Wired for Story by Lisa Cron

Although I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo this year, I read this book as part of a NaNoWriMo activity (even if I'm not challenging myself to write 50k words, I should be trying to use the time to improve my writing) and found it one of the most helpful writing books that I've read so far.

This book was impressive from the content page. It's not often you find a content page that doubles as a summary for the book and just reading it made me realise that I would enjoy this. Wired for Story starts with hooks (the beginning) and goes on to various specific aspects of writing and ends with a chapter on the revision process.

Every chapter was filled with concrete advice and I bookmarked so many pages. I liked that the author uses lots of examples, and the checkpoints at the end of each chapter do a good job of providing specific tips as well. Examples of things I thought were good reminders/enlightening are:

- conflict doesn't add drama to a story unless it's something that a protagonist must address to overcome his/her issue.

- showing isn't about showing an action, it's about showing the reader the why behind the action. For example, don't just write copious description about how a protagonist cries, show the reader how the event that led to the crying unfolds

- how and when to reveal information (too long to summarise, sadly)

- pacing is the length of time between moments of conflict (this is from Nathan Bransford)

There is only one part in the book where the author and I don't agree. The author says that: "the narrative voice is almost always neutral, meaning that as an omniscient narrator, you're invisible and just reporting the facts."

While an omniscient narrator has to be reliable because they know everything, they can have a personality and their own opinions. Death in The Book Thief is an omniscient narrator and he has an extremely strong personality. The trick is not to overdo it.

To me, this book would be useful before writing and as a guide during revision, to find out why the story isn't working. The writing is clear and there is a lot of good advice in it. I would love to get my own copy because I can see myself reading this again and again as a reminder.