Shawn Coyne lays out the underlying structure of genre fiction, so you can deliver it in your stories and make sure your readers are getting the payoffs they want.

I picked this book up to better understand the story archetypes (hero's journey, boy meets girl, and so on), so I could incorporate structure into the anecdotes I tell. Because this book is so much about genre fiction, it doesn't really deliver on that goal. But as a framework for thinking rationally about what makes stories tick, this book was very valuable, and it's sticky -- its teachings keep coming back to me as I read new books now. I'm not sure I want to think rationally about the craft of stories, though; it takes some of the magic away. ( )

Had a lot of promise then kind of falls apart by the end. Later chapters have quite a bit of self-contradictory statements and poor copy editing and the whole "oh by the way this is a tool not a formula" thing feels like an afterthought. Worth a read but probably not as game changing as you might hope. A lot of what might be useful suggestions (e.g. obligatory scenes) are mainly only useful to the thriller writer due to the obsessive focus on The Silence of the Lambs as the example. ( )

While there is some good stuff in this book, ironically it could have really used an editor. He keeps telling us about this great tool he uses (the story grid), and then doesn’t actually get to it until page 289. Lots of meandering, but he also drops some wisdom along the way. ( )

Shawn posted the content of this book free on his website-www.storygrid.com. I read along as he posted immediately enamored of the process he was working us through. I'd struggled with revising and editing my WIP and found The Story Grid's intense focus on structure liberating. I finally had a detailed method for uncovering what is working, what isn't and, even more important-how to fix it.

This is destined to be a must-read for serious novelists. ( )

I started this book thinking it was about writing. It is, but it focuses on story structure, and it's even more of a revision and editing book than a writing book. Coyne's system is fairly complicated, which is going to be exactly what some people love to work with, and which will send other writers screaming and running for the door. He explains his system thoroughly, using The Silence of the Lambs to illustrate the process from start to finish. My main criticism of the book is that I would've liked it if it had been clearer what parts of this system will help you plan your novel out before you start writing vs. which parts you'd use when revising your first draft. Coyne went back and forth between these, which was a mite confusing (but nothing that quality time with a highlighter and some sticky notes can't fix!). And Coyne is a stickler for genre conventions: if you find the idea of writing in a genre is suffocating your creativity, you'll probably be arguing with him all the way through this book. If a well-structured system of organizing and editing your novel appeals to you, then you may love this book. But be warned that it's not a Writing 101 book, and if you want writing help beyond story structure, you'll need to look elsewhere. ( )