The Story Equation: How to Plot and Write a Brilliant Story with One Powerful Question

Brilliant Writer #1

by Susan May Warren

Discover The Story Equation! One question can unlock your entire story! Are you struggling to build a riveting plot? Layered characters? How about fortify that saggy middle? Create that powerful ending? You can build an entire book by asking one powerful question, and then plugging it into an "equation" that makes your plot and characters come to life. You'll learn how to build the external and internal journey of your characters, create a theme, build story and scene tension, create the character change journey and even pitch and market your story. All with one amazing question. Learn:
The amazing trick to creating unforgettable, compelling characters that epic movies use! How to create riveting tension to keep the story driving from chapter to chapter The easy solution to plotting the middle of your novel The one element every story needs to keep a reader up all night How to craft an ending that makes your reader say to their friends, "Oh, you have to read this book!" Using the powerful technique that has created over fifty RITA, Christy and Carol award-winning, best-selling novels, Susan May Warren will show novelists how to utilize The Story Equation to create the best story they've ever written.
"The Story Equation is pure genius." - Randy Ingermanson, author of Writing Fiction for Dummies
"In simple yet powerful terms, Susan May Warren lays down the essential crafting elements that make for a gripping tale. This is the stuff we all need to first learn and then constantly keep in mind as we dive into the process of laying the story we see in our minds down on the page. A great benefit to all writers of fiction."Ted Dekker, New York Times best-selling author
"There have been only two must-have craft books on my shelf for years. Now there is a third. If you write fiction, Susan May Warren's The Story Equation is a book you need to buy. And devour. I could talk in detail about the book's insight, its power to transform your writing, its brilliance, but suffice it to say I predict this will become a classic in the library of how to write bestselling stories." James L. Rubart- Bestselling author of The Long Journey to Jake Palmer.
"Susan May Warren loves to help novelists outrageously succeed. She does this in a practical way through her insightful book, The Story Equation. I felt like I'd been taken by the hand and mentored by a masterful storyteller!" Mary DeMuth, author of six novels including, The Muir House (Zondervan).
"Susan May Warren is a terrific teacher and enabler of fiction writers. I wholeheartedly agree with the approach of starting from the character journey and wrapping the plot around it. I think the SEQ can really help lots of authors." Jeff Gerke, national writing instructor and Writer's Digest author of The Irresistible Novel
"Every novelist who wants to up their game should own a copy of The Story Equation. Susan May Warren has distilled down years of teaching to an understandable, transferable technique - the SEQ - that helps them develop stories that will captivate their readers. I've seen Susie teach this method and watched the "before" and "after" affect in writers' lives - including my own." Beth K. Vogt, 2016 Christy Award-winning author of Crazy Little Thing Called Love
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Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Crafts, Reference, How To, Self Help

156 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2016

About the author

I can't help be amazed at the gifts God has delighted me with - a wonderful husband, four amazing children, and the opportunity to write for Him.

I've been writing as long as I can remember - I won my first book writing contest in first grade! Over the years, writing has become, for me, a way to praise God and see Him at work in my life.

Although I have a degree in Mass Communications from the University of MN, my real writing experience started when I penned the The Warren Report - a bi-monthly newsletter that detailed our ministry highlights.

Living in Russia meant I never lacked for great material - and those experiences naturally spilled out first into devotionals and magazine articles and finally into my first published story, "Measure of a Man," in the Tyndale/HeartQuest, Chance Encounters of the Heart anthology.

Susan and husbandI grew up in Wayzata, a suburb of Minneapolis, and became an avid camper from an early age. My favorite fir-lined spot is the north shore of Minnesota - it's where I met my husband, honeymooned and dreamed of living. The north woods easily became the foundation for my first series, The Deep Haven series.based on a little tourist town along the shores of Lake Superior. I have to admit - I'm terribly jealous of Mona, the heroine of my first full-length book, Happily Ever After, a Christy Award Finalist published in 2004 with Tyndale/Heartquest.

Our family moved home from the mission field in June 2004 -- and now we live in the beautiful town I'd always dreamed of! God has amazed me anew with His provision, and blessings -- and allowed me a season when I can write full time for Him.

I 'm delighted you've stopped in to visit. My hope is that you'll be blessed and encouraged by soul-stirring stories of regular people interacting with a God who loves them.

I'd love to hear from you! I love getting mail, especially from readers and I welcome your questions and comments. Write to me at susan@susanmaywarren.com. And, if you're interested, sign up for my newsletter, a quarterly sneak peek into upcoming releases and projects. Thank you for your interest and support.

God Bless and Happy Reading!

In His Grip,
Susan May Warren

Reviews

[Emma Sea · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[J.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book that emphasizes the character's inner journey through fears, flaws, lies they tell themselves, and eventually the cause -- a big dark moment from their past that should only be revealed later in the story. This sets up for the ever-elusive, but oh so important cathartic ending, when the self-lie is put to rest, fears are overcome, and the hero has developed a new worldview.

Whether you've incorporated story models such as Chris Vogler's The Writer's Journey, Blake Snyder's Save the Cat story beats, or others, there's still a need for this book, which, in my mind adds an important perspective and approach for building the ingredients that lead to cathartic endings. Highly recommended.

[Lynn Hortel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This made sense to me.

[Neliza Drew · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's good information in this book, mostly gleaned from other sources and sometimes renamed.
The problem is the book is so poorly disorganized, it's hard to find the good information. The formatting of the digital version could have overcome this problem by making searches easier, having chapters or sections well labeled in the table of contents (TOC) so it was easy to skip to sections referenced by other sections. Instead, the digital formatting seems to have compounded the problem.
Seriously, I wasted an hour trying to find the meaning of an acronym used in a one area because the acronym isn't used in conjunction with the term like I did with TOC above.

I wanted to like this book, but every time I had to hunt for something I should have been able to easily find, it lost a star.

Maybe buy the paper copy so you can at least flip through it easier.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was an excellent resource for any writers wanting to learn to write authentic, lovable characters and have them drive your story. Susan May Warren teaches you how to weave together an internal character arc with an external character journey for maximum impact and enjoyment for your readers. I learned a lot and look forward to trying out her suggestions!

I loved this quote and feel it a wonderful inspiration for all writers: "A great book leaves the character and reader both healed and delighted."

This author has a whole series of writing guides, and I would be interested in reading more of them!

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book on craft I've read. Susan Mae Warren is brilliant. This story equation is easy, effective, and efficient. It makes plotting simple by getting at the heart of the characters: fears, flaws, lie they believe, competing values, want, and wounds. Warren teaches writers to flesh out the character's dark moment story, happiest moment story, and shows us how to weave them into the plotline.

This is a book every writer needs in their resource library.

[Carrie Daws · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! Susan May Warren breaks down the entire fiction planning process into easily understandable and achievable steps to build incredible characters and a believable plot. I've got so many notes! Although I know I'll use all I learned to strengthen current works in progress, I can't wait until I have a brand new project to start using her concepts from the beginning.

[Beverly McCall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed Susan May Warren's book, The Story Equation, and found it very helpful. After reading it, I have a better understanding of the narrative story arc. I like the way she broke it up into 4 acts. Her explanation was clear and concise. I particularly thought the examples she provided very helpful in illustrating her points for each of the acts. I am using the information learned here to help me with the writing of my next book.

[Lester Glavey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Posiblemente sea el peor libro sobre escritura que haya leído. Toda la supuesta “ecuación de la escritura “ se basa en una entrevista que el escritor debe hacerle a sus personajes. Ese es el gran secreto, preguntarle a los personajes para que ellos nos den las respuestas. Pérdida de tiempo y dinero.

Lo compré en versión audible y hasta el narrador tiene una entonación robótica al hablar...
Nada, nada, nada recomendable.

[Kirstie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading a lot of writing craft books lately for a course I'm doing. Some of them I'd read before, but a lot of them contain content I've read before or come across in other classes, workshops, ect, so I was starting to get a little bored (still diligently taking notes though because you never know what tiny fragment might prove new or helpful). However the new angles and heightened emotional focus made this a very useful book which felt quite fresh.

The book focuses on certain events, their emotional impact and fallout and how that affects almost everything n your story in some way and helps grow your unique characters. It also helps with plotting the middle in a way that takes the muddle out of the middle.

From a note taking perspective it was a bit frustrating because points were brought up in brief, then later expanded upon, then later again, before finally at the end being put together in the titled 'equation'. If you're just reading its not a problem, but notes end up messy and a bit all over the place ;p

This book would be helpful to both newbies and intermediates and the more experienced looking for a new way to come at things. I think its perspective will make it fresh reading even for those who have already done a reasonable amount in writing craft.

[Sabrina K. Mercury · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for muddying writers

I found this book to be very insightful about creating an even more compelling story. Storytelling can be difficult when you've run out of steam and don't know where to take your characters. Sometimes it gets difficult to move the plot along only to find that you didn't plan it out well. This book gives you the tools to help stay on track whether you are a plotter or a pantser. I'm definitely going to try out the tools in this book to improve my storytelling.

