Member Reviews
A great book explaining the basics of story structure. Ideal for beginners since it omits a lot of the ‘story structure jargon’ without missing any important points. Though I didn’t learn anything particularly revolutionary about story structure, I did appreciate the examples given that plotting guides often lack, demonstrating how the techniques can be applied. Additionally, it was sympathetic of those who preferred pantsing to plotting, suggesting that plotting can be thought of as planning or even something that is reviewed in editing as opposed to being crafted before the first draft.
This is a very helpful guide for all of my fellow writer's out there! I found it super useful and highly recommend adding this resource to your shelves!
Thank you for allowing me to preview Plots and Plotting. I found the book invaluable. So straight forward and exactly what I needed to "hear". I tend to over-analyze everything when writing and this reminded me of some key strategies and taught me some new ones. A must-read for everyone who struggles with plotting, and don't we all?
A perfect tool for writers on how to plot stories with all of the ingredients relevant to great story telling. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me review this book.
"The story itself is more important than the words we use to analyze it."
This book is the writer's equivalent to Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." As someone who can and has gotten way too easily distracted by the nitty gritty of working on their own plots, agonizing over pantsing vs plotting strategies, analyzing other writer's plotting methods and internalizing all of the associated lingo, this book's simple, straightforward method that resists using a lot of the terms writers have been primed to react to was extremely refreshing.
The author's process of developing a story for the sake of demonstrating the mechanics of how she makes a story and examining other works she has published was also very illuminating.
I always know when I've found a good writing craft book by how restless it makes me to go write, which I haven't done in a long time. And this book made me very restless to go try the techniques outlined.
This was an enjoyable read. Kimpton walked through the process of plotting with real-life examples without all the jargon that is sometimes found in writing books.
A very useful resource for anyone who wants to learn more about how plots work or how to plot a piece of writing.
I received an ARC from NetGalley.
This book is a delight to read. It's written with such simple terms that it makes for easier reading especially if you are writing and want to know more about plots. Ever heard the never ending debate of whether to outline your book or not? Well, fear not, you don't have to do what everyone does- and I love how the author was very keen on advocating for a step by step plotting as opposed to going by a chapter by chapter plotting given how many steps can be in a chapter and all that.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.