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Punching Babies: a how-to guide
How to make writing your novel as easy as punching babies! 'Punching a how-to guide' teaches the aspiring writer of every fiction genre how to plot their perfect story from first scratch to final draft every exciting step of the way. This handy-dandy plotters guide will teach you everything from the bare essentials of Acts and how to separate them to all the detailed story steps in between that establishes gripping dramatic conflict which keeps your readers reading. Writer's block is only a prancing unicorn myth to crafty plotters, and Punching Babies will forge you into a lean, mean plotting machine! Because inside Punching Babies is the 'secret' detailed story skeleton and proven formula explaining every necessary plot point to your greatest story! For free articles on everything plot, character, and story structure architecture please ADRONJSMITLEY.BLOGSPOT.COM
- GenresWritingNonfiction
109 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 6, 2014
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66 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 19, 2021
As well as a reader, I also try to write. To help with that (and not at all as a way of putting off the, you know, actual writing) I have been collecting a lot of books about writing. I have read a few of them, but not recently, so i decided it was time to delve into the archive and pluck one or two out to see if they help. In the case of this one the answer is simple, Yes it did help. And very thought-provoking it was too!
I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this book when I first saw it on a discount promotion. The title was somewhat disconcerting, but the description of the contents seemed interesting, so I bought it. What I found, when I got past the disturbing cover, was an extremely interesting and practical book. The premise of most of the book is essentially very simple. It looks at one particular film, in this case the Keanu Reeves and Lawrence Fishburne classic The Matrix, and deconstructs it right down to individual scenes to show how it was put together, and how that relates to story archetypes such as The Hero’s Journey and Save the Cat.
The approach taken in deconstructing the story has echoes of Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method, in that it starts at a high level, looking at the purpose of the different acts, then expands each act into progressively finer and finer chunks. By the end of the book we have 240 separate bits of story. In a typical 60,000 word novel, each of these bits would be around 250 words in length. These seem enticingly easy to get started with. As Smitley puts it “... and anyone can write 250 words”.
At every stage of the book, I could feel my mind fizzing with ideas of how to apply these insights to my current work in progress. I usually like to rush through books as fast as possible, so I can get to the next one, but this book demanded more thought than that. Even though it is relatively short at about 24,000 words itself, it took me a few days to do it justice. By the end I was already working on a detailed plan for my novel based on the ideas in this book.
Even when that part of the book is done, it’s not over yet. There is a whole load more interesting stuff at the end. The kindle formatting of this section is a bit strange, but I think the following sections would probably be best described as appendices. Each appendix contains a summary of a different approach to structuring a story. Some of the approaches I had come across before, such as Lester Dent’s 6000-word “Master Plot” for a pulp short story. Others were les familiar, but still very interesting and immediately useful for some of my other projects such as the “Classic 12 Chapter Mystery Formula”. I am sure I will keep coming back to this book and digging for treasure in these end sections.
On the whole, I think this book can best be described as a synthesis. It takes all the best and most useful story structure ideas the author has been able to find and shows them in the context of a familiar and well-structured film. The biggest omission for me is that this book has nothing to say about characters. This is probably one aspect where “The Snowflake Method” is a more useful book, as that approach develops character and plot at the same time, with each having the chance to influence the other. Even despite that, this is easily the most practical book on story structure that I have come across so far.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this book when I first saw it on a discount promotion. The title was somewhat disconcerting, but the description of the contents seemed interesting, so I bought it. What I found, when I got past the disturbing cover, was an extremely interesting and practical book. The premise of most of the book is essentially very simple. It looks at one particular film, in this case the Keanu Reeves and Lawrence Fishburne classic The Matrix, and deconstructs it right down to individual scenes to show how it was put together, and how that relates to story archetypes such as The Hero’s Journey and Save the Cat.
The approach taken in deconstructing the story has echoes of Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method, in that it starts at a high level, looking at the purpose of the different acts, then expands each act into progressively finer and finer chunks. By the end of the book we have 240 separate bits of story. In a typical 60,000 word novel, each of these bits would be around 250 words in length. These seem enticingly easy to get started with. As Smitley puts it “... and anyone can write 250 words”.
