I've always dreamed of writing a novel and hoped this book would be the resource to send me on my way and get started. Unfortunately it was too full of other peoples' ideas and linking to other resources, and when I read a book with a specific purpose such as this, I want all of the tips and tricks to be contained within, without me having to go off and do additional research. Some good concepts and ideas, but reads more like a companion to other resources.

Plan your novel like a pro is a good book to get you started on your novel. It gives good pointers on the do and do nots of writing. It also has a very good plot and character development part of it. I found this part to be very good and helpful. I believe this will help me explain and demonstrate the process to my students. The older students will be able to read this on their own, while my younger ones will need a visual.

There is some good advice in this book, with different methods of novel planning detailed and a reassurance that it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution because everyone’s writer brain works differently, I think it fails in one fundamental way; it doesn’t include all the information. And worse yet, the book has links to send the reader off elsewhere to find the information, which means you are constantly clicking off somewhere else or if you have the paperback version, putting the book down to go to a computer and find stuff out.

I've been trying to find a good book to help me learn how to better organize my notes and stuff so I can start piecing my novel together. This book had plenty of useful tips and techniques.

This is a useful tool for writers looking to make better use of their writing time. Maybe not absolute beginners, but they'll learn a lot from this too.
There are both better and worse books than this one, but this is a pretty good middle-of-the-road tool.

Having done NANWRIMO a few years ago, I'm planning to do it again this year, seeing as I'm not really doing much else in November! This book has some useful advice for novice writers, and is presented in a very readable format.

This provides fun ideas to help you with your writing. There are useful tips included and the design leads you through the process helping you not feel overwhelmed. Instead you feel the task is finally becoming your dream realized -- perhaps. It might not help every writer, but the information inside is helpful and a nice place to start as well as get you thinking of all the elements you need to accomplish your goal. There are many helpful links for even more details, which is great. But, if you have the ebook, that's nice, yet it would be better to have everything in one book especially if you have the physical book because you have to put the book down to look up the information. This might be a put off to some readers and break their train of thought or inspiration. Be warned if you get this book you will be invited to sign up for a free workbook. That's great, but you will also get emails for other offers following this. If you aren't interested in this kind of thing and the workbook isn't worth it to you then don't bother signing up.

While there is some excellent advice in this book, with several different methods of novel planning detailed and a reassurance that it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution because everyone’s writer brain works differently, I do think it fails in one fundamental way; it doesn’t include all the information. And worse yet, the book has links to send the reader off elsewhere to find the information, which means you are constantly clicking off somewhere else or if you have the paperback version, putting the book down to go to a computer and find stuff out.

It’s very laudable of the authors to credit other professionals for the tools they have created and link to them, but it means that this book in and of itself isn’t a complete resource. The authors even tell you that early on when they encourage you to sign up to their mailing list to get a bonus workbook (and other free resources). Now, you might be the kind of person who likes all that sort of stuff; great, good for you. I’m really not. And I didn’t appreciate, once I’d requested the free workbook, getting 6 emails in the first week and another 2 every week since. That was JUST signing up for the workbook. I don’t even want to think about how many I’d be getting if I’d followed all those links and joined all the other mailing lists to get free resources from all those other pros.

There’s some good stuff in here, but it’s actually mostly not ‘in here’, but elsewhere, and in places where the ‘price’ of getting it is being signed up to mailing lists all over the place. Unless you really LIKE being snowed under with email every morning, don’t do it. Go read Rock Your Plot by Cathy Yardley or maybe Take Off Your Pants by Libby Hawker instead.

This is a great tool for the inspiring writer! The tools and exercises in the book should be able to help most try out their dream of writing. So many people dream of writing the "Great American Novel" and with this book they may just be able to achieve their goal. Use wisely & write on!!!

"Plan Your Novel Like a Pro" gives an introduction to the different aspects of writing a novel-length work of (genre) fiction, focusing on aspects like characters, plot development, and the like.

The book is relatively short and presented in a straightforward manner, so it's an informative and quick read.

That said, I did have some gripes with it. The biggest is that the reader is often linked to and encouraged to read or use external websites dealing with a certain topic in lieu of the topic being explained more thoroughly in the book. This is not to say that the other websites aren't useful - from what I've skimmed of some of them, they seem to be quite interesting - but by directing the reader to them, the book loses on its relevance as a reference tool. Some of the websites linked are promoting the authors' products, while others are insights, systems, or structures developed by other authors (an issue that I found somewhat iffy in its own right, even if all the methodologies and their original authors were properly credited).

I would also have preferred the authors to use more examples from well-known books or movies instead of the majority of examples being from their own (relatively unknown) books - this would have made the points they were trying to make much easier to understand and process. Likewise, a lot of the processes explained in the book focused on what works best for the authors themselves, limiting the breadth of the issues that might have been covered.

All in all, a nice intro to novel-planning, but lacking the depth needed for it to be a truly great resource.

When I requested this on Netgalley, it's already way past its publication date soI wasn't in a hurry to read it. In fact, I've been reading it for three months, which is fine because I used the book as my guide for writing my novel. This one is really helpful. At first, I was skeptical with the promise of the title - Have Fun Doing It - but somehow, this novel really did make it fun to write. I found everything in this book easy to understand and thus, easy to follow.

