Book Review: Story Genius by Lisa Cron

ISBN: 1607748908
Published: August 9th, 2016
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Received: Blogging for Books
Read from September 12th to 18th, 2016
Synopsis from Goodreads:

Following on the heels of Lisa Cron's breakout first book, Wired for Story, this writing guide reveals how to use cognitive storytelling strategies to build a scene-by-scene blueprint for a riveting story.
Story Genius is a foolproof program that saves writers from penning hundreds of pages only to realize that something's not working and they have to start again. Informed by story consultant Lisa Cron's science-based insights into how story structure is built into the architecture of the brain, this guide shows writers how to plumb the nitty-gritty details of their raw idea to organically generate a story scene by scene. Once writers reach the end of Cron's program, they will have both a blueprint that works and plenty of compelling writing suitable for their finished novel--allowing them to write forward with confidence.

Review:

This book is unlike many of the writing books I've read in the past in that it lays out steps to take to follow a very specific writing process. Most of the books I've picked up about writing in the past offer general advice instead of laying out a direct method.

In the beginning, I was skeptical of how much information from Cron's book I would actually use, but by fairly early in, she had managed to win me over quite a bit. For one thing, I enjoy her writing style. It made just reading the book pleasurable. But, also, I enjoyed quite a lot of her ideas about how to brainstorm for the book, how to outline/blueprint using scene cards, and how to use those to write your story. It's a more detailed method than I have often used in the past, and her method sounds more organized than I often am about it all.

Needless to say, I was won over, and I have decided to start from scratch with a novel I was working on and was currently unhappy with. I'm going to trash what I had (not literally because I can't bring myself to delete so much work), and I'm going to start over with the method in this book. Actually, I've already started as we speak. It will be a fairly long process, of course, but we'll see how it all works out. Maybe I'll decide that it's too detailed for me and abandon it.

For now, though, I find this method appealing, and I also enjoy Cron's writing style. I would recommend this book to any other writers out there for both of those reasons. Her method won't be right for everyone, but I do think it could be very helpful, especially to newer writers who really need help with how to flesh out their plans for a story.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

How I Feel About Love Triangles

Teddy Lupin (Not Being) in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

It's time to talk about one of the true travesties of Cursed Child: Teddy Lupin doesn't appear in the play. In fact, he's not even mentioned. Not even once. What?

Going into Cursed Child, I was worried about anticipating anything specific from it, including seeing any certain characters. Still, I did think Teddy would likely appear in at least some capacity. I, at the very least, didn't expect him to not even be mentioned.

Of course, he's not the only character who wasn't in the story. Hugo is only mentioned vaguely and isn't even on the platform at the beginning despite being in that scene of Deathly Hallows. That seems strange. It also seems strange that we see so little of Lily and James throughout the play. Then there are the various Weasley cousins. All of these characters should be at Hogwarts for at least some of the story, and I find it hard to believe that they don't have any impact on Albus. They should, at the very least, have as much to do with what's happening as Rose does. Why have such a focus on Rose's rejection of Albus but give us no idea what his relationship with the rest of the family is? The idea that he just doesn't talk to them seems too easy for me.

But that's a different rant. Teddy's not at Hogwarts during the story. That much is true. I would have been okay with him just being mentioned once because of that, but this complete lack of a mention is just ridiculous.

I'm biased; it's true. I love Teddy, and I always want to see more of him. I would have loved the opportunity to get to know his personality and not just have to speculate.

But why were so many people not even mentioned? You can say that the cast was limited because it was a play, but that doesn't mean that some characters should be ignored as if they don't even exist.

I'm bitter about it, if you can't tell.

Life Post: Voting and Break

This week has been one of those that's busy, but it's busy with so many small things that it's difficult to talk about them in a post.

I've been to the doctor twice this week. Once to get a TB test and again to get the test read. I also got fingerprinted again. This time it was done digitally, which was remarkably like getting it done with ink except with less mess on my hands afterward. I also got a haircut today, but it was just a trim.

