Wow. A Series of Advice that Needs Interpreting.

If you look at google, you will find a lot of mixed reviews for this book on writing a novel. and, a lot of it is well warranted, but some of it is just people getting their feathers ruffled. you see, creative types don't usually like being told what to do, and this novel gives you a fully fleshed out, complete, and also tedious framework for how to write a novel.

And I guess that could be a good thing if you are a first time novelist, but on the other hand I would definitely not recommend this if it's your first go around. it's just too excessive. you would probably end up giving up on noveling all together, at least for a little while, because this book gives you so many steps to follow before you can even start the first letter of the actual manuscript.

I've seen others call this planning on overdrive, and that's kind of on the mark. so let me tell you what's actually inside of it. Lisa outlines a method of novel planning that revolves around a two-tiered Scene Card setup.

There is no way I'm using this elaborate scene-based setup, or creating all sorts of folders on my computer to manage it. however, it's the two-tiered part that could be used by anybody.

See, throughout this book the author pushes this idea that your story needs a secondary element, which she calls the third rail alluding to the fact that subway trains have a third rail that actually provides the electric power to the train. in an awful, she has decided that the third rail is the mental life of the protagonist.

And thinking about that, adding this second tier or second layer to my noveling process, one being the external conflict and the other being internal conflict, help me strengthen my book considerably. Especially since the way that it's set up, there isn't a whole lot of action for the first couple of chapters. what there are instead, is big decisions and big discoveries. these can have some external effect, but they have a much larger internal psychological effect on the characters.

This meant that before I read Story Genius, the opening of my book was just a little bit lacking. and now I feel like my entire novel has an extra layer of substance, namely internal drama. and that is more or less how this book works. there is this hulking and excessive framework that shows you how to write a novel from beginning to end. and it's so massive and as I said before tedious that you probably won't finish that novel for a couple of years. keep in mind that if you want to go full-time you're going to have to write one to four novels per year, so this is honestly a pretty horrible approach.

However, this is why I said it is probably a better book for people who have already written one or two books themselves, there is a whole lot that can be found in this intimidating Jungle of a book that can be harvested, separated from its source, and applied in your own way to your own writing style.

And so, while I understand why there was a lot of pushback in the reviews, I also think that there's a lot to gain from this book. It just takes a little extra work.

This is similar to how I feel about Dean Wesley Smith book writing into the dark, where he also lays out a full framework for writing from the seat of your pants. I definitely do not use his system, but I found hearts of it that I could apply to my own writing approach, and that is what I suggest people do with this book.

Be ready not just for the huge start to finish system that is set up, but also for the rather chatty tone of the narrator.

This casual tone really irritated me, to the point where when I first started I couldn't read for too long because the narrative voice was irritating. it basically reads like a conversational 2000s blog post. or maybe a magazine from the 90s that's trying a little too hard to be conversational, perhaps to relate to a teenage audience or something?

It turns out that she talks like this in real life apparently so I can't really blame her for it. also I did get used to it, so it's not that bad, it's just definitely something you should be aware of before you start.

The idea of the internal conflict symbolized by the third rail is just one of three or four very powerful techniques that Lisa put in the book. it might be worth doing a series dissecting these ideas, but for now all I can say is that it is worth reading this book.

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