What the author, Larry Brooks, promises on his website

Never once have I found a writing book or workshop that cuts to the core issues of the craft in a clear and accessible way, that actually delivers a development model and process based on accepted criteria for effective storytelling. Most teachers eagerly tell you what needs to be done, but few offer anything about how you get it done, step-by-excruciating-ecstatic-step. Mostly they’re about theories, all valid, while delivering less than precise advice. Even Stephen King, an author who I respect, suggests in his book On Writing that once you stumble upon the seed of an idea, you should just sit down and start writing. Yeah, just take off with it and see where it takes you.

Once you get your head around story architecture and the underlying criteria of it, then you, too, can just sit down and start writing  But until then… well, like I said, it’s an insane way to discover your story.

Without the right knowledge, without mastering a formidable list of basics that is rarely talked about coherently, most of us end up being hacks with a dream that never materializes. But the knowledge is out there. In fact it’s here, right in your hands.

What he delivers
If we gave out star ratings, this book would get zero for style, but 4 out of 5 for the techniques. So I'm going to start with a quick run-down of what made me want to stop reading and use it for kindling and then go through what works and why.

Why I found this extremely hard to read

It suffers stylistically because it is written as if it is trying to sell something. Paragraph after paragraph sells a concept with evangelical fervour before Brooks reaches the meat of his thesis - “I'm going to tell you the only four things you'll ever need to know about...” and then he doesn't, or not in that chapter anyway. It's all a bit reminiscent of “I achieved a flat stomach in three days using only this one tip, sign up now...” Editing out the constant sales pitch would make the book shorter. I also found myself automatically arguing with these statements, muttering,  “No, it's not!” and “Oh, shut up!” which is embarrassing because then people stare at me on the train.

Italics and emphases. Brooks is aiming for a chatty style: he wants the book to be a little like the experience of attending one of his workshops. Which means he puts every word he emphasises when he is speaking into italics. I felt as though he was shouting at me and as though he thought I was an idiot – probably not the effect he was aiming for.

Examples and analogies. This is completely subjective: I don't like baseball or golf and I didn't like Top Gun so having them used over and over to demonstrate meaning or how characters demonstrate third dimension behaviour wasn't terribly helpful. I coped with the “it's like cooking” analogy, until it was over-used and I drifted off wondering what sort of spice an exclamation mark is, maybe a sort of peppery sneeze? It would have been so much easier to have a simple story, four or five paragraphs, to show how minor changes to a character alter meaning in a story. Raymond Queneau did something like that in 1947 with Exercises in Style where he told the same simple story 99 times each time using a different style. Kate Grenville demonstrates with examples in The Writing Book: A Workbook for Fiction Writers . In addition, because he insists that his book isn't just about writing screenplays and can be applied to short stories and novels, it would be handy to have some examples that aren't films or TV shows.

Structure. All the meaty bits come at the end of the book in the final summary chapter, “A Quick and Clarifying Summary” which should be re-titled “Readme1st”.  Again, this felt like a marketing technique. Trouble is, I've got the book, so there is really nothing to sell me and no point spending 60-odd pages on this. Brooks gives a summary of his concept of structure on p69: stories are always in 4 Parts with 5 Plot Points. It would help (it would really really help) to have that concept laid out at the beginning because he is continually referring to “Plot Point One” or how important it is to introduce second dimension character traits in the First Part. Similarly, he defines “pantsing” on p47 even though he has used it earlier in the book with no explanation. And again, muttering “Wtf are you talking about?” wins me no friends on the commuter run.

Layout. There are Chapter Headings in bold and a slightly larger font. Then there are bolded headings through the chapters. It's really confusing because after a while there seems to be nothing to guide you – what chapter am I in again? Numbering would be great: 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and so on. In this sort of book which jumps around a lot between the aspects of each subject, anything to help guide the reader through would be useful. Even including the sub-headings in the index at the front. Also, some of the sub-headings are clearly headings, with everything appropriately capitalised, but some are just sentences in bold and we've lost the capitals so I don't know if this is a sub-heading or if he's shouting at me again. Although there are full stops at the end. Maybe that's meaningful.

