David Farland's "Million Dollar Outlines" is great. He gets into the try/fail cycle and how stories can resonate with readers. RIP man.

I can't believe more people don't talk about Story Genius. Great video

Thank you for giving so much of your time. I enjoy your presentation style and your content.

The Secrets of Story by Matt Bird was a game-changing book for me as a writer. I've read so many craft books on writing, and none of them came close to having such a useful impact on me as this one. This book focuses on what things make a good story into a great story - how theme and irony can elevate your story. It goes through in detailed actionable steps how to take all the disparate pieces of a story and turn them into an impacting experience for the reader. So many craft books I've read go over the same material and a lot of it reads as a how to with character, plot, dialog, etc - much like as an artist, I learned basics like light and shading and how to draw an egg realistically - instead this book zoomed out and felt like it was teaching me composition. What shapes and values do you design in a painting to make it beautiful and impacting. What shapes and values do you give a story to make it meaningful and impacting? I highly recommend this book!

Yes!! There is a general structure that every book/movie follows for sure! „Into the woods” by John Yorke explains this perfectly

When you were talking about Bird by Bird I started crying. Gonna read that for sure

Bird by Bird is just crazy good.

Coming back to say I decided to give Story Genius a shot, and never heard of it, and I am finally breaking out of my stuckness with the 40,0000 word book I had been working on, thank you for helping me get to these breakthroughs!

Excellent suggestions. I’ve read two of the four, and plan to read the others very soon. And I love cats, too!

I loved Stephen King's "On Writing"

These are well-explained. Good job :)

This is really useful. Thank you.

Hearing you describe "Writing Down the Bones" reminded me of "The Emotional Craft of Fiction" by Donald Maass. Have you read this one? It's my favorite!

I love Save the Cat! and Story Genius...I am currently reading Bird by Bird per your recommendation and can't wait to read the final one as well. I'm having a harder time finding newly released lighthearted crossover (New Adult) fiction that isn't primarily about the romance but more on the rites of passage arc. Any recommendations anyone?

I’ve heard that if you plot your novel using the 15-beat structure from Save The Cat, that will peg you as a new unexperienced writer and might be a red flag for agents. Is that true? Did you use the 15-beat structure?

I struggled with and DNFed Story Genius. Just didn't like it. I intend to give it a try again some time.

I dig it.