Tag: Book reviews

This is a book my developmental editor recommended to me after reading my manuscript. I apparently had some opportunities to tighten up my third-person close perspective—and I’ll tell you, this book really helped me understand where I wasn’t quite nailing it.

Now, the book includes an appendix that lists all of the common red flag words that indicate you may be telling instead of showing. However, you won’t need to rely on that, because the book does such a great job of explaining telling versus showing that you’ll be able to easily recognize it when it’s happening.

The title promises that you’ll “really get it” and, for me, that was 100% the case. I give it 5 stars, 12 dog ears, and 2 Post-its.

It’s really about closeness to the POV character

It’s not that telling is bad all the time. Depending on what you’re trying to convey, sometimes a bit of telling can be faster and less awkward than showing. However, telling creates distance between the reader and the point-of-view character. It does that primarily by injecting the author in between the reader and POV character. That’s not ideal, because today’s readers want to occupy the POV character as much as possible.

Dialogue is the most natural way to show, not tell. I have a firm handle on that.

Description is another way to show, but the key is to filter the description through your POV character so their attitudes, tastes, and preferences color what’s being described. I wasn’t doing that all the time. In some cases, I just needed to remove tags like “he sees” and “she hears” and just describe the things seen and heard.

And the final way to show is through internal dialogue. I was the least consistent at using this tool.

A few things happened when I did an editing pass with a focus on using those three methods of showing, not telling:

1. My descriptions became more interesting because they also helped readers understand the POV character better
2. Replacing “told” reactions with internal dialogue led to more unique and colorful reactions that felt more organic and in the moment
3. Chapters got little tighter, with the manuscript dropping around 3,000 words overall

That may not sound like many words to cut from a 90,000 word manuscript, but it’s amazing how much faster a chapter reads when you take two unnecessary words out of this sentence and replace three okay words with great words in the next paragraph—and do that again and again and again.

Related posts:

Book review: ‘The Fantasy Fiction Formula’ by Deborah Chester

Book review: ‘The Writer’s Journey’ by Christopher Vogler

Book review: ‘Story’ by Robert McKee

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I read The Fantasy Fiction Formula on the recommendation of my developmental editor and found it to be highly helpful. It covers all the fundamentals of novel writing, from formulating a story plan to crafting a story climax, but also gives you a lot of tools to understand those elements better.

For instance, it includes a lot of charts and lists, including ones for different types of opening hooks and different story roles. One of my favorite frameworks is SPOOC, which shows you how the Situation, Protagonist, Objective, Opponent, and Climax all work together. Having a clear SPOOC gives you a massive headstart on writing your query letter and jacket copy. The book also includes plenty of drill exercises.

I give it 5 stars, 20 dog ears, and 5 Post-its.

For my dystopian sci-fi trilogy, two concepts from The Fantasy Fiction Formula were particularly helpful. 

The moral dilemma

Chester says that “a well-written third act requires the protagonist to be cornered and forced to deal with some kind of inner dilemma. … Whatever the inner dilemma happens to be, passing this part of the final test requires the protagonist to reveal their true nature and face the internal problem squarely.”

Moral dilemmas feature prominently in the climaxes of each book in my dystopian sci-fi trilogy. But after reading Chester’s advice, I tweaked the climax of Book 3 to make the dilemma even more stark and the resulting cost even higher. [evil laugh]  

The hidden story

Novels often contain as many as three story lines, says Chester.

1. The ongoing story
2. The back story
3. The hidden story

This was my first time encountering this concept, which I found fascinating. Chester explains that the hidden story is “running parallel to the ongoing story, although most of the time it’s not on view. Readers are unaware of it, but writers have to know what’s happening off-stage to their nonviewpoint characters.”

Fundamentally, that makes perfect sense. Of course, things are happening that you aren’t showing. What I found really interesting was that I was routinely revealing the hidden story, particularly with my antagonists.

In other craft books, I’d read about writers cheating their way to big twists and surprise reveals by artificially withholding information. Instead of being impactful, these can make readers feel cheated. Moreover, they’ve robbed themselves of the opportunity to create suspense by revealing breadcrumbs of the struggles to come.

In my trilogy, I make the hidden story visible to create dramatic irony, which is when the reader knows more than the characters do. Then readers have to experience the tension of wondering if the heroes will avoid the coming danger (Nope!) and then painfully watch as danger blindsides our unsuspecting heroes.

