The Last Book You'll Need About How to Write a Book

I just finished the best book I've ever read about how to put together a story well. If you're a writer or wanna-be writer, this is the one for you. I was so excited when I was only two pages in, I could barely contain myself. Now I've finished and I'm working on my outline for my novel with a lot more confidence and delight than I had before when I was kind of confused and vague about what needs to go where. Plus, knowing this stuff makes me a much more effective manuscript editor.

The book? Oh, you want to know? It's called Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing, by Larry Brooks. Never before have I seen the process of writing a novel so well broken down, with all the necessary elements of what makes a great book defined. Brooks' constant and deliberate use of fragment sentences annoyed me quite a bit (the editor in me wanted to grab a pencil, and since I often read out loud in order to cement concepts in my brain via both visual and auditory methods, it was awkward to get those fragments read right), but the book is informative and the author is knowledgeable. He really, really has a problem with people who write organically (meaning that they simply write multiple drafts, letting the story take them where it will and then going back to see what's wrong). Brooks also calls it "pantsing," as in "writing by the seat of your pants," and he gives the reader many good reasons to abandon the practice without giving up creativity. Not being one to pants, I was already sold and I'm even more sold now that I'm armed with the tools I need to lay out my story.