(Please note: All book reviews are unsolicited and unpaid. The reviews represent the viewpoint of the reviewer alone and are offered as an aid to other writers.)
Book Review by Barbara Shepherd
Write Your Novel From the Middle:
A New Approach for Plotters, Pantsers and Everyone in Between
By James Scott Bell
Bell introduces us to Pam Pantser who struggled to create an outline but decided it was too much “like shampooing a porcupine.” Although Paul Plotter self-published nine good thrillers, followed all the rules of writing, and could probably win awards for perfect outlines, his books still need help. Tammy Tweener’s writing process borrows from those of Pam and Paul, yet she needs a stronger story. Bell promises to help all three with his “Write From the Middle Method.”
The middle – the dead center – where the real meat of your story resides. How did he discover this? He loves books and movies, and some leave lasting impressions. Why? He opened those novels to their middle pages. He stopped his DVD player at the exact time half-way into each movie. Amazed, he says, “Midpoint was not a scene at all. It is a moment within a scene – the moment that tells us what the novel or movie is really all about.”
He gives a brief, but visual, lesson in structure. The true midpoint where the character looks within and takes stock – “a look in the mirror” moment.
How do we put this information to use? Bell explains this “Mirror Moment” – where we brainstorm until we know the heart and the heat of our story and what it is “really all about.” He shares “The Golden Triangle” which starts with pre-story psychology, the mirror moment as the apex, and ends with the story’s transformation.
James Scott Bell imparts his fiction-writing wisdom in a quick and easy-to-absorb format no textbook can. This is a five-star addition to any writer’s resource library no matter how he/she chooses to tell a story.
Five stars. *****
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