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Million Dollar Outlines (2013)

by David Farland(Favorite Author)

4.17 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

DFE

review 1: This book isn't so much as "how to write a selling synopsis" as "how to take a story *idea* and develop it into a selling premise, the end product of which is an outline." Writing the outline only comes at the very end of the book. Where the wealth of ideas and tips actually comes into play is thinking about your audience, the emotional payoffs, and how to deepen and broaden the conflicts to make the story come alive.
review 2: I'm a pantser, which means that when it comes to writing I like to fly by the seat of my pants. This is a thrilling way to write. You never know what's going to happen next and each twist and turn leaves you breathless to write the next part. But editing a story that I pantsed, is not fun at all! When it comes to editing my stories, I... more often realize there's no plot, that the setting is lacking, I often have to add characters to flesh out the story, and my characters are usually one dimensional. Which means, I get to write the story again, and usually a third time, and a fourth time, the rewrites are pretty much indefinite. To say that this becomes tiresome is an understatement. This has led me to try many different outlining techniques. But I usually find them to be so formulaic that my creative side shuts down and doesn't want to proceed. In Million Dollar Outlines, David doesn't give me an outline to use. He explains the logic behind why people read books. Why do books relieve our stress, and make life just a little bit easier to handle? Why do some books do this better than others? Why do some characters jump off the page while others are little more than a rough sketch? These are just some of the many questions that David answers in this book that has completely changed the way I see writing. I'm not new to writing. I've been around this scene for a little while at least. Not everything in this book was like a new revelation to me, but the way he explained it all, turned on a light bulb in my mind. I learn so much better when I understand the why of what I'm learning. This is what David does in this book. He tells you why to put certain things in your outlines. Part of his outlining technique includes a way for you to visually SEE your plots all together before they are even written. I'm a visual learner, so this really worked for me. This book was well worth the price and I highly recommend that anyone who is really serious about writing, buy this book. If you don't, that's just less competition for me when my wonderfully outlined books come into the publishing world!! Just kidding, sort of. less

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