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Plot & Structure: (Techniques And Exercises For Crafting A Plot That Grips Readers From Start To Finish) (Write Great Fiction) | 
| Author: James Scott Bell
Publisher: Writers Digest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.99
Buy New: $11.55
You Save: $5.44 (32%)
Rating:  68 reviews
Sales Rank: 2374
Media: Paperback
Edition: 5
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.7
ISBN: 158297294X
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.394
UPC: 035313109423
EAN: 9781582972947
Publication Date: October 6, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Book Description
The second book in the Write Great Fiction series, Plot & Structure offers clear and concise information on creating a believable and engaging plot that readers can't resist. Written by award-winning thriller and suspense author James Scott Bell, this handy instruction guide provides: * Easy-to-understand techniques on every aspect of plotting and structure, from brainstorming story ideas to building scenes, and from using subplots to crafting knock-out endings * Engaging exercises, perfect for writers at any level and at any stage in their novel * Practical and encouraging guidance from one of the most respected writers publishing today Full of diagrams, plot brainstormers, and examples from popular novels, mastering plot and structure has never been so simple.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 63 more reviews...
It's time to plot your next book! June 8, 2005
82 out of 84 found this review helpful
Bell starts from the assertion that anyone can learn to craft a good plot. Whether you prefer to plan every detail of your stories in advance or fly by the seat of your pants, you can still learn all the elements of an engaging story and use them to draw your reader in. Bell has spent a great deal of time analyzing the plot structures of those books that consistently draw people in, and he has come up with a number of systems, theories and exercises which he shares in this book.
Bell addresses just about every aspect of plotting I could think of, from "What's a Plot, Anyway?" to generating ideas, dealing with beginnings (and middles, and endings), handling individual scenes, crafting complex plots, integrating character arc into plot, different systems of crafting plot, revising plots, plot patterns, plot problems, cures for plot problems, and even checklists to go through to make sure you're remembering everything as you write your book.
One of Bell's major contributions to plot theory is his "LOCK" system, which stands for Lead, Objective, Confrontation, Knockout. In order to have a gripping plot you must have a lead, he must have an objective, there must be confrontation, and the ending must have "knockout power." There are a million-and-ten possible variations on this simple structure, but this basic idea alone can help a struggling writer to get a grip on the basics of plot.
I highly recommend "Plot & Structure" for anyone who writes or plans to write fiction. It's been a while since I sat down to write fiction, but this book makes me want to sit and work on a novel right this moment. It's clear, coherent, practical, and immensely useful to any student of the craft.
A must have. No exaggeration! March 30, 2007
66 out of 67 found this review helpful
From the multitude of writing books I've read, this one ranks in my top 5 of all time books on the craft. The author does an excellent job of breaking down what we as authors/readers too often make an overly complex process. He explains why some stories just work and how we as aspiring author can do the same.
One of my pet peeves with any non-fiction book is the use of too many examples to fill pages vs. giving me hard content I can walk away with and attempt to use. This isn't the case here. I felt that 90% of the book was pure content with a sprinkle of examples to further prove the author's point. Thank you Mr Bell!!
You can click "Look Inside This Book" at the top of this product page and you should. The author deftly covers the whole gambit of What's a Plot, Anyway? to Plotting Systems (a great chapter regardless on your style of plotting), to Tips & Tools for Plot and Structure.
As with the rest of the books in the series, the icing on the cake for the impatient ones in the world is Appendix A, which lists the authors main points in the book in bulletted form. For those of us who stick with it, this was a wonderful summary of the previous 200pages we just journeyed through.
My recommended plotting plan:
1) Read this book for an overview of plotting and some real world tools that can be applied to the process
2) Pick up The Marshall Plan of Novel Writing by Evan Marshal or First Draft in 30 Days by Karen Weisner. Both of these books take many of the concepts listed in this book and put them into templates and forms you can fill out to plot your novel
3) Write. Write. Write.
