{"product_id":"story-genius-isbn-9781607748892","title":"Story Genius","description":"\u003cb\u003eFollowing on the heels of Lisa Cron's breakout first book, \u003ci\u003eWired for Story\u003c\/i\u003e, this writing guide reveals how to use cognitive storytelling strategies to build a scene-by-scene blueprint for a riveting story\u003c\/b\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s every novelist’s greatest fear: pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into writing hundreds of pages only to realize that their story has no sense of urgency, no internal logic, and so is a page one rewrite. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe prevailing wisdom in the writing community is that there are just two ways around this problem: pantsing (winging it) and plotting (focusing on the external plot). Story coach Lisa Cron has spent her career discovering why these methods don’t work and coming up with a powerful alternative, based on the science behind what our brains are wired to crave in every story we read (and it’s not what you think). \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eStory Genius \u003c\/i\u003eCron takes you, step-by-step, through the creation of a novel from the first glimmer of an idea, to a complete multilayered blueprint—including fully realized scenes—that evolves into a first draft with the authority, richness, and command of a riveting sixth or seventh draft.\u003cb\u003eCONTENTS\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction \u003ci\u003e1\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePART I. WHAT A STORY IS, AND WHAT IT ISN’T\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStory: The Brain’s Decoder Ring  \u003ci\u003e9\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Myths Galore: Everything We Were Taught About Writing Is Wrong \u003ci\u003e19\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ePART II. CREATING THE INSIDE STORY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe \u003ci\u003eWhat If\u003c\/i\u003e? Expectation, Broken!  \u003ci\u003e35\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Who: Whose Life Will You Utterly Upend?  \u003ci\u003e53\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Why: Why, Exactly, Does Your Protagonist Care?  \u003ci\u003e67\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Worldview: Your Protagonist’s, That Is  \u003ci\u003e85\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What Next? The Beauty of Cause and Effect  \u003ci\u003e105\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The When: An Offer Your Protagonist Can’t Refuse (But Probably Wants To)  \u003ci\u003e123\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e PART III. CREATING AN EXTERNAL GAUNTLET TO SPUR YOUR PROTAGONIST’S INTERNAL STRUGGLE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e9 The Opening: Of Your Novel and of the Story Genius Blueprinting System  \u003ci\u003e147\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 10 The Real “Aha!” Moment: Where Will Your Story End?  \u003ci\u003e165\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 11 Building Your Blueprint: How to Keep Track of All the Moving Parts  \u003ci\u003e187\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 12 Going Back to Move Forward: How to Harvest the Past to Set Up the Plot  \u003ci\u003e195\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 13 Story Logic: Making Sure Each “What” Has a “Why”  \u003ci\u003e209\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 14 The Secret to Layering: Subplots, Storylines, and Secondary Characters  \u003ci\u003e223\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 15 Writing Forward: Stories Grow in Spirals  \u003ci\u003e245\u003c\/i\u003e“Using brain science, Cron busts the myths of good writing to help you find the real story behind all that plot and metaphor.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Writer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“In [Cron's] new book, \u003ci\u003eStory Genius\u003c\/i\u003e, she picks up the . . . theme . . . that a protagonist’s internal struggle makes the story work, and offers step-by-step advice on how to exploit this truth about neuroscience for richer, deeper, better first drafts. . . . Cron provides exercises and examples to keep writers on track, always highlighting the fact that emotions engage the brain faster than anything else. . . . The concepts are easy to understand and they are certainly important. Even if you can’t go on a retreat, you should try to find time to do the exercises for your own blueprint.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Psychology Today \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“It’s a simple question: 'How do you write an effective, engaging story?' Ask Lisa Cron. An accomplished author and story coach, she has just published her second book, \u003ci\u003eStory Genius\u003c\/i\u003e. A manual of sorts, it teaches cognitive storytelling strategies and uses actual brain science to help make its readers into better writers.”\u003cb\u003e—Creative Screenwriting\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Cron, author of \u003ci\u003eWired for Story\u003c\/i\u003e, proposes this new book as the answer to the question, What’s the biggest mistake writers make? She uses psychology and other sciences to explain what makes an utterly compelling story and how to write one. . . . Novice writers looking for a step-by-step guide to how to build—or fix—their novel might find a lot of useful information in here.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Lost in the quagmire of trying to write a novel? Well, forget everything you've ever been told about story, because chances are, it's totally wrong. So where to turn? Story guru Cron not only gives you the skinny on why and how stories work (and why and how we respond to them), she also shows you how to craft a novel step by step, working with author Jenny Nash from the germ of an idea to a living, breathing story. I'd never consider writing a novel without Lisa's input, and neither should you.”\u003cb\u003e—Caroline Leavitt, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e best-selling author of \u003ci\u003eIs This Tomorrow \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003ePictures of You\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLISA CRON \u003c\/b\u003ehas worked as a literary agent, a TV producer, and a story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and many others. She is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. She teaches in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts MFA in Visual Narrative Program, and is the author of \u003ci\u003eWired for Story\u003c\/i\u003e. She splits her time between Santa Monica, California, and New York, New York. