Writing Books I Recommend: Blueprint for a Book
Cover of Blueprint for a Book by Jennie Nash
I’ve talked about this book several times, and I wanted to spend some time unpacking why this book is so useful, and for whom. There’s a blurb on the back that pretty much sums up how I feel about this book’s utility for a novelist:
“It’s a step-by-step design-your-novel manual that encapsulates the most important aspect of great story-telling: how to reach deep into your writerly heart and into the heart of the story you want to bring to life.” — Janet Fox, author of The Artifact Hunters
I completely agree with Janet here — this is a book that goes beyond just outlining, and it’s a short book with a lot of punch.
WHO IT’S FOR: Novelists at any point in the process of conceptualizing their structure. Do you have an idea? The blueprint will help you develop that idea. Are you stuck in a sagging middle? The blueprint will help you figure out how to move forward. Are you struggling to revise? The blueprint will help you figure out what’s important in your draft, both what’s missing and what’s unnecessary.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: The book goes from very general questions (Why write this book? What’s your genre?) to more pointed discovery work about your structure. The structure discussion begins with work to figure out your protagonist and their internal arc, and from here, the structure evolves. You consider narrator, time, and the opening and closing images of your book. You also — and I don’t think enough craft books focus on this issue — spend some time discovering a cause-and-effect trajectory. (In teaching fiction, a lack of a chain of cause and effect is one of the most common errors I discover.) Finally, you consider the reactions the characters have to these events, another key element that I think most writers (and craft books!) neglect. (But I do want to shout out McKee’s Story here — this is another text that emphasizes that the story is in the character’s reactions to the events!)
WHAT’S USEFUL:
The “Because of that” story summary: Once you’ve done the discovery work to figure out what your novel is about, you spend some time thinking about the events of your novel, and how those events lead to other events. It sounds so simple, right? And yet it’s something that takes most novelists a long time to truly figure out. This simple phrase — “because of that” — helps keep that chain of cause and effect tight. (For more on this idea, I really love this short video of the creators of South Park discussing how they employ a similar process.)
The Inside Outline: This is my favorite way of outlining that I’ve yet discovered. The Inside Outline asks you to consider not only what happens, but what the point of that story beat is. I find this tool to be amazing for keeping myself on track — if I don’t have an emotional point to a scene, should it really be in my novel?
WHAT THE BOOK DOESN’T DO:
Subplots: This book doesn’t help you outline subplots, though you may have a good idea what you need by the end of drafting the Inside Outline.
Other characters’ arcs: This book doesn’t walk you through developing other characters in your novel. (The single most useful tool I’ve found for this aspect is Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook.)
WHAT TO READ FIRST:
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody: For a quick overview of story beats, this book can’t be beat for getting you caught up, and quickly.
Story Genius by Lisa Cron: For a deep dive into understanding your character, Cron’s idea of “misbelief” is super useful.
WHAT TO READ NEXT:
Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass: How do you make your characters larger than life? How do you develop side characters and antagonists, among others?
Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell: For general encouragement and smart advice for getting through the drafting process (and revision, as well!), it’s hard to beat this book.
Have you used Blueprint for a Book to outline or revise your novel? How did it work for you?