Don't do what I did and spend the last ten years reading more on writing than actually writing. Get that first 1 million words written asap!! While you are doing it, read this book which has a permanent place on my book shelf as a handy reference and reminder of what makes a successful plot.
 not for everyone February 23, 2006
37 out of 44 found this review helpful
Even though this book is titled "Plot", only a few chapters deal with plot. The others are brief chapters on the usual topics: characters, scenes, beginnings, middles, endings, etc.
Every Writers Digest Book regardless of the title is 200 pages long and has brief chapters on these same topics. Writers Digest Books has been re-cycling the same information for thirty years, each time with a new title and a different author. (And now they're calling it "Great"!) Even one of the admiring reviews below admits that all of this information has already appeared in other books! When are readers going to figure out that they are buying the same stuff over and over?
If you're a beginning writer and are reading this material for the first time, that's fine. If not, it's time to break out of the Writers Digest cycle and get on with your career. For instance, Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel is a better book on plot and it doesn't waste your time with chit-chat. Draughon's Advanced Writing ( Advanced Writing: Fiction and Film )will help you understand what you're doing and why and enable you to do it better. Rennie Browne's Self-Editing for Fiction Writers will teach you how to revise.
And by the way, "structure" is poorly understood even by professional writers. Beginning-middle-end is not structure. What is structured is the dynamic elements of a novel and its various appeals.
So, unless you're a beginner and new to WDB, look beyond Writers Digest Books for the next step up in your development.
A Simple Look at Plot July 26, 2006
24 out of 30 found this review helpful
Pros: Filled with suggestive ideas for creating a strong plot.
Cons: As the title implies, this book is limited to plotting only. If you're interested in a broader perspective, or other writing topics you should read other books on writing.
Thoughts: This book has an expansive, straightforward list of suggestions for tackling plot in a way that is easy to understand. I especially liked the Lead, Objective, Confrontation, Knock-out (L.O.C.K.) system and the idea of transitions between acts of a story being `doorways' as a simplified guideline for dramatic structure. This book simplifies and demystifies what is in some of the more elaborate books on the topic, such as Writer's Journey by Chris Vogler or STORY by Robert McKee.
Summary: If you're trying to keep it simple, this book might be better than some of the others.
Plot and Structure . . . and a whole lot more. November 23, 2004
22 out of 25 found this review helpful
PLOT & STRUCTURE is billed as a how-to book on writing fiction, focusing on plotting and story structure. And it does all that as well as any book I've ever seen. But what I really like about the book is how well it integrates plotting with all the other skills a novelist needs to master--creativity, research, character development, theme, and the logistics to put it all together.
James Scott Bell begins with an inspirational "you can do it" chapter that will light a novel-writing fire in the belly of any life form more complex than a squid. He then takes two full chapters to give some hands-on explanations of what a Plot is and why it needs Structure. The next chapter, on how to stimulate your creativity (and how NOT to), is pure gold. This chapter applies to all areas of writing, not just your plotting.
Bell then moves on to the staples of plotting, with chapters on the high-level issues of Beginnings, Middles, Ends, and the lower-level problem of how to write a Scene. You can find books elsewhere that explain some of this in more detail, but you won't find a BETTER explanation anywhere. Bell consistently gets to the heart of the matter, says his piece, and gets out.
Having laid a solid foundation, Bell moves on to other aspects of writing, showing how each ties in to Plot: Theme, Complexity, and Character. He presents two chapters on the logistics of writing--one for the initial creation of the novel, and one for the analysis and revision after the thing is written and is lying on your desk in a heap of writhing manuscript. A chapter with a standard catalog of plot patterns rounds out this section.
James Scott Bell is an accomplished novelist who has paid those pesky writing dues several times over. In the next-to-last chapter, he makes a down payment on YOUR dues--by giving you a very practical list of things that can go wrong and what you can do to fix them. He wraps up with a punchlist of tips you can use to move your level of writing up a notch.
I've published half a dozen novels and my seventh is on the operating table awaiting the knife. Bell's book has me itching to get scrubbed and go commit some surgery right this instant.
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