Damn Fine Story, by Chuck Wendig

Today I am discussing Damn Fine Story: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative, a book on writing craft, written by Chuck Wendig. Or should I say a book on storytelling craft? Wendig is famous for having written the New York Times bestseller, Star Wars: Aftermath, as well as the Miriam Black thrillers, and numerous other bestselling novels. He has also written numerous books on writing craft.

But First, THE BLURB:


HOOK YOUR AUDIENCE WITH UNFORGETTABLE STORYTELLING

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho‘okipa Beach have in common?
Simply put, we care about them.
Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Using a mix of personal stories, pop fiction examples, and traditional storytelling terms, New York Timesbest-selling author Chuck Wendig will help you internalize the feel of powerful storytelling. In Damn Fine Story, you'll explore:

• Freytag's Pyramid for visualizing story structure - and when to break away from traditional storytelling forms
• Character relationships and interactions as the basis of every strong plot - no matter the form or genre
• Rising and falling tension that pulls the audience through to the climax and conclusion of the story
• Developing themes as a way to craft characters with depth

Whether you're writing a novel, screenplay, video game, comic, or even if you just like to tell stories to your friends and family over dinner, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling - and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

MY REVIEW:

As a writing craft book junkie, I can’t walk past any book that purposes to discuss the dirty little habit of writing. Chuck Wendig is well-known for his pithy way of expressing things, but despite the in-your-face rawness of his delivery, he does know how to tell a great story, and he does it with outrageous hilarity.

This book takes the writer beyond the essentials of writing craft (grammar, sentence structure, etc.) and into the deeper elements of storytelling, rhythm, cadence, and breaking the rules adored by the more fascist writing-group gurus. He does this to encourage you to develop your own storytelling style. 

If you have ever checked out his blog, terribleminds, you will know that Wendig calls it like he sees it. As an avid reader and a strong supporter of Indie authors, I'm pleased to see a book emerge that details the elements of good storytelling, phrased bluntly and with enough humor to keep things interesting.

I highly recommend it, if for nothing else, its sheer entertainment value. You’ll get your money back in the wildly sarcastic humor of the footnotes alone.

An Alien Collective by Roxanne Barbour

 

Today we enter the realm of indie YA science fiction. An AlienCollective by Canadian author Roxanne Barbour begins with the protagonist, Cyn-Tia Silverthorne and 7 other humans,4 females and 4 males, waking up in a strange world in a compound surrounded by 3 other compounds holding similar groups of aliens. They are all at the same stage of life as she is – young adulthood. The captives are a mix of four species from worlds which, like earth, are at the stage of making the leap to the rest of the galaxy.  All have universal translators around their necks, and each species is unique and clearly drawn.  Cyn seems to be quite a fan of Star Trek type shows and is unphased by this turn of events, accepting it and going along with the wishes of her abductors for the time being. 

At first they are separated by a barrier they can communicate through, with a strange box acting as the nexus in the center corner connecting the four compounds.  She meets Stire, a male of the world of Temma. When Cyn and Stire touch the box, they realize that the four groups will have to cooperate to open the box.  Reluctantly the others, Jana from Irandis and Frakis from Reanon comply, and box opens into each compound to reveal cryptic instructions for each group. They are not told why they are there, they are to live in integrated communities and the four individuals who opened the box are the leaders of the individual groups, and cannot be changed as their DNA is required to open the box. 

As their time goes on, they make friends and form alliances, learn many skills they need to survive, and embark on discovering the why of their kidnapping and become adults. In true Gene Roddenberry tradition, a tentative interspecies romance develops, which is both touching and believable.

I enjoyed the way Barbour creates the aliens, and gives them unique characteristics which are specific to their species, and also gives them similarities which might be common in diverse species who’ve reached our level in technology.  I must admit, Cyn is portrayed as being far more mature than an average seventeen year old, as is Stire; but her interactions with the others are interesting and believable. Several times during the tale I found myself backtracking, but overall it was an enjoyable reading experience, and is one which should appeal to teenagers and young readers from age twelve on up.  I give it four solid stars and will be buying it for my young family members who are discovering science-fiction.

Roxanne Barbour is also the author of the YA scifi murder mystery  A Way, About and can be found blogging at  http://roxannebarbour.wordpress.com/. You can follow her on Twitter at @RoxanneBarbour.

 

 

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