Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)

There's a lot to like about this book, and it will be very helpful to those who need an imposed structure. But I think her structure is too prescriptive for me. In addition, it felt like there was a LOT of padding. I found myself skimming the parts that didn't relate directly to her methodology. This book could have been half as long, and thus twice as helpful. I'm keeping it (for now) because I do feel like there was a lot of good content, but I don't know that I would re-read it again from start to finish.

Cron would like you believe she’s found a way of cutting to the most essential aspect of storytelling. The thesis is that the protagonist’s internal struggle with a problem is all. This leads her to admire the 50 shades of grey because it sold well despite being forgettable garbage. Therefore Cron makes no effort to write well. This is a bloated mess weighed down by her annoying asides and flat jokes. The actual content would be 15-20 pages (tops) if this was edited to help the reader. I think this person is really doing a disservice to share such flatulence with aspiring writers.

Good advice on blocking out your story to get you to the end.

Not for me. I felt like it was trying to teach intuitive writing, but I already do a lot od that, and the plot cards were too overwhelming. I just don't think that way.

Pluses: Her emphasis on what characters feel, believe, and want, and the importance of having that be what drives the events of your story, makes deep sense to me. The exercises on writing backstory were interesting and useful to me.

Minuses: She's very insistent that this is the only way for a successful novel to be, whatever its genre, and I don't buy that. Agatha Christie's novels do not turn on Hercule Poirot realizing that some core belief of his needs to be revised; among other things, there's no way that he could go through that many dozens of changes of heart -- she wrote a lot of those books. To give another example, books don't necessarily have a single protagonist.

She's got a very specific process for organizing your work and ideas and developing your novel (and she's talking exclusively about novels, not addressing shorter forms directly) that I don't think will work for me and the things I write. The fact that all her ideas about how belief and feeling drives action are kind of embedded in a series of steps to take, down to what folders (physical or virtual) you should use to organize your work in progress, makes it hard to me to take what I need and leave the rest.

The example novel that's being developed to show us how the process goes doesn't impress me. I would not consider reading the resulting book.

And some of what she does doesn't really apply to fan fiction, which is mostly what I write, but that's not necessarily a strike against her. She should be evaluated on whether she's made a good guide to writing a novel, because that's what she set out to do.

I don't lover her writing -- a lot of the analogies she uses to sell her writing points seem overblown and unnecessarily complex.

So, I think I've gotten benefits from reading this book that will make me a better writer. But I didn't love reading it, and if I were setting out to write a novel I don['t think I would be following her methodology to the letter (and she's so detailed that modifying it feels tricky, plus it bumps up against some of my black and white thinking).

This has taught me a lot but I feel there was a bit of a bait and switch going on. For a book supposedly about h0w neurology relates to storytelling, it is very short on the science.
The fact that every protagonist in every book has a major misbelief which drives the whole story seems a little too prescriptive for me.

If you are a writer, Lisa goes through the process of how to make your book better by ensuring you are using your protagonist to the fullest and getting into the emotional side of the story. There is a learning curve to this method, but even if used in bits and pieces, you will find you are getting to where the story really needs to start and make the protagonist's need the main driver of the story, not the plot. I will keep it as a resource for when I'm having difficulty getting that character to to the right direction.

This book is geared to writers who are wanting to improve their books with engaging characters to speak to you. The cards she recommends you do are easily done in Scrivener and are a great help in keeping you on track with where you need to go with the story while allowing your creativity to change things as needed.

Some interesting ideas and examples of how to develop your plot using some unique methods. Definitely worth a look.