Grammar. Even some of the quotes that I really quite liked were just written badly: “If we accept that a character is the sum of their choices and behaviors, defined by their past and compelled by their motivations and goals, then we understand that no single thing – a trait, a memory, a dream – defines the big picture of a character. Rather, a richly drawn character is the sum of many variables.” By using “their” instead of the correct “his” or “his or her” the sentence ends up needlessly convoluted and confusing; I can accept that choices and behaviours are defined by a person's past but I can't accept, grammatically, that a choice or behaviour is compelled by a motivation or goal. A person may be compelled to do something. A behaviour is not compelled. Compulsive, maybe, but not compelled. This isn't nit-picking, this is bad grammar and it is bad precisely because it makes the book harder to read than it needs to be.

Spelling mistakes and other errors. No excuses. If people are paying to read a book, then spelling and grammar should be checked, by a human being and by a human being who knows about grammar.  “...the essence of cook is salt and pepper.”
That's all the bad stuff.

Now the good stuff

What I did next was what I always do with “How To Write” books: I drew a diagram. On it I included the Four Plot Parts, the Five Plot Points, the Three Dimensions of Character, the Seven Key Characterization Variables in each of the Three Dimensions, the Two Levels of Conflict and the Six Core Storytelling Competencies (p57: theme, concept, character, structure, scene execution, writing voice). All of Brooks' bells and whistles. One big messy diagrammatical framework. Then, into that framework I stuffed the book I am currently working on and, blow me down, it actually worked!

I started writing my book in exactly the way Brooks says not to: it was a series of bed-time stories with cliff-hanger endings that I made up daily and told to my son each evening. Writing by the seat of my pants (“pantsing” as Brooks calls it) and with no initial intention for it to become a novel. It has taken me years to go back through it and sort out the Byzantine mess of family trees, character motivations and plot-lines. I'm pretty much there now but I will readily admit that Brooks' structure helped. On the other hand, so did Freytag's pyramid. So did reading Campbell and Pearson. But, as Brooks says:

A great character in a lousy story doesn't cut it.

So the structure part is important. Brooks splits the character dimensions into three:

And within each dimension are seven key characterization variables: surface personality, backstory, character arc, inner demons, world view, goals and behaviours.

Once I had this in a diagram, it all made sense and didn't matter that the categories and dimensions all have the same names and seem to overlap but it's fair warning to say that at this point (about page 23) I only carried on because I was reviewing the damn thing and had started drawing my diagram. 

Quirks and surface traits should be chosen with care to fit the heroic personality; every character has secrets hiding in their backstory which result in conflicts or inner demons which lead to their third dimension behaviours and actions being driven by the underlying resentment and desire for revenge.

I'm not convinced about this as an analysis of personality but for the purposes of storywriting – sure, why not? Then you have to integrate the three dimensions:

That process of integration is the art of storytelling. And there's no manual for it beyond a grasp of these fundamental principles.

Hmm...I think the “fundamental principles” are the dimensions, or maybe the core competencies. It is lazy writing not to make the meaning unambiguous; the website is better written than the book. I can also feel a sequel coming on, maybe “The Five Integrational Arts of Storytelling”.

Once I had put it all into a diagram, I could see it would serve as a really useful map I could pin to the wall above my writing desk. Every so often I could check with the map and ask questions like: Should this character be developing bravery here or should he still be a wimp for a bit longer while I build up an underlying resentment to really push him into heroism? It would at least work for my Heroic characters.

Caveat Lector ("let the reader beware”)
I have two caveats. If you are going to use Latin, or any other language, and I refer you, Mr Brooks, to The Life of Brian for how seriously some people take this, before urging you to please, please use the language correctly. Although I agree with the point being made about not using a “deux ex machina” (sic) it does not mean “God is in the machine” and Wikipedia offers the correct spelling and usage for a relatively small time investment (about 7 seconds):

A deus ex machina (pronounced /ˈdeɪ.əs ɛks ˈmɑːkinə/ or /ˈdiː.əs ɛks ˈmækɨnə/, [1] literally, in Latin, "god from the machine") is a plot device whereby a previously intractable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with a contrived introduction of a new character, ability, or object. It is generally considered to be a poor storytelling technique because it undermines the story's internal logic.

Caveat One
Brooks lays out a structure aimed at story creation to fulfil the requirements of Hollywood. There is nothing wrong with that and the Hollywood formula is certainly preferable to some rambling disconnected story that goes nowhere. On his website, he is quite open about this:

There are many books from the screenwriting world that do just what most novel-writing books don’t – they show you what to write, when to write it, what follows what, what should go be where, and why, and the criteria for ensuring your creative choices are effective ones. In other words, how to get it done. A blueprint and a process for something that is overwhelmingly considered – especially by those big name authors – to be a craft that defies blueprinting.
I assure you, they are wrong.

