GREAT STORIES DON’T WRITE THEMSELVES: Criteria-Driven Strategies for More Effective Fiction

By Larry Brooks

Published by Writers Digest Books

October 2019

Table of Contents

Foreword by Robert Dugoni

Introduction: Survival and Sanity Along the Writing Road

Part 1: It’s All in Your Head

1. The Mission of the Novel and the Novelist

2. Developing a Criteria-Driven Nose for Story

3. What Happens When You Know

4. The Sound of the Writing Conversation

5. Realities, Odds, and Other Inconveniences

6. The Power of Storytelling Context

 

Part 2: From Idea to Premise: Criteria for Creating the Full Context of Your Story

7. Eight Criteria for Premise

8. The Mission of Your Story Idea

9. The Idea-Fueled Premise

10. Criteria for Concept

11. Context for Idea-Driven Drafting

 

Part 3: The Parts and Parcel of Story Development

12. The Functional Mission of Story Structure

13. Contextual Application of the Four Quartiles

14. Structure-Enabled Characterization

15. Criteria for the Part 1 Quartile

16. Criteria for the First Plot Point

17. Criteria for the Part 2 Hero’s Response

18. Criteria for the Mid-Quartile Pinch Points

19. Criteria for the Midpoint

20. Criteria for the Part 3 Hero’s Attack

21. Criteria for the Second Plot Point

22. Criteria for the Part 4 Resolution

 

Part 4: The Sum of the Parts

23. Criteria for Effective Scenes

24. Criteria for Narrative Prose

25. Caveats, Exceptions, Contradictions