That said, turnabout is fair play. And sometimes the antagonists are unaware of what our heroes have been up to and don’t account for that in their plans. [evil laugh]

Related posts:

Book review: ‘The Writer’s Journey’ by Christopher Vogler

Book review: ‘Story’ by Robert McKee

To receive future posts for free or to become a Patron and support my dystopian sci-fi novel and get special thank-you goodies upon its publication… 

When I signed on to work with my developmental editor, they recommended I read The Fantasy Fiction Formula by Deborah Chester, which I hadn’t read. 

But they also wanted to know what books on novel writing I had read. At the time, this was the list:

• The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell 
• Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody
• Story by Robert McKee
• Writing for Emotional Impact by Karl Iglesias
• The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass
• Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass
• The Irresistible Novel by Jeff Gerke
• Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman
• Wired for Story by Lisa Cron
• Fiction Writing Master Class by William Cane
• Structuring Your Novel by K.M. Weiland
• Scene & Structure by Jack M. Bickham
• Description & Setting by Ron Rozelle
• Writing the Fiction Series by Karen S. Wiesner
• How to Write Dazzling Dialogue by James Scott Bell
• Dialogue by Robert McKee
• 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
• Creating Characters by The Editors of Writer’s Digest
• Creating Character Arcs by K.M. Weiland
• Nail Your Novel by Roz Morris
• Plot Versus Character by Jeff Gerke
• Fight Write by Carla Hoch
• Writing the Romantic Comedy by Billy Mernit
• How to Write a Mystery by Mystery Writers of America
• How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card
• How to Create History by A Trevena
• How to Destroy the World by A Trevena
• Hooked by Les Edgerton
• The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman
• How to Write a Sizzling Synopsis by Bryan Cohen
• The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker
• Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell
• The Author’s Checklist by Elizabeth Kracht
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
• On Writing by Stephen King
• Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses

Plus, some books about psychology and character traits, including:

• Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey
• The Positive Trait Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
• The Negative Trait Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

Plus, some books on publishing, including:

• Get Signed by Lucinda Halpern
• Funny You Should Ask by Barbara Poelle
• The Guide to Literary Agents edited by Robert Lee Brewer
• The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman

Some of those books are more useful than others. I’m sharing video reviews of the ones I recommend most.

Why have I read so many books on novel writing?

While I’ve written five nonfiction books and nearly 4,000 articles and posts, I knew I didn’t know nearly enough about novel writing. I’d taken a couple of courses on it in college, but that was long ago and those were workshops rather than instructional. What I needed was a masterclass in novel writing, so I set out to create one for myself.

I started off with Hooked by Les Edgerton and How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card, both of which my eldest son gave as birthday presents. Then I bought a few more books on craft I found at Barnes & Noble. And then I started buying the craft books mentioned in the craft books I was reading, plus ones mentioned in articles I’d read.

Admittedly, some advice is repeated by multiple authors, but I’ve found that just reinforces what the fundamentals are. At the same time, truly unique advice and frameworks have stood out, especially once I got a dozen books in.

Both kinds of advice were helpful, since I was writing and revising my novels as I read these books on novel writing. As I read, I reflect on what I’ve written in previous chapters and whether it needs tweaking. Or I can adjust my outline for future chapters, which happened after I read The Fantasy Fiction Formula—which I highly recommend. 

I’ve since read two more craft books, and I have six more in the TBR pile on my desk. Every one I read makes me a little better writer.

To receive future posts for free or to become a Patron and support my dystopian sci-fi novel and get special thank-you goodies upon its publication…

The Writer’s Journey is one of the core books in my writer’s library. Among other things, it provides a detailed discussion of the 12 parts of the Hero’s Journey. This popular story structure is found in many sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, and other stories, including cultural touchstones like Star Wars.

It also discusses 8 character archetypes, such as the hero, mentor, shadow, and shapeshifter. The book provides lots of examples of variations, so you can really understand the amazing richness of these archetypes.

I give The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler 5 stars, 19 dog-ears, and 3 Post-its.

The Hero’s Journey

In my dystopian sci-fi trilogy (Project: T.A.G.), I make extensive use of the Hero’s Journey story structure. However, I don’t hesitate to mix things up. For example, my male protagonist has to face two challenges, or threshold guardians, to cross the threshold into act 2 of book 1.

Another protagonist, when faced with the call to adventure, refuses it repeatedly. Eventually, they face a refusal disaster, which is another twist on the standard formula.

Character archetypes

Every major character in my story has been assigned one of the eight archetypes: hero, mentor, threshold guardian, herald, shapeshifter, shadow, ally, or trickster. While I, of course, love my heroes, I’ve probably had the most fun writing the shapeshifters in my trilogy. 

