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Rapid Story Development
This book offers a unique approach to storytelling, connecting the Enneagram system with classic story principles of character development, plot, and story structure to provide a seven-step methodology to achieve rapid story development. Using the nine core personality styles underlying all human thought, feeling, and action, it provides the tools needed to understand and leverage the Enneagram-Story Connection for writing success.
Author Jeff Lyons starts with the basics of the Enneagram system and builds with how to discover and design the critical story structure components of any story, featuring supporting examples of the Enneagram-Story Connection in practice across film, literature and TV. Readers will learn the fundamentals of the Enneagram system and how to utilize it to create multidimensional characters, master premise line development, maintain narrative drive, and create antagonists that are perfectly designed to challenge your protagonist in a way that goes beyond surface action to reveal the dramatic core of any story.
Lyons explores the use of the Enneagram as a tool not only for character development, but for story development itself. This is the ideal text for intermediate and advanced level screenwriting and creative writing students, as well as professional screenwriters and novelists looking to get more from their writing process and story structure.
Author Jeff Lyons starts with the basics of the Enneagram system and builds with how to discover and design the critical story structure components of any story, featuring supporting examples of the Enneagram-Story Connection in practice across film, literature and TV. Readers will learn the fundamentals of the Enneagram system and how to utilize it to create multidimensional characters, master premise line development, maintain narrative drive, and create antagonists that are perfectly designed to challenge your protagonist in a way that goes beyond surface action to reveal the dramatic core of any story.
Lyons explores the use of the Enneagram as a tool not only for character development, but for story development itself. This is the ideal text for intermediate and advanced level screenwriting and creative writing students, as well as professional screenwriters and novelists looking to get more from their writing process and story structure.
- GenresWritingNonfiction
298 pages, Hardcover
Published October 7, 2019
24 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Lyons
21 books14 followersJeff Lyons is a traditionally published fiction/nonfiction author, screenwriter, and story development consultant in the film, television, and publishing industries. He has worked with major studios like NBCU and Columbia Pictures, and leading independent producers and film and television production companies. He is an instructor through Stanford University's Online Certificate Program in Novel Writing, and guest lectures through the UCLA Extension Writers Program.
Jeff is a regular contributor and advisor to leading entertainment industry screenwriting and producing fellowship programs, such as the Producers Guild of America's "Power of Diversity Master Producers Workshop," and the Film Independent Screenwriting Lab, and is a regular workshop presenter at leading writing industry conferences such as the Romance Writers of America, StoryExpo, Great American Pitchfest, Romance Writers of America and many others.
His clients have won major literary prizes like the “William Faulkner Gold Medal,” and include New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors. Jeff has written on the craft of storytelling for Writer’s Digest Magazine, Script Magazine, The Writer Magazine, and Writing Magazine (UK). His book, Anatomy of a Premise Line: How to Master Premise and Story Development for Writing Success was published by Focal Press in 2015, and his new book, Rapid Story Development: How to Use the Enneagram-Story Connection to Become a Master Storyteller, was published by Focal Press in October 2020.
His feature film, American Thunderbolt, is being produced by Hargenant Media, UK, and two of his novellas, 13 Minutes and Terminus Station, have been optioned for feature film development.
Jeff is a regular contributor and advisor to leading entertainment industry screenwriting and producing fellowship programs, such as the Producers Guild of America's "Power of Diversity Master Producers Workshop," and the Film Independent Screenwriting Lab, and is a regular workshop presenter at leading writing industry conferences such as the Romance Writers of America, StoryExpo, Great American Pitchfest, Romance Writers of America and many others.
His clients have won major literary prizes like the “William Faulkner Gold Medal,” and include New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors. Jeff has written on the craft of storytelling for Writer’s Digest Magazine, Script Magazine, The Writer Magazine, and Writing Magazine (UK). His book, Anatomy of a Premise Line: How to Master Premise and Story Development for Writing Success was published by Focal Press in 2015, and his new book, Rapid Story Development: How to Use the Enneagram-Story Connection to Become a Master Storyteller, was published by Focal Press in October 2020.
His feature film, American Thunderbolt, is being produced by Hargenant Media, UK, and two of his novellas, 13 Minutes and Terminus Station, have been optioned for feature film development.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 27, 2021
Then is never now...
Some useful information, but it was a chore for me to get through. Maybe it's just me. I'd say this was meant more as a reference book that a book to be read front to back.
It reads much like a flow chart. A lot of "I'll cover that in more depth in Chapter X." Fine, no problem. I'd then reach that chapter and still feel like I'd missed something. No problem again. "Check out more then in Chapter X-5." Wait, I already read that chapter. No matter what technique he was currently discussing, it always felt like I should be reading a different part of the book.
The author's writing style also surrounds every nugget of information with language about how great the enneagram method and how it does everything better than other methods. With the fluffery removed, this book would have read much faster.
He was pretty good at explaining the what of each enneagram type. The how was hard to filter out.
Each explanation of how to use an enneagram type for, say, how to choose you character flaw was light.
Overall, it was helpful. But it took me forever to finish.
Some useful information, but it was a chore for me to get through. Maybe it's just me. I'd say this was meant more as a reference book that a book to be read front to back.
It reads much like a flow chart. A lot of "I'll cover that in more depth in Chapter X." Fine, no problem. I'd then reach that chapter and still feel like I'd missed something. No problem again. "Check out more then in Chapter X-5." Wait, I already read that chapter. No matter what technique he was currently discussing, it always felt like I should be reading a different part of the book.
The author's writing style also surrounds every nugget of information with language about how great the enneagram method and how it does everything better than other methods. With the fluffery removed, this book would have read much faster.
He was pretty good at explaining the what of each enneagram type. The how was hard to filter out.
Each explanation of how to use an enneagram type for, say, how to choose you character flaw was light.
Overall, it was helpful. But it took me forever to finish.
December 12, 2021
I took a class with Jeff, and a lot of his advice seemed piecemeal to me at the time. This book connects the things he said to where they fit into the story development process.
June 12, 2020
this book is a gift to those who wish to up their game from mere storyteller to master storyteller
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews