Books about how to structure a novel, how to plot, how to organize the multiple characters and families and relations between characters into an organic and coherent whole.
I know that the best thing one can do it’s to actually read good novels and write, but I was wondering if there isn’t any book for novels like McKee’s “Story” is for screenwriting: a guide that doesn’t need to be followed religiously, but that offers a lot of good advice by someone that, although not an artist, is passionate about the art and have study it for several years (this MkGee book is no charlatanistic textbook: it helped me to actually learn how to plot complex plays for the theater; it’s really a very good and insightful book, but the kind of structure it proposes is more fitting for stage and screen).
I wonder if such a book exists, not only a book on structure for just genre fiction, but a book on structure that would be helpful for all sorts of projects, from one who has in mind something like War and Peace to other who wants to write something like One Hundred Years of Solitude to still another mind who is planning a Madame Bovary kind of novel.
Which of the two books would you recommend over the other? I think learning how to outline is exactly what I need. I checked out the site in the link, seems pretty helpful, I just don't learn well from a screen.
Christian Hall
I ask because self help can often do the opposite of what was intended.
Easton Ortiz
>outlining >not writing as you go not gonna make it
Jace Murphy
That's why I'm stuck. I can go on writing and writing forever, but eventually I'm gonna need some fucking STRUCTUREEEEEEEE
Caleb Lopez
just examine the books you like and make their maps/outlines...
why would you bother reading a book about this? especially for dummies tier books?
Dylan Evans
Why do people write/read that kind of shit? Families are the most boring subject I can think of. A novel about a field of fucking grass growing would be more exciting. Just the word "family" makes me want to vomit. Same feeling I get trying to read those super boring chick-lit rags about some "quaint" bungalow set in clam-chowder-land new england in the 1800s with some dumb bitch and her arranged marriage partner or victorian england and likewise. Why do you write this shit? Why do you read this shit? Do you know you have the same kind of autism as "muh epic fantasy" retards who spend 8 years worldbuilding some autistic place only to have the actual story fall apart and the book be an unreadable failure? Most people don't even like their OWN family, why tf would they want to read about someone else's?
Ryder Fisher
>Most people don't even like their OWN family, why tf would they want to read about someone else's?
Anna Karenina and War and Peace were best-sellers in theirt ime and still sell a lot; they are loved by both the public and the critics, desu
Daniel Morales
>in theirt ime NOT NOW The family unit has been destroyed. "Family" represents abuse, child rape, hatred, neglect, trauma, poverty, hysteric arguments, and endless financial strife for most modern people. I can't name a single person I know who has had a good family life. Late 1800s were a biiiiit different sweetie. Tolster-dolsters only sells now because he's labeled as a classic novelist.
Nathaniel Williams
I love my family otherwise, I breddy much agree with you
Gabriel Green
>biiiiit top faggot
Parker Martinez
Only closet homos call other people homos, my homodachi. Nice rebuttal. I repeat--you are a 39 year old catwoman who schlicks at night to dreams of a new england bungalow decorated in seashells.
That kind of makes me feel dirty even though most writers/artists borrow a lot from their influences. I know it's something I need to get over if I want to complete anything. >why would you bother reading a book about this? especially for dummies tier books? I agree with you, I guess I was just curious if this one would be a bit more useful.
Chase Jenkins
Don’t let that user discourage you: any help you can find is good help. Some of this manuals might offer valuable tips, even if the authors himself is not talented or if most of the work is just cliché.
That book mentioned in the OP about screenwriting, “Story”, is a good example. That book helped several screenwriters, and that in spite of the fact that the author is himself not an artist. Sometimes help may come in strange forms.
Just download those books on Library Genesis and see if one of them is good for you, and then buy that one (if you need them to be in paper).
Jeremiah Ortiz
Thank you. I appreciate the encouragement and guidance.
Chase Price
the first reply OP gets, and it's the only valuable one without any replies. everyone else in this thread is just shilling glorified self-help garbage.
also, while you're at it OP, read the Nicomachean Ethics and learn why you're a loser who doesn't call himself an artist yet idolizes it (AKA a faggot)
University of Chicago Press has a textbook on writing fiction, I would advise getting anything close to that. Getting textbooks are the only way to guarantee you're not just going to end up with self-help/common sense garbage literature.
How does one go about practicing these things until they become unconscious? (Which is the whole objective right? To master the fundamental elements so that attention can be freed up to work on higher level matters?)
Nolan Taylor
The same as with anything else: repetition, not in remembering but in putting what you read into action, one by one repeatedly, i.e. start writing fiction according to the rules, repeatedly until it becomes natural/habitual/internalized.
Ayden Harris
Reading more and writing more are the only things that will do it. You learn by trying and failing and taking constant notes on the things you like best in the novels you love to the most minute subtlety
