Structuring Your Novel by K.M. Weiland | Review + Brainstorming!

Yep, another review. XD I finished Structuring Your Novel by K.M. Weiland about an hour ago.

(Back-to-back reviews — yes, I know. Bear with me, friends. I’ve got this whole crash course on how to properly-plot-and-structure-and-outline-a-novel thing going on this month in the midst of planning much-too-big-for-me-to-handle-but-I’m-doing-them-anyway things for my doll collecting website. ?)

If you haven’t seen my previous post about what I’m doing this month, in which I review Outlining Your Novel and talk about discovering Helping Writers Become Authors… you should do that. ;D

K.M. Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel completely changed my entire thought process and cleared up my misconceptions and confusion about a novel’s structure. I opened the book knowing I would learn about the three-act structure (including the Hook, Inciting Event, Key Event, etc.) and closed it knowing so much more. Not only does K.M. Weiland explain, expound on, and give us examples of this:

 
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… but the book also includes much about scene and sentence structure — the former of which I had never heard of prior to discovering Helping Writers Become Authors and the latter of which I had never heard of period. I love how she explains each of the structure elements and gives us multiple examples for each one so we can see it in action. It really helps me understand what is being talked about.

★★★★★

I have happily taken (oh, only about a million or so) notes on (literally all of) the subjects in Structuring Your Novel and am so excited to put this knowledge to use. My first completely pantsed novel seemed so hopeless and worthy of being condemned to death via the trash can icon button — but with what I now know about how to structure a novel properly, I am more than excited to revise and outline (thanks to Outlining Your Novel) it! Thank you, K.M. Weiland, for such an amazing book.

Tada! There we go, folks. If you haven’t read either Outlining Your Novel or Structuring Your Novel, what are you waiting for? If you’re as dumb as they come (like me — which I desperately hope you are not for your sake —) it will rock your world. And even if you’re much smarter and know a lot more about writing than me, I still recommend it because even some published authors don’t understand structure. Gasp. So be awesome and join me learning how to write a novel that stands out. ?

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Do you remember me talking about joining Wordplayers in my last post? Have you joined them yet? Good, because I just discovered Super Readers, K.M. Weiland’s exclusive group for her fiction readers. You’ve got to join that, too! I’m reading Behold the Dawn right now, but I’ll hold off on the fangirling and raving about its awesomeness for when I finish it. Dreamlander is also impatiently waiting for me in my iBooks library.

On a surprisingly related note… I’ve started the brainstorming for Loyalty Book I: To the Death! *screams in excitement* It’s so exciting and exhilarating and ahhh! I’m doing the method K.M. Weiland presented in Outlining Your Novel. I’ve found it really freeing to do my brainstorming on paper like I did during April. In case you forgot — which I don’t know how you could because I talk about it all the time ? — that’s my terrible first novel I’m completely replotting and restructuring and revising and rewriting. ^ Yesterday I came up with absolutely fabulously evil ideas including an even more evil and heartbreaking plot point that nearly killed me! ? Watch out, all who ship Hinoki and Ari. I AM GOING TO BREAK YOUR HEART WITH MY EVIL MIDPOINT IDEA.

Wellll… that’s about it for now. I have 5 Secrets of Story Structure to get started on, so I’d better go read that. ?

What’s up? Have you read any of K.M. Weiland’s writing craft or fiction books? Are you interested in becoming a beta reader for when Loyalty Book I: To the Death is ready for you? I’m so excited, I can hardly wait.

Much love and am praying for you, devil butt-kickers! ? What’s God been doing for you lately? I have a post about youth camp coming up soon. (HAHAHA “soon” = sometime in the future. And the future is never now. It could be a while.)

P.S. If you’re interested in checking out my flash fiction / short stories I’m writing as part of Creating Worlds Writing Camp, I have a page for them here! I joined late, so my latest one is…