At every stage of the book, I could feel my mind fizzing with ideas of how to apply these insights to my current work in progress. I usually like to rush through books as fast as possible, so I can get to the next one, but this book demanded more thought than that. Even though it is relatively short at about 24,000 words itself, it took me a few days to do it justice. By the end I was already working on a detailed plan for my novel based on the ideas in this book.
Even when that part of the book is done, it’s not over yet. There is a whole load more interesting stuff at the end. The kindle formatting of this section is a bit strange, but I think the following sections would probably be best described as appendices. Each appendix contains a summary of a different approach to structuring a story. Some of the approaches I had come across before, such as Lester Dent’s 6000-word “Master Plot” for a pulp short story. Others were les familiar, but still very interesting and immediately useful for some of my other projects such as the “Classic 12 Chapter Mystery Formula”. I am sure I will keep coming back to this book and digging for treasure in these end sections.
On the whole, I think this book can best be described as a synthesis. It takes all the best and most useful story structure ideas the author has been able to find and shows them in the context of a familiar and well-structured film. The biggest omission for me is that this book has nothing to say about characters. This is probably one aspect where “The Snowflake Method” is a more useful book, as that approach develops character and plot at the same time, with each having the chance to influence the other. Even despite that, this is easily the most practical book on story structure that I have come across so far.
Read
February 14, 2020A no nonsense guide to writing save for the title.
This book has a wealth of information about writing, and it is presented clearly.
I bought this book back in 2018. After reading close to one-hundred more books about writing, I circled back and gave it another read.
It is definitely in my top ten along with Swain and a few others.
There's a sea of people out there telling you how to write. Most are selling shlock and trying to cash in.
This guy is selling an excellent manual and trying to cash in. So, I thought I'd try and show my appreciation with a five star review.
Thanks.
This book has a wealth of information about writing, and it is presented clearly.
I bought this book back in 2018. After reading close to one-hundred more books about writing, I circled back and gave it another read.
It is definitely in my top ten along with Swain and a few others.
There's a sea of people out there telling you how to write. Most are selling shlock and trying to cash in.
This guy is selling an excellent manual and trying to cash in. So, I thought I'd try and show my appreciation with a five star review.
Thanks.
February 2, 2019
Wow. While the title is completely random and I'm not sure what it has to do with writing a novel, this is probably one of the most helpful books I've read when it comes to plotting your novel. It helps you flesh out your story by offering a great formula that many movies, novels and stories follow that can get the creative juices flowing. And while the formula is very specific, it serves only as a guide.
Like the author says: "Make the formula fit your story, not the other way around".
Like the author says: "Make the formula fit your story, not the other way around".
April 7, 2019
My new bible!
This book takes all the books I've ever learned from and combines them into an easy, concise doctrine with examples from a well known movie. I love how he took elements from the snowflake method, Save the Cat, Dwight Swain's motivation/reaction units, Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey and much more and united it with concrete examples from the mivie The Matrix.
Very well done!
This book takes all the books I've ever learned from and combines them into an easy, concise doctrine with examples from a well known movie. I love how he took elements from the snowflake method, Save the Cat, Dwight Swain's motivation/reaction units, Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey and much more and united it with concrete examples from the mivie The Matrix.
Very well done!
Read
August 26, 2021This is a horrible title for a book. The content teeters on the edge of plagiarism since no effort was made to change the names of Blake Snyder's beats, like Catalyst and Fun & Games. Other content seems lifted out of K.M. Weiland's blog. I've read all of this elsewhere.
I do like the miniscule planning technique, and if the sources were properly credited I wouldn't feel so bad about touching the book.
I do like the miniscule planning technique, and if the sources were properly credited I wouldn't feel so bad about touching the book.
June 6, 2019
A competently written guide to telling a very specific type of story. Interesting to see this oft-repeated formula laid out in detail. I hope no one reading this thinks this is the only way to tell your story...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews