Story genius - BookWyrm

280 pages

English language

Published March 17, 2016

ISBN:: 978-1-60774-889-2
OCLC Number:: 953792412

(4 reviews)

"Following on the heels of Lisa Cron's breakout first book, Wired for Story, this writing guide reveals how to use cognitive storytelling strategies to build a scene-by-scene blueprint for a riveting story. It's every novelist's greatest fear: pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into writing hundreds of pages only to realize that their story has no sense of urgency, no internal logic, and so is a page one rewrite. The prevailing wisdom in the writing community is that there are just two ways around this problem: pantsing (winging it) and plotting (focusing on the external plot). Story coach Lisa Cron has spent her career discovering why these these methods don't work and coming up with a powerful alternative, based on the science behind what our brains are wired to crave in every story we read (and it's not what you think). In Story Genuis Cron takes you, step-by-step, through the …

"Following on the heels of Lisa Cron's breakout first book, Wired for Story, this writing guide reveals how to use cognitive storytelling strategies to build a scene-by-scene blueprint for a riveting story. It's every novelist's greatest fear: pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into writing hundreds of pages only to realize that their story has no sense of urgency, no internal logic, and so is a page one rewrite. The prevailing wisdom in the writing community is that there are just two ways around this problem: pantsing (winging it) and plotting (focusing on the external plot). Story coach Lisa Cron has spent her career discovering why these these methods don't work and coming up with a powerful alternative, based on the science behind what our brains are wired to crave in every story we read (and it's not what you think). In Story Genuis Cron takes you, step-by-step, through the creation of a novel from the first glimmer of an idea, to a complete multilayered blueprint--including fully realized scenes--that evolves into a first draft with the authority, richness, and command of a riveting sixth or seventh draft"--

1 edition

Thomas Gaffney reviewed Story genius by Lisa Cron

Review of 'Story genius' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

It's definitely one of the three books I would recommend to authors. Stephen King's On Writing, Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers, and now Story Genius.

The book is not perfect. She does spend a lot of time dumping on other writing/plotting styles when I think they can go hand-in-hand with her Scene Card methodology. But Lisa's way of cracking open the deeper levels of your story and your characters was eye-opening. I had numerous ideas running through my head as I read this book, it was hard not to set the book down and dive back into my story. But in the end, I'm glad I waited. Lisa's explanations are clear and concise, and she pulls no punches about what readers want and what bullshit you need to cut out. And using her folders and scene cards plays a huge …

It's definitely one of the three books I would recommend to authors. Stephen King's On Writing, Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers, and now Story Genius.

The book is not perfect. She does spend a lot of time dumping on other writing/plotting styles when I think they can go hand-in-hand with her Scene Card methodology. But Lisa's way of cracking open the deeper levels of your story and your characters was eye-opening. I had numerous ideas running through my head as I read this book, it was hard not to set the book down and dive back into my story. But in the end, I'm glad I waited. Lisa's explanations are clear and concise, and she pulls no punches about what readers want and what bullshit you need to cut out. And using her folders and scene cards plays a huge portion of that. I ended up dog-earring all the "WHAT TO DO" pages where the reader needs to sit down and work on their story, so I can go back for each of my next planned novels and start from scratch with Lisa's method.

Bonus - if you use Scrivener, Gwen Hernandez has made a Story Genius Scene Card template that you can download and use in Scrivener. You can find instructions and download link here: writerunboxed.com/2017/01/29/using-scrivener-with-story-genius/