Story Genius
How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel
Ratings21
Average rating3.5
I have mixed feelings about this book. The first half felt definitely stronger than the second. First off, there is very little brain science in this one, if anything. I am also wary of books and authors that tell you there is one way and one way only to do things correctly, and that "real writers would never do xyz". But I simply ignored all that stuff and tried to focus on what felt useful to me.
That said, the method presented in this book resonated very well with me. It's not too far off from what I was already doing, but it allowed me to bring in more structure and understanding to my writing process. Funnily enough, whenever I didn't feel like doing one of the exercises the author suggests - either because I was tired, or because I didn't think it would actually matter to this silly, little, definitely not serious thing I'm writing - I pushed myself to do them and surprise, surprise: they turned out to be very useful. They forced me to reconsider some aspects and also allowed me to see connections I was blind to before.
Unfortunately my biggest pain point with this book is the case study the author uses throughout the entire book to showcase her method at work. No shame to the novelist who agreed to lay bare her early thought process for her novel but, while initially the development of that story sounded worth paying attention to, I'm under the impression that in order to follow Lisa Cron's method the story took weirder and weirder turns. And while seeing how a writer applies the method to her own writing is quite interesting, the last 20% of this book is basically only focused on that, and by that point I didn't care - the story was not compelling, not relatable, it really just felt very weird.
The author also ends up reiterating the same concepts over and over. While repetita iuvant for sure, at some point it felt less like a way to drill the concepts into the reader's brain and more as a way to dilute the word count (and yeah, I think this book is way too long for what it actually does).
All in all, there are really good insights in this book and I'm glad to have read it as it sparked a lot of thoughts for my writing. I won't be taking this method as a religion but I've definitely found several valuable tools I enjoy.
I have mixed feelings about this book. The first half felt definitely stronger than the second. First off, there is very little brain science in this one, if anything. I am also wary of books and authors that tell you there is one way and one way only to do things correctly, and that "real writers would never do xyz". But I simply ignored all that stuff and tried to focus on what felt useful to me.
That said, the method presented in this book resonated very well with me. It's not too far off from what I was already doing, but it allowed me to bring in more structure and understanding to my writing process. Funnily enough, whenever I didn't feel like doing one of the exercises the author suggests - either because I was tired, or because I didn't think it would actually matter to this silly, little, definitely not serious thing I'm writing - I pushed myself to do them and surprise, surprise: they turned out to be very useful. They forced me to reconsider some aspects and also allowed me to see connections I was blind to before.
Unfortunately my biggest pain point with this book is the case study the author uses throughout the entire book to showcase her method at work. No shame to the novelist who agreed to lay bare her early thought process for her novel but, while initially the development of that story sounded worth paying attention to, I'm under the impression that in order to follow Lisa Cron's method the story took weirder and weirder turns. And while seeing how a writer applies the method to her own writing is quite interesting, the last 20% of this book is basically only focused on that, and by that point I didn't care - the story was not compelling, not relatable, it really just felt very weird.
The author also ends up reiterating the same concepts over and over. While repetita iuvant for sure, at some point it felt less like a way to drill the concepts into the reader's brain and more as a way to dilute the word count (and yeah, I think this book is way too long for what it actually does).
All in all, there are really good insights in this book and I'm glad to have read it as it sparked a lot of thoughts for my writing. I won't be taking this method as a religion but I've definitely found several valuable tools I enjoy.
Added to listOwnedwith 97 books.