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eINTRODUCTION \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat’s the biggest mistake writers make? This is the question I’ve been asked most frequently over the years. The answer is easy: they don’t know what a story is. So even though they have a great idea, their prose is gorgeous, and there’s a lot of action, there’s no real story, and so no driving sense of urgency, which translates to: no readers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe result? Countless writers end up heartbroken because no matter how hard they work, how many writing workshops they take, how many degrees they earn, they still can’t get an agent, can’t get a book deal, and if they decide to self-publish (in order to show those talent-blind publishing bigwigs a thing or two), they can’t get anyone other than their friends and family to buy their book. The statistics can be scary. In 2012, the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ereported that most self-published books sell fewer than 150 copies; surveys reveal that agents reject over 96 percent of the submissions they receive (personally, I’d put the number even higher). So it’s no surprise that writers end up disappointed, sad, and sometimes even a tad bitter. Worse, they’re convinced that their failure proves one thing only: they have no talent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat’s when that internal voice we all have, the one that pretends to have our best interest at heart, moves in for the kill. \u003ci\u003eWhatever made me think I could be a writer? I should give it up immediately and express my creativity some other way. Like—I don’t know—interpretive dance. \u003c\/i\u003eDon’t! Not only because chances are you \u003ci\u003edo \u003c\/i\u003ehave the talent, but seriously, the world has way too many interpretive dancers as it is.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere’s the truth: not understanding how story really works is not your fault. It’s on a par with not knowing exactly how your body absorbs the nutrients in the food you eat. You know that it does, and if you took high school biology, you probably remember that it has something to do with cells and membranes and amino acids, but the how of it is invisible (thank heaven). The same is true of the effect that story—all stories—have on you, and even more surprising, \u003ci\u003ewhy \u003c\/i\u003ethey have that effect.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book is designed to help you crack the story code, and make what was invisible, visible—not to mention eminently doable. It will turn you into a Story Genius. It will show you, step by step, how to craft a blueprint for your story that will set you up for success from the get-go. It will also drastically cut down on rewriting time—and it’s the only thing that will. You’ll not only hook readers from the very first sentence, but your novel—or screenplay, play, or short story—will be deeper, richer, and more compelling than anything you’ve written before. How can I be sure? Because we’re not talking about some new flavor-of-the-month writing system conjured out of thin air. We’re talking brain science.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHumans are wired for story. We hunt for and respond to certain specific things in every story we hear, watch, or read—and they’re the exact same specific things, regardless of the genre. Why is this so? Because story is the language of the brain. We think in story. The brain evolved to use story as its go-to “decoder ring” for reality, and so we’re really expert at probing stories for specific meaning and specific info—and I mean all of us, beginning at birth. Even a kindergartner recognizes an effective story, because it’s built into the architecture of the brain. Story is how we make sense of the world around us; it’s a system that predates written language by eons. Heck, before spoken language, we grunted and signed in story. I’d wager that early in the morning, the cranky among us still do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause our response to story is hardwired, it’s not something we have to learn or even think about, which is why we are often unaware of the power story has over us. When a story grabs you, you’re in its sway, no questions asked. You may have heard the oft-expressed sentiment that getting lost in a good story demands a “willing suspension of disbelief.” In fact, this couldn’t be less true, because it implies we have a choice as to whether we fall under the spell of a captivating story. We don’t have a choice. The power story has over us is biological. But while \u003ci\u003eresponding \u003c\/i\u003eto story is hardwired, creating a story is not. As the great Southern writer Flannery O’Connor once noted, “Most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.”1 But here’s the part she missed: before we can learn to write a story, we have to know what a story actually is. That is, we have to know what’s really hooking and holding readers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe problem is that most writers mistake story for the things we can see on the page: the stunning prose, the authoritative voice, the intense and exciting plot, the clever structure. It’s a very natural mistake, and a crippling one. Because while no one could deny that all those things are important, they lack the crucial element that gives a story meaning and brings it to life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat drives a story forward is, at first blush, invisible. It’s not talent. It’s not voice. It’s not the plot. Think electricity. The same way even the most powerful lamp is useless unless it’s plugged in, a story can’t engage readers without the electricity that illuminates the plot, the voice, and the talent, bringing them to life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe question is: what, specifically, generates that juice?","brand":"Ten Speed Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304745750757,"sku":"NP9781607748892","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781607748892.jpg?v=1767737385","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/story-genius-isbn-9781607748892","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}