The most noteworthy thing I've probably done so far this week is vote. I went to the courthouse with my sister for early voting back on Monday, so that's one task that I have out of the way. But don't worry, I still get to listen to all of the election coverage that you do until election day, despite having already voted. I'm sure it's going to be loads of fun.

Back towards the beginning of my fall break, I think I mentioned somewhere online that this was the first time I'd had a two week fall break. As it turns out, they feel significantly longer than fall breaks that are only a couple of days long. It's been really nice. It kind of feels like I've been on break forever, which could probably be seen as either a good or a bad thing. Oddly enough, I actually think these weeks are going by slower than the typical school week does. We'll see if that holds true once I'm back at school.

Draco's Relationship with the Golden Trio in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

For all of Cursed Child's faults, there were some aspects of its story that leave room for interesting discussions. Not necessarily in a "this was so great!" way, but interesting discussion nonetheless.

One of those, for me, is Draco's relationship with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and also Ginny throughout the play.

Many Harry Potter fans spent years hoping that Draco would be friends with the Golden Trio by the end of the series (or at least be on his way there), and I know many were disappointed when he wasn't. I wasn't one of the fans waiting for such a thing to happen. To be honest, I never much cared about Draco's fate since I disliked him, and I think it's only now that I'm older that I've begun to understand why the idea was appealing to others. Though I still can't say it's appealing to me. I feel satisfied with the way Draco's story ended in the seventh book.

As I wasn't one of those fans, I do wonder how those fans felt when they read Cursed Child. What they had wanted from the books more or less happened (although quite possibly on a smaller scale than they had hoped for), but it happened in Cursed Child, which...Well, it isn't the Harry Potter series is where I'll leave that thought.

Personally, I found Draco's story within Cursed Child interesting, and I cared about it far more than I remember ever caring about his story in the Harry Potter series. I'd really like to know what sort of communication Harry and Ginny had with Draco (and Astoria before she died) in the years prior to Cursed Child. Their sons were best friends, but I can't figure out if Scorpius and Albus visiting each other's houses during breaks was a thing. Can you imagine Harry sending his son off to spend a week with the Malfoys? It would be strange for everyone involved, and seeing such a thing would no doubt be interesting.

Such a thing wouldn't necessarily mean Draco and Harry had to directly communicate though. They could have done it entirely through their sons, which is what I would assume was happening based on the play. Why go through the trouble of all the awkwardness when you can just tell your son to pass on a message? It's what I would do in their positions, not going to lie.

Cursed Child also raises some interesting questions about Draco as a husband and as a father for me, and I'm exploring each of those to a certain extent in the Harry Potter fanfiction that Cursed Child has inspired me to write. What I'm not really exploring in that fanfiction is Draco's relationship with the other characters, which is probably why I've ended up writing this post.

I kind of liked Draco's relationship with the others in this story. I never thought I'd say that, but I do. It didn't come across as that cheesy to me like so many other parts of Cursed Child did (which is impressive considering the redemption of such characters can often seem unrealistic to me), and the way Draco was portrayed in the play did make it feel like it had been a long time coming. I do, however, wish that the play had explored how Draco's own feelings had changed over time. I get that it wasn't Draco's story, and since this was a play, it would have been even more difficult to get such internal feelings across without adding a lot of time onto the play. Still, I kind of wish for it.

Cursed Child kind of made me want a Draco story about falling in love with Astoria and how his perceptions changed after the war. I think it could be quite compelling based on Cursed Child, and that's not something I would have said prior to reading the play. So I guess that's one thing I can think Cursed Child for along with Scorpius Malfoy's existence.

This is turning into something more than a post about Draco's relationship with the Golden Trio. Ultimately, I think, Cursed Child made me care more about Draco Malfoy than I ever had in the past. I'm not sure what that means about my feelings for him within the actual Harry Potter books, but I'm having a fun time exploring it.