If you're a writer, I highly recommend this one. And I think I'm going to read it again in November while doing NaNoWriMo.

This book has the feeling of a friend taking novice writers by the hand. The tone is casual, comforting, and friendly. It offers some insight into what it looks like to write cooperatively—as the author describes her own habit. However, a vast majority of this book relies heavily on the systems of other writers. Frequent references are made to TedTalks and other outside materials. The electronic text could be improved by consistently adding hyperlinks to the referenced materials (though as I was reviewing an Advanced Reader Copy which is subject to change). Some of the exercises were interesting, however many were far from unique. Much of this book was heavily derivative—useful for a novice—but not quite as potent as the original texts.

Nicely Structured Way to Plan Your Novel

This book is written by a husband and wife who are both published authors. They have an online writing school as well. If you've considered writing a novel or have struggled to try to write one, this gentle but in-depth approach to planning could be helpful to you. The authors understand that the rest of us may have a hard time squeezing in planning and writing a novel into our lives when our full-time jobs aren't writing. So this book allows you to plan your novel over four weeks, each week with a general theme: the novel overview, characters, the plot, and scene-by-scene planning. Within these weeks, the authors drill down into the topics, like the elevator pitch as a way of simplifying your story idea or crafting a character’s emotional core, describing each idea well and giving you one or more action steps that you can complete in 15 to 20 minutes as you plan your novel. The authors give examples from their own works as well as famous ones you've heard of, like Harry Potter. I thought the information they shared and the way they encouraged the writer was spot on; I think the action steps, if followed, could certainly take you from a vague idea for your novel to a very specific one that you could then write. The authors state that you could take more or less time planning, rather than follow their 4-week structure, but the idea of taking planning slowly helps you contemplate different possibilities in your mind and play with concepts before committing to them. Honestly, the only thing I didn't like about this book is that it felt like it was a pitch at times for their online courses or other books. But other than that, I thought this was a helpful book for a new or stuck writer to plan the novel that they have been wanting to write.

This is a very detailed book designed to get the would-be writer to plot a novel over a course of four weeks. The book is divided into four sections with each one focusing on a particular aspect of the plot. A good resource for writers

I received an advanced reader's copy from the publishers through NetGalley; a positive review was not required.

I loved that this book focused on incorporating your life into your stories and the exercises provided, to better help with your overall creativity while also helping you plan your novel. The book is meant to do over the course of a month, and in my mind it's the perfect book to work through in an October if you plan on doing NaNoWriMo. I particularly liked all of the exercises about character developing/planning.

This book is well-organized with chapters that can be taken on their own when quick advice is needed or read cover-to-cover as a guidebook. It reminds me of a book I loved years ago called Writing the Breakout Novel. It provides strong tips, encouragement, and tough love for writers trying to get their novel off the ground. Very helpful.

As lock-down rumbles on, are you revisiting a long-held dream of writing a novel – but, not quite sure where or how to start? Perhaps this book will indeed ‘get you excited to plan your novel’. Broken down into topics and designed as a four-week course, it has the huge benefit of not demanding hours and hours of time you don’t really have. Easy to dip in and out of, a single exercise could take as little as 15 minutes. Personally, I find that far more manageable than needing to carve out a couple of hours each evening – and thus, I’m more likely to give it a go!

The book is organised into four sections, with topics including creating your elevator pitch and synopsis, characters, plot points, and storyboarding.

My favourite section was getting to know your characters. It’s not ‘new’ information, per se, but it’s very well presented and very usable. In fact, I used it to sketch out my first ever D&D character – a new lock-down hobby ;) – and it worked brilliantly. It really helps that everything is kept light and easy, so you can spend five minutes doing a rough sketch, or half an hour fleshing out more details, whatever suits your needs at the time.

The writing style is very chatty – perhaps a little too much at times, as the co-authors ‘handover’ chapters as if it were a powerpoint presentation, which felt a little odd in print! But still, I liked the laid-back, friendly approach. The ethos seems to be: have fun! Writing should be enjoyable!

Overall, then, I was pretty impressed and would recommend this especially for beginners. It’s quite a short volume, but there are plenty of recommended further readings, and an online workbook to further the exercises.

Fantastic book for people overwhelmed with getting started and finding the process that works with them. Great activities to get your mind in gear and options for all genres.

Good Introduction to Outlining Fiction.

This book is a primer for anyone who is serious about writing fiction.
I particularly enjoyed the chapters on the high-concept pitch and story structure.
The content has been designed to make you think rather than laying down strict rules and instruction.
A great starter guide!

What an utterly delightful book.
As someone who has written some short stories before and has never really thought to hard about plotting etc., this was very insightful. I am planning to write a novel because the idea is there but I wasn't sure how to start and was quite overwhelmed. This book didn't just tell me how to start, it absolutely excited me to do so.

Doing the suggested activities were so helpful to come up with lovely characters that I already care about without having written anything so far and the questions to drive the plot further and to structure a book were more fun than anything else.

I liked the easy going writing style. I felt like I was talking amongst friends without any judgement or me feeling not good enough. The writing made me feel like my idea was worth it and it made me more confident.

If you are someone who thinks about writing a novel because you have this idea that you can't shake off but don't know how to go about it: this book is for you. It even comes with helpful links and a great opportunity to indulge in even more writing exercises in an online work book.

Absolutely great!