My heroes aren’t perfect and my villains aren’t cartoon villains, but the shapeshifters are a step up in complexity. These characters aren’t just shades of grey, but actually change their colors over the course of the series. For that reason, these are the characters that will surprise readers the most.

Related posts:

Book review: ‘The Fantasy Fiction Formula’ by Deborah Chester

Book review: ‘Story’ by Robert McKee

To receive future posts for free or to become a Patron and support my dystopian sci-fi novel and get special thank-you goodies upon its publication …

Don’t be fooled by the fact that the subtitle of this book includes the word “screenwriting.” This book is for anybody who wants to understand storytelling at a deep, technical level. 

It covers story structure, down to the level of beat. Idealist, pessimist, and ironist controlling ideas. Character development and inner, personal, and extra-personal conflicts. How to handle the inciting incident. Designing acts and scenes. Selecting your cast of characters. And all with great examples from famous films you’d likely seen.

If I were creating my own masterclass on creative writing, this would be one of the core books.

I give it 5 stars and 13 dog-ears and 4 Post-its.

Essential story building blocks

In Story, there are two concepts that were particularly helpful to me as I’ve been writing my sci-fi trilogy. The first concept is that beats create scenes, scenes create sequences, sequences create acts, and acts create stories—with each of those marking a change. The beats mark changes in action/reaction, with those culminating in the turn of a scene, with those culminating in a final scene of a sequence that has a greater impact than the earlier scenes in the sequence … and so on, with acts culminating with the biggest changes.

All that’s to say that with every beat, scene, sequence, and act turns on a change of fortune for one of the main characters, either for better or worse. The more reversals the better, since those are usually born out of conflict and make for more of an emotional rollercoaster. That may seem intuitive, but keeping this top of mind has really helped me avoid flat scenes that don’t affect the characters.

One of my favorite scenes in the second book in my series features three worsening beats for the male protagonist, then two improving beats that has him looking on the bright side of things—only to have the chapter end the sequence with a full reversal of his fortunes, where he actually gets the thing he initially wanted but now no longer wants. Then the next chapter starts with it getting even worse. It’s a torturous ride and a lot of fun!

The negation of the negation

And the second concept is the Negation of the Negation. McKee explains it like this:

“A story that progresses to the limit of human experience in depth and breadth of conflict must move through a pattern that includes the Contrary, the Contradictory, and the Negation of the Negation. … Negation of the Negation means a compound negative in which a life situation turns not just quantitatively but qualitatively worse. The Negation of the Negation is at the limit of the dark powers of human nature.”

My takeaway is that love vs. hate, for example, is too black and white. The Negation of the Negation is a more interesting twist on hate, such as self-hate or hatred pretending to be love. I got really excited when I read about this, because it turned out my sci-fi trilogy already leveraged this concept, as the overarching extra-personal conflict is a war that’s masquerading as peace.

And a separate novel idea I’ve been outlining and amassing notes about involves a devotion to love lost that keeps the protagonist from moving forward with their life.

The Negation of the Negation is a fascinating concept that I’d never encountered anywhere else. If you’re working on your own story, see if you can fit it into this square of Positive, Contrary, Contradictory, and Negation of the Negation themes. It might show you how to uplevel your theme. It’s also fun to brainstorm potential squares as a starting point for a story.

And for all of you non-writers, it’s a concept that you’ll find in some of your favorite, most-gripping stories now that you know what to look for.

Related posts:

Book review: ‘The Fantasy Fiction Formula’ by Deborah Chester

Book review: ‘The Writer’s Journey’ by Christopher Vogler

To receive future posts or to become a Patron and support my dystopian sci-fi novel and get special thank-you goodies upon its publication …

Fight Write by Carla Hoch is fantastic for any author who wants to write a believable fight scene, whether it’s with guns, blades, or fists—especially if, like me, you’ve never been in the military or mastered a martial art. But, honestly, even if you have, you’ll find this book valuable.

First and foremost, it’s a great reference guide, detailing different fighting styles, attacks, melee weapons, guns, and more. But as much focus as there is on creating a credible fight, Carla also focuses on the build up to the fight and the aftermath. Those have to be credible, too. So, there are discussions of intimidation and posturing, as well as post-fight injuries. She also has a number of interviews sprinkled throughout that bring more visceral first-hand accounts of fight-related experiences.  

I give it 5 stars, and 12 dog-ears.

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