Victoria Lynn Schmidt

This book is a deconstruction of the major themes and plots behind most western story telling. The author, Victoria Schmidt, is a graduate of film studies, explaining why most of the references and examples are films rather than books. However, storytelling is storytelling, no matter what the medium.



The first two chapters were the most useful from a writer's perspective, outlining and defining the three acts most familiar to western thinkers, planning and development of plot and character. I felt a lot more could have been addressed in these sections.



The third chapter is an extensive catalog of 55 different situations, outlining their use as plot, subplot or incident. How useful this section is, and it's the bulk of the book, is questionable. If exploring and understanding the major plots of western culture is what you're looking for, this section is for you. If you're looking for insight into the creative writing process, this is not the right place to look.



The fourth and final chapter, research, skimmed over the very necessary step of getting your facts straight when telling your story. Of course, you don't want your hero riding off into the sunset in a convertible before cars had been invented, but there's more to it than that. The author calls this to attention, and gives some indication of resources to use, but it's a light section and more could be said here.



I would have liked to see more in depth analysis of stories that matched the fifty five scenarios, rather than mentioning four examples at the end of each situation. Of course, doing so would quadruple the size of this book.



All in all, I'll put this book on my shelf and occasionally take it down for reference. I can't recommend this for anyone looking to learn the craft of writing.… (mehr)