Outlining Your Novel || Book Review!

Hello all! Today I have a lovely writing book to share with you that I greatly enjoyed! I’ve wanted to read it for months now and finally got around to it! Before I get started, I should let you know the author generously gifted me a copy, requesting I review it, but there was no stipulation on it being a positive or negative review. All thoughts are my own and I am excited to share them with you!

Outlining Your Novel by K. M. Weiland
(2011)
5 Stars

About the Book ||

Can Outlining Help You Write a Better Story?

Writers often look upon outlines with fear and trembling. But when properly understood and correctly wielded, the outline is one of the most powerful weapons in a writer’s arsenal.

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success will:

•Help you choose the right type of outline for you
•Guide you in brainstorming plot ideas
•Aid you in discovering your characters
•Show you how to structure your scenes
•Explain how to format your finished outline
•Instruct you in how to use your outline
•Reveal the benefits
•Dispel the misconceptions

Includes exclusive interviews with ten respected authors, answering important questions about outlining.

Outlining can organize your writing and help you take your stories to the next level. Find out how!

My Review ||

This was an incredibly helpful writer’s guide. As a self-proclaimed “Plotser” (someone who plots and writes without one, half and half) this book has helped me see some corrections I need to make in my process. While I may never be able to plot a book fully, she had so many helpful tips and examples for making your book the best it can be! I plan to reference it often! Below I’ll share some samples of some fun tips! Even if you never intend to plot your novel, I recommend you give it a read. It’s worth your time, trust me. Now, I didn’t agree with all the works she chose to highlight for her examples, and if I remember correctly there were two bad words, so watch for that. Otherwise, this book is a gold mine!

Quotes ||

|| If you’re a visual learner, you may find it useful to create folders of pictures related to your story. “Cast” your characters, scout likely settings, and collect pertinent props. By associating pictures with particular scenes, you not only give yourself extra details with which to flesh out the scene, you can also help yourself spot plot holes or inconsistencies. I began keeping a folder of story-related pictures while writing Dreamlander, and this practice has rapidly become one of the most useful (not to mention most fun) tools in my repertoire. When stuck on scenes, I will often surf the Internet for related pictures. More often than not, when I find a picture, I find my missing puzzle piece. ||

|| The story we put on the page will never be a perfect representation of the story in our imagination, so it’s little wonder we aren’t always aware of where our stories fall short. But here’s a little trick to narrow the gap between your idealization of your story and its printed reality: Write yourself the “perfect” review before your story ever hits paper. If you could have a professional reviewer read your idealized concept of your finished book and totally get it—completely understand everything you’re trying to say with your characters, plot, dialogue, and themes—what would he write about your story? Close your eyes for a moment, emotionally distance yourself from your story, and pretend you’re that reviewer. ||

|| Nothing wrong with those words (they’re the tools of our trade, after all), but give…focusing on the raw sensations {a try}. Close your eyes and visualize the scene you’re writing. What colors stand out? What can you smell? What does your body feel like? This is the best way I know to find those all-important “telling” details that bring a scene to life. ||

That’s it for now! Have a Blessed Week!
Ryana Lynn
Jude 22