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The Lie: Toxic Untruths Being Fed to Aspiring Writers Today…: ... And How It Can Kill Your Writing Dream
Among avocations, the "way to write a novel" is perhaps among the most debated, written about and obscured of any of the available conventional wisdoms to be found. The conversation gets downright political when you consider that, truly, there is no one way to go about it, and just as certainly, no right way or wrong way.
Writers are left to discover "their" way, often choosing from a menu of approaches floating among the flotsam and jetsam of that available writing conversation. But without benefit of experience and the pain of trial and error, attaching veracity and function to the resume of the spokesperson for one's chosen truth -- too often from the mouths of the uninitiated -- can have devastating effects. Even worse, some writers spend decades assuming there is indeed only one way, and that any other way is just counter-intuitive noise to be avoided.
With writing, pain is optional. And yet, for many it remains oh-so-romantic a context for the creation of stories.
Sooner or later, though, after years of frustration and failure, some writers quietly look elsewhere for writing truths that, upon closer examination, simply make more sense, even when it comes to the process of idea and narrative development.
In this 2500 word tutorial, blogger and bestselling writing mentor Larry Brooks exposes what he calls "The Lie" about how and why novels work, and the path toward achieving that milestone, and thus, how and why the prescribed approach to achieving those criteria is a critical decision.
It isn't a question of planning or plotting, outlining or drafting, because indeed, writers working at either end of those spectrums have verifiable success to show for it. Pick your endorser, they await in both camps. The question resides at a deeper level of truth, one that defines process as the search for what works, rather than the means by which one embarks upon the journey to discover it. The difference is subtle yet powerful, and it can change a writer's career with a simple acknowledgement that they may indeed be going about this all wrong, and that a better approach may not require adopting a less comfortable approach to story development after all.
Larry Brooks is the author of two bestselling writing craft books, "Story Engineering" and "Story Physics." His writing website, www.storyfix.com, has been chosen by Writers Digest Magazine as one of the "101 Best Websites for Writers" for the past six years running.
Writers are left to discover "their" way, often choosing from a menu of approaches floating among the flotsam and jetsam of that available writing conversation. But without benefit of experience and the pain of trial and error, attaching veracity and function to the resume of the spokesperson for one's chosen truth -- too often from the mouths of the uninitiated -- can have devastating effects. Even worse, some writers spend decades assuming there is indeed only one way, and that any other way is just counter-intuitive noise to be avoided.
With writing, pain is optional. And yet, for many it remains oh-so-romantic a context for the creation of stories.
Sooner or later, though, after years of frustration and failure, some writers quietly look elsewhere for writing truths that, upon closer examination, simply make more sense, even when it comes to the process of idea and narrative development.
In this 2500 word tutorial, blogger and bestselling writing mentor Larry Brooks exposes what he calls "The Lie" about how and why novels work, and the path toward achieving that milestone, and thus, how and why the prescribed approach to achieving those criteria is a critical decision.
It isn't a question of planning or plotting, outlining or drafting, because indeed, writers working at either end of those spectrums have verifiable success to show for it. Pick your endorser, they await in both camps. The question resides at a deeper level of truth, one that defines process as the search for what works, rather than the means by which one embarks upon the journey to discover it. The difference is subtle yet powerful, and it can change a writer's career with a simple acknowledgement that they may indeed be going about this all wrong, and that a better approach may not require adopting a less comfortable approach to story development after all.
Larry Brooks is the author of two bestselling writing craft books, "Story Engineering" and "Story Physics." His writing website, www.storyfix.com, has been chosen by Writers Digest Magazine as one of the "101 Best Websites for Writers" for the past six years running.
13 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 3, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 10, 2015
It must hurt to be a huge proponent of story structure and then to have your own publisher promote a book that not only argues against it but disses you at the same time. Ouch… right? So this is a super short effort by Brooks to argue his side of the plot vs pantsers case. And free on Amazon.
I like Larry Brooks’ theories and I like the way he gives away most of it on his blog. Take the time to search through it and you’ll find pretty much everything he says in his books on there.
link: storyfix
The site wins awards almost every year.
The best ever argument that I have heard for saying that structure doesn’t limit creativity comes from an interview he did with Joanna Penn. He was asked what he said to people when they used the ‘I don’t plan because I’m being creative’ argument. To paraphrase, he said:
Every face is made up of two eyes, two ears, two eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, skin colour and hair or no hair. That’s it. And the earth produces an astonishing array of people who are different but fit within a group of humans. That’s what stories are; an astonishing array of different things that fit within a larger group.
