Reddit reviews Write Your Novel From The Middle: A New Approach for Plotters, Pantsers and Everyone in Between (Bell on Writing Book 1)

Okay, the way you describe the political situation makes it seem fairly easy to grasp, so as a setting for a story, there's nothing wrong with it. But the story isn't the scenario, it has to be about something personal. You've got a liason officer you're setting up as your main character, and that's good.

>My greatest worry is that the world I've set the reader to jump into is very active and unstable.

That's the very best kind of world to throw your reader into. Don't just set the reader up to get ready to do so, actively grab the reader by the collar and belt and pitch them into the shit.

One mistake a lot of writers make is in trying to bring their reader up to speed quickly at the beginning of the story. Some of them have a whole first chapter of nothing but a history lesson, about who fought who in what year, and the outcome and the whatnot & the powerplayers & who got butthurt. That's all just infodump, and it's boring as hell. The truth is it's perfectly fine if the reader doesn't initially know what's going on. You can weave all that information into the body of the story over the course of the book. And this can even add to the mystery, provided you give your readers something to hold onto, a rock to stand on. And that rock is your liason officer.

More important than anything else at the beginning of your story is the need to hook the reader, to make them interested enough to keep reading. Forget about the history lesson. Focus on your main character. Show me, on page 1, that she's a real human being, just like me. Make me identify with her, understand she has a life that hasn't turned out the way she hoped, that she has hopes & dreams & fears and ambitions. Once you do that, if you can do that, you've got me hooked.

>she still has a lot to learn about the world, so I was hoping that the reader could learn about the world as she does.

Your instinct is good here. This is a time tested convention: showing the world through the eyes of a newcomer.

I think a good solution to the problem of a complex political situation is to narrow the focus. However big and complicated the outside world is, the story is going to be about the liason officer, and a choice she is forced to make at a critical point in time.

I recommend you pick up Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell. It's short, ~100 pages, and the ebook is $3. Download it onto your phone, and you can read it in an afternoon. This book talks about finding a certain crucial point in your narrative, a place that's essential to a well written story. Once you know who your main character is, and you find her crucial moment, the start and the end of the book almost fall into place.

I found Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell to be very helpful. It's short, only about a hundred pages, and it's a quick read. The ebook is $4; you can download it onto your phone and read it in an afternoon or two.

Bell's premise is simple: in most great stories there is a point maybe two thirds of the way in where the main character has to take a good, long look at himself in the mirror. Often everything he has tried up to that point has failed. The character makes a decision, and then the story moves into its final strategy. This scene is the control point of the story, and once you get it right, the rest of they book, before and after, practically falls into place. If you like Bell, his Plot and Structure is larger and covers more ground.

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Regarding characters, I find that the best characters are not all good or all bad, but combinations of both. If your protagonist is 51% good at the end of the book, he's still the hero; if your antagonist is 51% bad at the end, he's still the villain. For me, the secret to writing believable characters was giving them all faults, often serious faults.

Every character has a control point, his defining passion. If you poke that, he reacts. I also think it's valuable, if possible, to give each character a defining metaphor; that one is like a whipped dog, this one is like a dependable old piece of machinery, etc. And I think even bit parts, the walk-on roles like the king's page or the tavern woman, deserve full personalities complete with idiosyncrasies.

For me, worldbuilding, outlining, character building, that's all the fun, easy part of writing. The tough part is actually writing well. In order to train myself how to avoid awkward phrases, I had to write all those phrases. In order to learn how to write halfway decent dialogue, I had to write a ream of shitty dialogue.

When I started writing, I had completely unrealistic expectations about my ability to write beautiful prose that would flow off the page and instantly inspire my readers. My writing was complete shit, and I didn't know how to fix it. It was frustrating and depressing. But I just kept writing shit and writing more shit, and eventually, slowly, it started to get better.

It really helps to have fellow writers, people who aren't your family or friends, look over your work and ruthlessly rip it to shreds.

Honestly, I've got to tell you: from where I'm sitting, you're writing a fantasy and you've got yourself some humans. Or leastways, close enough.

I don't think the hook of the thing is that upper class only are allowed to ride dragons. I'm not hooked.

You're right that you don't have a story yet, you've just got a setting. I'd say you can probably stop the worldbuilding now and get on with the story. Worldbuilding is the easy, fun part of writing; actually doing the writing is the tough part.

You need to think about what kind of story you're going to tell within this framework. Whether you want it to be about redemption or revenge or true love or hubris or whatnot. The story has to be about something.

If you're interested in reading something about writing, I'd recommend Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell. It's all about find a certain point in the middle of your story. If you can find that and nail it down, the rest of your plot gets easier to figure out. This book is short, 100 pages, and it's $3; put it on your phone and you can read it in an afternoon. If you need more, pick up his Plot and Structure.

I haven't written much romance in long form yet, but just wanted to chip in my two cents that Tell Don't Show helped me also, even with shorts. (Also loved Romancing the Beat as I work on transitioning.)

As far as outlining, I've found it very beneficial to think about first what the character's central reflective question is, ala James Scott Bell's WRITE YOUR NOVEL FROM THE MIDDLE, www.amazon.com/dp/B00IMIXI6U, and then deciding what needs to be present before then in order to lead to that, and where it will end up (the answer to that reflective question). That's helped me in answering some of the basic questions for myself.

You need help with your plot, not your outline. It seems that at this point you've got a lot of ideas that are vaguely connected.

It all comes back to character. A story isn't about a series of events. A story is about your main character, and the transformation he goes through over the course of the story. How the main character feels about the events, as they are occurring, is more important than the events themselves.

Before your story begins, your main character has a way of solving problems. Whenever a problem comes up, he relies on his regular problem solving method. That's his m.o.

When the story begins, he soon finds himself faced with a problem. He tries his regular method, but it doesn't work. Someone, another character, encourages him to try a new method of problem solving. He resists. He tries several times, failing each time. At the end, he either decides to change, or he hardballs it and sticks to his guns. Based on how you write the story, either decision could lead to a success or a failure. Based on how you write the story, either success or failure could lead to a happy ending or a sad ending.

I recommend Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell. The ebook is $4, and it's short, only 100 pages. Download it onto your phone and you can read it in an afternoon or two. The premise is that at some point in the middle of all great stories there's a point where the main character takes a look in the mirror. When the chips are down, he takes a good, hard look at himself. Then, he makes a decision. Once you get that scene down, the rest of the story practically falls into place.

On a personal note, I prefer science fiction without pseudoscience. Reincarnation, ghosts, souls, psychic powers, magic, etc. are all pretty much deal killers when I'm reading SF. It doesn't have to be hard SF, but every phenomenon should have a scientific basis. It's different if it's fantasy.

No problem! A couple that I've liked have been "Write Your Novel From the Middle" and "How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method".

There is such a variety of methods out there that you might want to search around and read reviews of different styles to see what appeals to you, but those are a couple that I've read and found useful that aren't too pricey.

Best of luck!

There's a well reviewed book on Amazon about this topic called Write Your Novel From the Middle. At least I think it is from the description. It's been on my Amazon wishlist for a while, but have been too backlogged on books to read it.

I just bought a book to help me get ready for nanowrimo called Write Your Novel from the Middle. It's only $2.99 right now and it might help you. I'm only half way through and it's already helped me realize why I got stuck writing my last novel.

If you mean that you want to start writing the middle of the book and then go back later and write the beginning (as opposed to starting in the middle of the action and gradually revealing the backstory), you may find James Scott Bell's Write Your Novel From The Middle useful. The idea is the the midpoint is what the story's all about, so you start with that.