Janice Hardy – Understanding Show, Don’t Tell

Writing + Book Review

Janice Hardy is a Fantasy author, and runs the Fiction University website / blog. Her blog is a source of interesting titbits, related to writing fiction. She turned a number of those blog posts into books, of which I purchased three.

The three books by her hand that I'll discuss are focused on beginners to mid-level writers. They might make some good presents for under the tree, in case you have a young niece / nephew who wants to be an author some day…

Jessica Brody – Save the Cat! Writes a Novel

Writing + Book Review

After Janice Hardy's Plotting Your Novel I had to get this one as well, as it has a great reputation and addresses similar topics... though it's quite a different book and concept in the end. 

This book uses the ‘beat sheet’ approach used by Blake Snyder to create and improve tv- and movie-scripts. Following a specific script or method might be your thing, or it might not, so I approached this book with a bit more caution.

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.