[Susan Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book for authors who have difficulty building complex characters and intricate plots. I have been writing for a very long time and tend to like to write - and read - novels without quite so much detail. Still, I picked up a few good ideas and that's always good. I know I will refer back to this book when I start my next novel. I recommend this for people who are serious about writing good novels with interesting characters. If you are just playing around with the idea of writing a novel, it might be a little too intense.

[Alisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though at times I was a touch confused about the specific definition of a term she uses or the order in which she suggests listing certain plot elements, overall I found this book extremely beneficial. It helped me develop my protagonist in meaningful ways and streamline my hazy plot. The book is easy to read and offers plenty of examples from films and the author's own works to supplement her explanations. I highly recommend other writers give this book a read.

[Sandra Lovelace · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most valuable fiction resource I've found so far. It turns the confusion of process into a manageable task.

[LA · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an excellent alternative to "Save the Cat" when it comes to the craft of developing stories from a deep point of view. Lots of examples from movie clips help to make sense of the points Susan May Warren presents for each element of her proposed Story Equation.

The tagline is a bit misleading however, as a story isn't developed from just ONE POWERFUL QUESTION: it's a leading question that kickstarts the plot and takes the author/reader through a series of questions to create one story, and one fully developed character before putting "pen to paper".

This book is more about developing character than about plotting per se, yet in the developing of the character one is easily able to plot specific moments that will challenge the character to change.

I found much of the content to be similar to Save the Cat, but this book was more to the point and gives thought provoking questions which provide fodder for your story's plot. The dark moment is practically created before you start writing your story IF you answer the questions Susan May Warren outlines.

There are plugs for her course online throughout the book, but if one reads this text carefully, it's easy to follow and relatively easy to come up with a personal outline without watching the videos posted online (some videos are free but the majority are paid subscription).

[Literary Strawberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was super helpful to me! I wish it had been a little better edited-- I noticed several formatting issues, and at one point the author even used the wrong movie title (she'd been talking about While You Were Sleeping the chapter before, and then in the next chapter was talking about the same characters but said Sleepless in Seattle), which unfortunately decreased its sense of professionalism and credibility a bit, but the actual content was all great. It had a similar approach to Jeff Gerke's Plot Vs. Character (which I need to re-read), giving your character a problem and then building the plot around getting them to change, but The Story Equation felt like it was distilled to only the essential bits, which I actually really liked.

I can see how some people might say this approach is formulaic, but I personally love being given step-by-step guidelines, and I've found that they actually help my creativity a lot. Instead of just sitting down with a vague sense that something about my story isn't working and I need to Figure Out the What's Happening, approaches like this help me to examine things piece by piece to see what would be helpful to add or change, and usually end up giving me a ton of new ideas as I go. I already feel way more confident in act one of my story, and I'm super excited to work through planning the rest of my novel with this as my guide.

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've heard a lot of good things about this book and have been looking forward to reading it. I was especially excited because of the length -- it's a short read.

Here's the good about it: lots of great information. I love how Warren breaks everything down and helps you identify so many elements of good fiction. It's definitely worth reading.

Here's the not so good: I found this book to be really confusing. As a left-brained lover of math, I actually expected there to be an equation here. You know: A2 + B2 = C2 kind of thing. This is more like, I'll teach you how to get to C2 with X, Y, and Z, which make up A2, but only after G, H, I (which is part of L) and then B2 comes together and we layer it all with 4, 5, 6, 7. Viola! It's not so much a story equation as it is a mind map of sorts. If you go into it expecting an equation, it can be frustrating and confusing.

As is, I'm planning on applying everything I've read to my next manuscript, but first I need to organize the information (as I did find it hard to follow).

Yes, I recommend this book and will use the info in it, but I did find it hard to follow. This might not be the case for everyone though.

[Holly Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5. This book reminded me very much of KM Weiland's Creating Character Arcs, and the advice is just as helpful! It's thorough in helping writers create a story cohesively with their characters. I loved the many examples Warren used so that the points really hit home, but she repeated herself quite a few times. It made me think, didn't I just read this? And sometimes they were worded the exact same way. I know repetition is good but this was a bit overkill, like she was trying to fill the space to have enough content for a book? That's how I felt at least. But other than that, I will be using both this and KM Weiland's book when plotting out my next novel for a seamless and memorable story and characters.

