Janice Hardy – Plotting Your Novel

Writing / Book Review.

I've recently bought some books to become a better writer, and some of those were Janice Hardy's.

At 300 pages this one’s a bit bigger, and of the three Janice Hardy books I’ve picked up this one feels the most like a real ‘text book’, something to study. You can actually buy a companion ‘work book’ to work out the questions at the end of each chapter, but you don't really need it.

Topics

• working out an idea to a plot
• antagonist, protagonist, other characters
• working out characters
• determine what drives your novel
• point of view, narrative distance, tense
• first versus third, past versus present tense
• several ‘classical’ story structures
• type of novel, genre, marketing (this section is a bit thin)
• size and scope
• summary line, blurb, synopsis (this takes up a third of the book)

Missing (somewhat)

What could have made the book better is:

• why someone would write (instead of flipping burgers)
• tools (what to use when writing or documenting)
• tips (how to keep track of notes, characters, events, locations, plot)
• publishing platforms (from the classic big 5 to Amazon to WattPad)
• purple prose

Fortunately, most of the topics above you can find on the web on all sorts of pages and blogs. I understand why some topics were not addressed: the book would become way to big and too confusing. As it is now it is a great tool to structure yourself and your story. It's just that I'm a completionist -- is that a thing?

Verdict

Verdict: good, but could be better. I suggest you buy this one as an e-book as it isn’t a reference guide you want to browse through. Unless you're like me and you don't handle study books well on an e-reader...

If this is your first attempt at writing a book you’d better get this one… It will save you a lot of heartache and rewrites.

To experienced writers it still might come in handy building up your summary, blurb and synopsis, three things most writers struggle with.

More

• Janice Hardy
• Writing Essentials
• Writing (all writing related posts on this blog)

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