worried.

At the center of the discussion is Bickham’s model of stimulus, internalization, and response.

Something happens.

The character processes what happened.

Then the character acts.

Jeff and JP talk about why that simple sequence can be incredibly helpful when editing scenes, especially when events seem to happen randomly or a character makes a choice without enough setup.

They also dig into Bickham’s famous scene structure:

--goal

--conflict

--disaster

According to Bickham, a character enters a scene wanting something, encounters opposition, and ends the scene farther away from the larger story goal.

But does every scene really need to work that way?

The conversation explores:

--why cause and effect matter in fiction

--how stimulus and response keep scenes grounded

--why character choices are often the missing piece in plot-focused systems

--when internal thought strengthens a scene—and when it becomes a crutch

--whether every conflict really needs to be external

--why Bickham insists that scenes should end badly

--how scene goals create forward momentum

--what happens when characters refuse to follow the plot you planned

--the difference between plot-driven and character-driven storytelling

--why good character voices can make readers tolerate a lot of structural weirdness

--and whether modern fiction still needs the same rigid structures writers were taught thirty years ago

Jeff and JP also explore Bickham’s concept of the “sequel”—the reflective space between action scenes where a character experiences emotion, thinks through what happened, makes a decision, and chooses a new course of action.

That leads into a larger discussion about pacing.

Fast sections often come from character interaction, dialogue, and action.

Slower sections give readers space to process, reflect, and understand what the events mean.

But does that reflection need to exist as a separate structural unit?

Or can writers weave action, dialogue, reflection, and emotional turns together inside the same scene?

By the end of the episode, Jeff and JP land on a larger lesson about craft books.

Writing formulas can be extremely useful.

They can give you language for problems you already sense. They can help diagnose scenes that feel flat. They can expose gaps in cause and effect.

But a formula is a tool—not a law.

And sometimes the most valuable thing a craft book can do is force you to argue with it.

Because wrestling with a writing rule may teach you more than simply following it.