Rules, by the way, that actually set screenwriters free to create efficiently, while we novelists are destined to wander a vast landscape of creative choice without the benefit of a single road sign or map. It is that lack of form, function and criteria that makes writing and publishing a good novel so elusive

Caveat Two
The basis for the Hollywood formula is  The Hero With A Thousand Faces in which Joseph Campbell offered the now-familiar thesis that we are culturally shaped to respond to a particular pattern of story following a Hero on his journey. He sets out the classic stages in the journey (“Call to Adventure” and so on) and most Hollywood big-earning movies now follow them. It irked me slightly that Brooks fails to acknowledge Campbell and only mentioned Pearson (The Hero Within), who builds on Campbell rather than being the originator of the idea.

There is, in addition, another side to this debate. Evolutionary psychologists such as Stephen Pinker (The Blank Slate) agree we are “hard-wired” to enjoy particular stories. This group of scientists and writers, however, believes there is compelling evidence proving the stories we really love are closer to romantic comedy than heroic journeys.

In terms of popular fiction, Brooks uses the TV series Dexter as an example. It is certainly possible to see Dexter as a heroic figure slowly moving through a character arc towards finding his humanity but the series is also, undeniably, a romantic comedy with Dexter and all the principal characters undergoing various trials and misunderstandings as they pursue true love and the perfect partners, despite their many personal failings (such as being a serial-killer on the side) and we, as audience, get to laugh at them.

Looking at what is coming out of Hollywood, I would say that Brooks' reading hasn't caught up with what some screenwriters are investigating. Pearson says at the end of The Hero Within that the hero's journey is just one journey:

I have been asked what happens after the hero's journey. Of course, that subject is outside the province of this book, but suffice it to say that heroes become kings and queens, taking responsibility for their kingdoms. And/or they become lovers and study at the feet of Aphrodite or Eros. And/or they explore the way of freedom and spontaneity with the archetype of the fool.

The Mystic's Journey is still another archetypal journey that has nothing in common with that of the Hero.  Pick up a pack of tarot cards or a summary of Jung's Archetypes and you will find evidence for a range of classic journeys for characters to follow.

America loves a Hero Story because Heroes always have the option to use violence to solve their problems. Violence is a way to resolve a black and white choice; it is easy, simplistic and makes for great special effects. There are no shades of grey, no queasy doubt that if I walked a mile in this person's shoes I might feel differently. Christianity, as well, has influenced Western culture. Leading us to expect Hero stories starting with rebellion against the established order and ending with violence, tragedy and then restitution. The “Yes, you were right and now we make you King of Kings” ending.

The Hero story is very much a male archetype. There are female heroic figures but there is a long history of “boy has fight and overcomes obstacle/opponent and gets girl plus kingdom” stories whereas the Heroines tend to outwit their opponents and don't necessarily see the Handsome Prince as a suitable reward.

There are many, many alternatives to being an individualistic, warrior-type hero. Storytelling isn't just about how individuals overcome difficulties. It is also about how societies and groups achieve change or stability. Sometimes people demonstrate their humanity very simply and subtly. There are paths less travelled.

In the penultimate chapter, we are given Writing Exercise 2 (I confess, I numbered that – he didn't!) which is a list of questions to answer about your character. “What is their backstory?” and so on.  The most useful exercise of this type I ever came across was “describe the character's bedroom”. It worked for one character in a story I was writing, but not for the other five. I think characters have particular flavours to them. I can't imagine Mervyn Peake trying to describe how Lord Sepulchrave Groan, who lives a life ruled by ritual in isolated Gormenghast Castle, behaves towards his friends. And that's the point: this really is a book about writing extremely straightforward X+Y=Z stories. It's the Hollywood formula and is why I can go to the movies and come away essentially unmoved, but read a short story by Saki and still feel a lump in my throat when I remember it a decade later. What Brooks promotes is probably very sound advice about how to make money from writing. By all means accept this structure, learn it well and then, please, go beyond it. As tools go, this is a mallet. If you are looking for a delicate carving tool like a chisel, I'd recommend reading Campbell, Pearson and Pinker. I would also recommend reading the last chapter first.

More from Larry Brooks

You can purchase The Three Aspects of Character online at: www.storyfix.com

About the Author

Carla is the reviews editor of Perilous Adventures. And is generally pretty fabulous.

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