A review by kbeucler
Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 P by Lisa Cron

2.5

I read this for a fiction class I’m taking for my MFA program. I usually hate books like this. I don’t really believe that anyone can teach you how to write. They can teach you how they write, but you have to figure out what strategies work for you. I thought Cron had some useful things to say about story and your main character’s driving misbelief and how the inner story (the change the main character goes through) drives the plot. When she gets to the parts about outlining all the scenes, I experience my regular frustration at these books, though. I hate writing really in depth outlines because it makes me not excited to actually write the book because I already know everything about the story. I like writing to discover the story, not figuring everything out before I start. Maybe this isn’t as efficient as Cron’s system and I don’t have a book deal to prove my way works, so I could be wrong. But I don’t think I’ll be adopting all of Cron’s strategies.