drgnlv's Reviews (823)

If you struggle with structure, this is THE book for you. Clear and concise, with examples from popular literature and film. I am a holistic thinker and this book combined several different types of structural advice to make one MEGA MODEL for how to write a well-structured story. The greatest thing Weiland did in this book is to demystify and simplify the often daunting advice on how to create structure. Sometimes she was a bit prescriptive, but I found that I could take the lessons learned in this book and improve upon my writing, rather than use this book as a way to create a story. Overall, a fantastic book on writing.

I am never quite sure how I feel about these books. On the one hand, I find the concept very interesting and the world rich with history and life. However, the characters usually end up pulling me back from loving it. The author seems to reach a little too far, trying to rope in emotional connections to several characters at once. This is accomplished very well by other authors who have been writing for many years, but in a debut author the attempt falls short of expectations. I find myself initially interested in characters, or interested in them at various points, but then the characters become two-dimensional and cliche. This is very disappointing because I do have a connection with the characters and the world some, if not most, of the time and so then when the characters fall short of acting realistically, I am very disappointed in them.
Though this is not the last book in the series, I do not think I will be continuing on. I gave the sequel a chance just to see if it would improve upon the first book, but I have found that it does not. By the end of the book, it seemed more of a re-written version of the first book, with the same general plot line, character arches, and interactions. This book offered nothing new. Even the love interest (who is the third, by the way, in the series so far and thus seems less important despite the author seeming to try and make him more important) starts to act like the other love interests before him. In an example of characters becoming cliche, the love interest started out as interesting, dynamic, and thought provoking, but once he and the protagonist admitted their feelings for each other, he almost immediately fell into a cliche, misogynistic, and self-sacrificing role. It was all very frustrating and irritating to see a wonderful character treated such a way by the author. Lastly, the climax was not in the right place, nor focused on the right things in order to make it actually compelling for the reader. In the end, I had no idea where the book had been trying to go or what it had been trying to do.

Books to read instead of this one include:

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[b:Bitterblue|12680907|Bitterblue (Graceling Realm, #3)|Kristin Cashore|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1331532273s/12680907.jpg|6508730] by [a:Kristin Cashore|1373880|Kristin Cashore|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1273894652p2/1373880.jpg]
[b:The Demon King|6342491|The Demon King (Seven Realms, #1)|Cinda Williams Chima|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1379482652s/6342491.jpg|6528619] by [a:Cinda Williams Chima|125308|Cinda Williams Chima|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1291420167p2/125308.jpg]
[b:The Wise Man's Fear|1215032|The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2)|Patrick Rothfuss|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1297311431s/1215032.jpg|2502882] by [a:Patrick Rothfuss|108424|Patrick Rothfuss|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1351307341p2/108424.jpg]
[b:Seraphina|12394100|Seraphina (Seraphina, #1)|Rachel Hartman|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1325528367s/12394100.jpg|17375239] by [a:Rachel Hartman|357601|Rachel Hartman|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1307116804p2/357601.jpg]