[Joanna Bair · Rating 5 out of 5]

After hearing Rachel Hauck speak about this method of plotting and character development it made the most sense to me so I got the book to refer to it.
I feel like already it’s helping me understand how to formulate a story. In the past I’ve always just kinda done a brief outline and mostly pantsed it and changed things as I went.
This time I’ve used the story equation to plan general things in my novel. Hopefully I’ll have less rewriting to do this time, although I plan on reviewing and filling in missing holes in the plot and characters on my next draft.
I’ve read a few other plot books, but I feel like this method makes the most sense to my brain which tends to be a little all over and reigns in ideas.
I’ll update in a year or two if I get published based on this novel. Lol.

[Brittany Gillen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential resource for all writers, especially those of us who favor the right side of the brain. Susan May Warren outlines a brilliant process for creating sympathetic characters and gives for each step both the reason you need it and where to use it, which for me is the unique piece compared to other books on writing craft. By the time I finished the book, I could see in my own work areas to improve as well as an approach for getting new plots swiftly on paper before I lose them in the chaos of life. This book will be a valuable reference piece as I continue my writing journey, and I look forward to reading her other offerings soon.

[Susan Anderson Misey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susie May Warren breaks down plotting your novel using a brilliant, easy-to-understand system. A worthwhile addition to any writer's bookshelf, and a "begin here" read for aspiring novelists who know what they want to do (or not) and are finding that winging it is leading them to a wall or a saggy middle or worse, a book that should never see the light of day. This writing how-to will lead you to "work smarter, not harder." Love the movie examples Warren uses to illustrate each of her plot points as well as those from her own life and work. This guide will reinforce the KISS method: Keep it simple, Shakespeare.

[Kathleen Denly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for any fiction author! I have marked and highlighted my copy and plan to revisit it with each novel I write. I love finding new ways of approaching this process that really fit with my style of writing. Highly recommended!

BUT no book is perfect and I think this one could do with a table of contents and a bit more clarification of terms and acronyms in a handful of places. I frequently found myself flipping pages trying to figure out where I missed the explanation for the acronym in the sentence I was reading. If this is you, hang in there. It all makes sense by the end.

[C. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear, Concise, Simple

So many books on story structure and character arc make it harder than it has to be. Here is a readable, short text to take your characters from glimmer of idea to fully rounded, multi-layered individuals who have to struggle toward a satisfying, resonant ending. I recommend this book as one of the first you read about story structure, before you dive into more nuanced books about constructing the perfect story.

[Christine Norvell · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 A great start for new writers who are still in the plotting phase or may be stuck in development. Each part of the equation did contain examples, though these were limited to just a few genres. I did glean some important questions to ask of my characters, but found that the Lie, the Wound, the Flaw ideas all meshed imperceptibly. Those weren't helpful for me but perhaps good distinctions for other story writers.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got some really good stuff out of this book, but the explanation of how to do the SEQ (story equation) was just so disjointed that it was hard to follow.

Ironically, and what is saving this book from a 1 or 2 star review, is that it has helped me quite a bit in my editing. Since I tend to write from the seat of my pants, even when working from a rough outline, I apply these concepts in reverse, adding sections or deleting as I rewrite.

[Darcy Schock · Rating 4 out of 5]

The bones of this book was good. She has so many good ideas to structure your novel, however it was a bit hard for me to follow along. Sometimes it felt a bit scattered, I didn’t quite understand her thought process. At the end of the book she gave a summery of the main points which was super helpful. I’d recommend this book...with the caveat that it was a bit confusing at times. I have heard others say the same thing but took her online course and it made way more sense.

[Tiffani Sahara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely had some good pearls in it and is worth a read. This book is a pretty quick read. In my opinion, it provides a 10,000-foot view of how to create relatable characters and structure your story. This is not a book that gets down into the minutiae. I also feel this books is geared towards primarily fiction writers (fiction, mystery, romance as opposed to fantasy or science fiction), although the principles and the concepts certainly carry over and are applicable to other genres.

[Kathy Parish · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was literally a “God send.” I have been struggling with writer’s block on a work in progress. Now I realize why. The Story Equation opened my eyes to some missing elements. It’s gonna take some re-writing but I feel like the writing will be easier now! Highly recommend for all aspiring writers. Wish I had been exposed to it earlier!

[Catherine Richmond]

High energy, just like the author!

Warren's From the Inside Out starts with theme, which doesn't work for those of us who write to discover theme. Fortunately The Story Equation starts with characters and what questions to ask them - a better match for my way of writing. I'm looking forward to trying this with my next novel.

[B.A. A. Mealer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful method for writing

Finally a method that makes sense to my mind with all the idea bunnies. The question of who are you? Gives the basis. I can see th d making my stories tightrope with better characters. It isn't difficult to follow and doesn't take months of work to get to the story...that's for a book I'll actually a lot use.