I have tried to write many stories that have ended up going nowhere because I didn’t know where they were going. Oh, sure, I had a vague idea of ‘it all ends happily ever after’, or this person dies, or leaves or whatever. But after spending too much time and too much effort I had pages and pages of work that cannot be published. Not in that form. The more reviews I write for GR, the more I can see again and again where stories fail. Scenes that go nowhere; characters that exist for no reason, plot points that are not dealt with and as a result, books that get low ratings and annoyed readers. Readers who may not try another work by that author.
I read an article recently where a writer said that she wrote her whole story and then sat down and made sure that it fitted within standard story structure… ah, okay… but wouldn’t it be easier to just do that first?
And that’s exactly what I will have to do to rescue some of my earlier drafts that went nowhere.
Edit them and restructure them. Cut out that character that I love that serves no story purpose (maybe he can have his own story?), make sure that all my scenes exist for a reason, make sure that I have plot points and hooks and resolutions.
And if I can’t get it to work at the plotting stage, I have saved hours, maybe even months of my time. And if I do that first then I have the time to write ALL the stories that are in my head.
I am becoming more of a plotter every day… and it doesn’t make me less creative.
I like Larry Brooks’ theories and I like the way he gives away most of it on his blog. Take the time to search through it and you’ll find pretty much everything he says in his books on there.
link: storyfix
The site wins awards almost every year.
The best ever argument that I have heard for saying that structure doesn’t limit creativity comes from an interview he did with Joanna Penn. He was asked what he said to people when they used the ‘I don’t plan because I’m being creative’ argument. To paraphrase, he said:
Every face is made up of two eyes, two ears, two eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, skin colour and hair or no hair. That’s it. And the earth produces an astonishing array of people who are different but fit within a group of humans. That’s what stories are; an astonishing array of different things that fit within a larger group.
I have tried to write many stories that have ended up going nowhere because I didn’t know where they were going. Oh, sure, I had a vague idea of ‘it all ends happily ever after’, or this person dies, or leaves or whatever. But after spending too much time and too much effort I had pages and pages of work that cannot be published. Not in that form. The more reviews I write for GR, the more I can see again and again where stories fail. Scenes that go nowhere; characters that exist for no reason, plot points that are not dealt with and as a result, books that get low ratings and annoyed readers. Readers who may not try another work by that author.
I read an article recently where a writer said that she wrote her whole story and then sat down and made sure that it fitted within standard story structure… ah, okay… but wouldn’t it be easier to just do that first?
And that’s exactly what I will have to do to rescue some of my earlier drafts that went nowhere.
Edit them and restructure them. Cut out that character that I love that serves no story purpose (maybe he can have his own story?), make sure that all my scenes exist for a reason, make sure that I have plot points and hooks and resolutions.
And if I can’t get it to work at the plotting stage, I have saved hours, maybe even months of my time. And if I do that first then I have the time to write ALL the stories that are in my head.
I am becoming more of a plotter every day… and it doesn’t make me less creative.
April 21, 2018
Lies perhaps to discourage or advice from clueless mentors
Biggest lie is structure will stifle creativity and need to go with the flow. Structure is the flow. If you don’t know structure you will eventually find it after countless mind numbing edits. Sure, if you want to just write heading to wherever inspiration takes you, go ahead. You will produce a novel that only you will want to read. Or maybe you like editing and find it fascinating to take a mess and eventually find a small gem within then cut out most of the novel you spent months writing because it’s a disaster and was missing guess what .... structure. If you prefer to take the long road then by all means just start writing without any kind of structure in mind. Maybe hop in your car, turn off the gps, throw away any maps and drive cross country without looking at road signs along the way too. Sure, you may eventually get there, but you will spend most of the time going the wrong way and probably end up in Canada or Mexico.
Biggest lie is structure will stifle creativity and need to go with the flow. Structure is the flow. If you don’t know structure you will eventually find it after countless mind numbing edits. Sure, if you want to just write heading to wherever inspiration takes you, go ahead. You will produce a novel that only you will want to read. Or maybe you like editing and find it fascinating to take a mess and eventually find a small gem within then cut out most of the novel you spent months writing because it’s a disaster and was missing guess what .... structure. If you prefer to take the long road then by all means just start writing without any kind of structure in mind. Maybe hop in your car, turn off the gps, throw away any maps and drive cross country without looking at road signs along the way too. Sure, you may eventually get there, but you will spend most of the time going the wrong way and probably end up in Canada or Mexico.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews