This is one book writers need to read. This should be on the bookshelf of all new writers. ( )

I don't know where to start with this review. In some ways this book is a 2 star, but in a few ways, and for its novelty I want to bump it up. I give it 3 stars grudgingly.

I have survived 4 years of pantsing NaNo books, so I was excited to read a book that actually encouraged pantsing. Years of reading books that demanded 500 notecards from me had left me bored and unhappy with the "task" of writing. For that reason, the book started strong for me. By initially skipping the bullet point lists of how to characterize, plot and outline, you are thrust into interesting and helpful tidbits, as provided by a published author. Many of these made me think and altered my way of writing for the positive.

At just before the 1/2 way mark the author makes a hard left. He spent an annoyingly long time discussing why plotting/outlining is the devil. I believe the phrase "preaching to the choir" is called for here. Good sir, I have already bought the book, indicating I would like to be a pantser. You do not have to moan and groan and belittle a writing technique that works for probably millions of writers and in fact probably has some merit for all of us at some point, just like pantsing should not be "poo-pooed" by established outliners. The world is not black and white, everything doesn't work for everyone. Had it been a paragraph or three explaining the failings of outlining it would have been 100% reasonable. I'm not sure how long this actual diatribe went on, but it was long enough that 1st I got bored, then I got annoyed, and then I got angry.

By the time he finally made it back on track I was just annoyed. One of the most annoying parts of this book is the meandering. The author beats examples into your head, and yet contradicts himself. Don't have a theme! Then he lists about 10 bullet point style ideas about what your book should be about, all of which could be considered "themes" in almost any definition of the word. The better argument would be "a flat, cliched theme is not interesting, probe deeper, dammit!" The author does not appreciate this and so he continue s to beat it into your head.

By the end the long lists are boring, the ranting is boring and the argument for "no rules!" becomes humorous, as he immediately lists rules to follow in order to avoid rules.

Overall an interesting read and the initial third of the book had many helpful ideas and ways of thinking. The latter half dragged for me. I bought this in August, in preparation for October. I think it is telling that it took me until January to finish this book.

Also, I cannnot lie, after reviewing my own pantsing, and considering the meandering way this pantser writer goes on, I just bought a book about outlining a novel. I think pantsing is great, and makes writing fun, but personally, I think it is better at creating a "detailed outline" of a first draft. I'll be maintaining my pantsing ways, while trying to develop a more directed approach, which is actually what I hoped for from this book, but did not quite manage.

If you are a dyed in the wool pantser, this book may be very helpful to you, and you may enjoy the preaching to the choir (I find it boring). If you are a plotter who has pantser tendencies, you are going to feel belittled at one point. There are great moments here, but being less than gently ridiculed and lectured at times is highly unpleasant.
( )

An excellent book for writers of genre fiction, and though it probably skews toward suspense or thriller writing, the advice applies to every kind of fiction. I found it refreshing not to have to plod through yet another iteration of all the classic advice about plot; though nothing in this contradicts the standard view, it is said in a way that I am able to use more effectively. While reading it, I understood what I needed to do in order to revise a work in progress and make it much more effective. ( )

If you have ever felt your creativity stifled by formulas such as how many words per scene, how many chapters per book, how to know your Big Themes before you ever start drafting (what??), this book will grant you freedom to Just Write. Mr. James takes the concept farther than I do personally; I'm an organic writer who does best when she thinks she knows the general signposts of the story but it turns out that on this road trip called First Draft, the characters have been lying and yes, we went to Spain like we planned on, but that was only the first stop and our final destination is really Scotland (surprise!). So the popular formulas (found especially in the Christian fiction school of writing) do not work for me. But neither does the idea of Just Writing. If I had to face a blank page knowing I didn't know anything, I'd waste days and weeks of productivity just staring at the blinking cursor.

My point in opining about my own process is this: I'm in the middle of the two extremes, and I'm guessing many other writers are as well. If the novel is, in the end, unpredictable and inevitable and overall rewarding for the reader, then hey, the author's process worked, whatever it was. This book spends an unnecessary amount of page time descrying "rules," including any sort of outlining process.

For me it's a four-star resource because James's concept of status has changed the way I write, read, and even view film and TV. When a character isn't working on the page (or the screen), so often it's because he is given either constant status or no status ever, turning him static. Before I learned this from Steven James, I had never heard it before. There are some great nuggets of writing craft in this book, but that one and the awareness of causality are standout.

The text contains quite a lot of repetition; I believe the same information could have been conveyed in two thirds the number of pages. Ironically, outlining beforehand the points the author wanted to make rather than wandering and repeating them would have been a good idea. There's also an offputting broadbrush of indie authors (suggesting they are too impatient to make good art) and the occasional hint of condescension. A less defensive tone would serve this book well. ( )

The two main points of this book are (1) all good stories involve things that go wrong and (2) you should not write an outline of your book and try to stick to it. He also has other important ideas that will help you write an entertaining book, but those are the most important. His point is that a good story, with conflicts, obstacles, and setbacks, is much more important than things like an arbitrary three-act structure or a set number of words.

I liked this book even though I'm an outliner. I use the Scrivener app, and enjoy planning out the plot in advance. His objection is that doing it that way may cause you to write your story in an unnatural way simply to have it conform to the outline. For example, you may have a character do something unrealistic just to get to a particular situation in a scene that you've outlined.

I'm not too concerned, because I am willing to change the outline as I go, and as the story develops. However, I can see his point because it might be hard for you to discard a scene you like simply because it would cause a violation of cause and effect. It's a warning that I keep in mind as I write.

There are plenty of other practical tips such as how to polish your work and how to avoid or fix plot holes. ( )