Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story (Helping Writers Become Authors)

I'm currently wishing I read this book, when I first got it, instead of letting it sit on my shelf for 8 months. xD But honestly, it's that good. I've read K.M. Weiland's articles, and every time I read them, I got utterly confused. I randomly decided to give this book a try, despite having a hard time with her articles, and I am so glad I did!Weiland explains story structure in a way I've never been able to see it before, her style is relatable and easy to read, with tips for applying everything she's taught at the end of each chapter. I can't wait to use everything I've learned and if you're looking for a good book on story structure, this is the best one I've found. Highly recommend!

Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story by K.M. Weiland is the third book in the Helping Writers Become Authors series and sets out to demonstrate how the structure of a novel is the foundation to successful stories. Through examples in books and films, the universal aspects that help build a powerful plot and character arcs. Proper story and scene structures are detailed to time a story’s major events with better pacing and progression.In Structuring Your Novel, inspiring writer will learn:• How to determine the best methods for unique and personal visions for a story.• How to identify common structural weaknesses and flip them around into stunning strengths.• How to eliminate saggy middles by discovering the “centerpiece.”• Why conflict on every page is not necessary• How to discover the questions writers don’t want readers asking about the plot and writers do want readers to askAs an inspiring writer with tons of story ideas, I have no idea how to get started. Structuring Your Novel is a wealth of tips and guidelines with real examples to illustrate how and why these tips work. Every book, regardless of genre, has the same base, the same skeleton which appeals to readers. All stories are about characters, a setting, and a conflict or conflicts. Once those are in place, the meat of a specific story can be added. While reading this book, I took tons of notes to look back on as I outline and plan my stories. I look forward to reading the rest of the books in the Helping Writers Become Authors series. Even if you aren’t an inspiring author, this book will help everyone recognize story elements that are present in successful stories in movies and books and when they are not present is when the story fails. I recommend Structuring Your Novel.Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Storyis available in paperback, eBook and audiobook

I'm a consummate highlighter of Kindle books (non-fiction only. I don't highlight any fiction!). I find it a brilliant and convenient way to create my own person "Book summary". Just head to https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights and you can see all your highlights on one page.Why do I tell you this?Because "Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story" is easily my most highlighted book!K.M. Weiland does an excellent job of distilling the huge array of `advice' about structuring a novel into one packed reference.Not only that, she uses examples from two books and two movies to "show, not tell" how a perfect novel structure plays out in practice.I already own a number of the classics: "Techniques of the Selling Writer" - Dwight V. Swain, "Stein On Writing" - Sol Stein, "Story Physics" - Larry Brooks, "Writing the Breakout Novel" - Donald Maas, "On Writing" - Stephen King, "Blueprint Your Bestseller" - Stuart Horwitz, but with the exception of the latter, you could do away with ALL of those and still have more than enough to plan a cracking novel.What's that? You "don't plan"?Well you ought to. If only to avoid the pain of full rewrite after full rewrite. (For an excellent treatise on `outlining', you need look no further than Ms Weiland's own book. "Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way To Success").There is absolute gold in this book - and I am grateful that the author has a real talent for distilling some of the somewhat clunky information found elsewhere, into really simple-to-understand and easy-to-follow techniques.But don't be fooled by the simplicity.There is no `dumbing-down' in this book. Just fully-developed methods for honing your fiction.But wait, there's more.Weiland also gets down to the nitty-gritty of MICRO-structure. So you'll not only be able to structure your heart away, starting from your main story arc, including the EXACT points where plot-points must fall; the places in your novel where your characters must face challenges; then where they rise above them, but the author will then take you by the hand and deconstruct the "how-to" of every Scene.It's a sensational read, the prose is delightful, and the examples well-chosen. Weiland's choice of "Pride & Prejudice", "It's A Wonderful Life", "Ender's Game" and "Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World" will allow just about anyone to understand HOW good structure underpins excellence in story-telling across genres and medium.To the reviewer who suggested the use of "Hunger Games" would have been icing on the cake, but perhaps the threat of the spoiler kept it out, I think it's entirely possible that K. M. Weiland didn't choose this example because Larry Brooks has just done exactly that with the Hunger Games in his recent release "Story Physics" (It's a great deconstruction too, from major plot-points down to each scene. Worth a read and fully complementary to K.M. Weiland's book. Much harder to read though!)

It's not as if Weiland is giving you anything exceptionally new. I mean, it's still the three-act structure. It's still where various plot points are supposed to go.The brilliance is in the way she holds your hand as she tells you "so this is what you should be doing here and here and here" and then breaks down various bestsellers from various genres (you're likely to have read at least one of them no matter what) to illustrate the point.Which is what pings the *OH NOW I GET IT* or in my case, *WAIT NOW I GOTTA FIX THAT THING IN MY WIP/SYNOPSIS* moments.

Not as great as I expected, her podcasts are much better. Her website has these very chapters condensed into articles so the book is not worth purchasing if you can avoid it. I didn’t get much out if it. There is a lot of waffling in this book and most of the book is swathing texts of examples rather than advice. I got frustrated that my story was going nowhere and I purchased “The Fantasy Fiction Formula” and my writing has developed layers and substance after that.

Helps to understand the structure of plot and scenes. Although, it gives a lot of information on scene structure and the perquisites of the first act, it holds little for the middle part of story structure. The middle is one of the huge parts of a story that many authors can get wrong, so I was a little disappointed with the short section on the middle. As a newbie writer I wanted to add to my collection of craft books that give valuable information on all parts of a novel. This book is helpful with other parts of story structure and well worth the purchase.

I didn't feel I read anything here that I wasn't already aware of having read a number of other books on structure, and this wasn't as detailed or perceptive as some of the others. However it was useful to canter through and be reminded of its importance. Some good observations on the importance of seeing how the characters react to big events and that not every scene has to be (or can be) full-on action. Some of the analysis of books/films felt a bit contrived and it didn't help that my reading history clearly isn't very similar to the author's so a lot of the examples I wasn't familiar with (I have of course read Pride and Prejudice...) Some of it felt a bit like telling, not showing in itself, eg, write a breathtaking climax, but don't be melodramatic. Sure, but how? Anyway, I read it all and joined her mailing list, and there are some useful references in the end notes. Not bad.

Along with its companion books 'Outlining Your Novel' and 'Creating Character Arcs' also by K M Weiland, this book is well written and filled with fabulous advice. There's no prescriptive "You must do it this way" nonsense. Instead, the author offers a clear and concise guideline to how taking time to properly plan the structure of your own work can save a heck of a lot of time during the actual writing process. I would heartily recommend this and the author's other books to any established or soon-to-be established writer. If there were more stars available I'd have given it a ten out of ten