Reddit reviews Story Engineering

Great advice. This is from a book called Story Engineering by Larry Brooks (link below). The Harry Potter image comes directly from chp 3 I think. Best book on writing I ever read.

https://www.amazon.com/Story-Engineering-Larry-Brooks/dp/1582979987

You should check out this book http://www.amazon.com/Story-Engineering-Larry-Brooks/dp/1582979987 it helped me a lot. I was the same way I had a story I wanted to write and this book helped me figure out what to do with all my ideas.

That's a deep rabbit hole, if you allow it.

There are different books for different parts of writing. Some focus on plot [Story Engineering], others talk you out of blocks [Bird by Bird]. Some deal with immersion [Wired for Story], others warn you of newbie errors [edit yourself]. Some only talk about the first page. [Hooked]

If you specify what you want the most, I can probably get more specific. The best way to deal with grammar, other than the dry "Elements of Style", is to take a free Cousera course, or OWLs online and test yourself. I also love this blog for crazy awesome advice both current and in her backlog.


Edit: Also too: Might as well hang out at /r/writing and pop in from time to time at /r/grammar

This is going to sound like really flippant advice, but I swear it's not: buy this book. There is a lot of basic stuff you need to know - how to build character and setting and plot, how to outline, and yes, how to market and publish - and this will spell it all out a lot better than any of us could do in a short post on Reddit. It is definitely an intro book, so it's not like this is all you'll ever need, but it's a good place to start, get your bearings, and figure out what you need to focus on next.

When you do figure that out, there are tons of books dedicated to everything from plot structure and scene structure to dialogue and character arcs; buy those too. Use them to improve your craft and fill in your gaps.

Also, read! Read a lot. Pay attention to how the authors you love set a scene, how they describe things (and to what extent), how they structure their chapters and scenes, how they write dialogue. All books contain real, solid examples for you to study and learn from. Figure out what you admire, and mimic it. Figure out what you hate, and avoid it.

And last, keep in mind that your writing probably won't be amazing right away, and you might have to rethink and rewrite your book a few times as you're learning (or maybe even start a new one) before you really feel like you've gotten the hang of it. Don't give up, just keep learning and keep working.

• (from straumoy) - Check out Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling.
  
• (from SugarRosFanfiction) - Check out The Hero's Journey, a 12-step process for figuring out a plot.
  
• Story Engineering by Larry Brooks is a good resource for grasping the basic essentials of effective storytelling. The framework he presents is universal and relatively clear, although he tends to pound the same drum repeatedly to reinforce the ideas.

I don't know if you want basic structure stuff or more advanced things, but here are a bunch (only one of which is a book, sorry).

The most basic you can get is three act structure. This and this summarize it fairly well.

The Snowflake Method is a good method for developing plot.

Story Engineering is a book that does a fairly good job at explaining the elements of plot structure.

The lectures from Brandon Sanderson's class at BYU are online, and two of them (2012 #7 and 2013 #8) focus specifically on plot structure.

Writing Excuses has a good episode about the Hollywood Formula (here's a TV Tropes page that basically summarizes it). Writing Excuses has a bunch of other episodes on plot structure as well.

This is a good presentation about basic story structure, and here you can download the actual powerpoint.

i read these two books, hugely helpful:


link 1

link 2

i know everyone has their opinions about the best books but i really enjoyed both and they're very motivating

Read read READ this book!!

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Engineering-Larry-Brooks/dp/1582979987

i really like Story Engineering by Larry Brooks.

Really interesting and informative ideas about the structure for a mainstream/commercial novel: http://www.amazon.com/Story-Engineering-Larry-Brooks/dp/1582979987

It was my birthday last week! Happy IRL cakeday!

I've been doing so much writing lately that I think this book would probably send me right into orbit. Or surprises, I like surprises.

You'll probably get a lot of people saying 'On Writing', but for me that was too abstract for what I wanted. The best thing I've read has to be, hands down, 'Story Engineering' by Larry Brooks.

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Engineering-Larry-Brooks/dp/1582979987

Two great books I recommend:

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks and Book Architecture by Stuart Horwitz.

You'll find that writing a story isn't too different from what you're used to in journalism. These two books offer the knowledge and skills to build a strong backbone. Once you understand how a story works, the rest is all you. If you have the basics down, you can focus on the art much more easily. And when you're done, a) you won't need to do nearly as many edits/rewrites, b) you'll have a damn fine story, and c) you have a better shot at getting published.

http://www.amazon.ca/Story-Engineering-Larry-Brooks/dp/1582979987

I'm going to recommend this book to you: Self-Editing For Fiction Writers Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

You may also want to check out: Dynamic Characters and Story Engineering