Story Engineering

Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing

By: Larry Brooks

Narrated by: Chris Sorensen

The vast majority of writers begin the storytelling process with only a partial understanding of where to begin. Some labor their entire lives without ever learning that successful stories are as dependent upon good engineering as they are artistry. But the truth is, unless you are master of the form, function, and criteria of successful storytelling, sitting down and pounding out a first draft without planning is an ineffective way to begin.

Story Engineering starts with the criteria and the architecture of storytelling, the engineering and design of a story - and uses it as the basis for narrative. The greatest potential of any story is found in the way six specific aspects of storytelling combine and empower each other on the page. When rendered artfully, they become a sum in excess of their parts.

You'll learn to wrap your head around the big pictures of storytelling at a professional level through a new approach that shows how to combine these six core competencies, which include four elemental competencies of concept, character, theme, and story structure (plot) and two executional competencies of scene construction and writing voice. The true magic of storytelling happens when these six core competencies work together in perfect harmony. And the best part? Anyone can do it!

©2011 Larry Brooks (P)2020 Tantor

Great for understanding story format

great book with lots of super helpful information. I would definitely recommend if you're writing fiction

Life changing read.

Personally, as a published author myself. This book has changed my life. in all forms of writing, I now have a guide. Thank you for this experience.

Some nuggets found inside

If I were Larry Brooks I would have strangled my publisher for hiring Chris Sorensen to narrate this. It is only barely tolerable at 1.7x speed, and makes the author sound like the biggest dweeb.

The book itself lays out storytelling basics quite well, albeit way overwritten with too many metaphors and about 100 rants about plotting vs pantsing per chapter. I’d recommend you look up summaries and worksheets from this one instead.

Practical and clear, giving writers a concise blueprint for effective*story engineering*.

Some have expressed dislike for the narrator, he is just fine. I enjoyed his work here and his inflection entertaining.

What really matters here is the content, which is superb. There is a good amount of time spent defending the concept of story engineering, which I think is necessary in light of the fact that so many pantsers rail against the notion.

If this is you and you're unable or unwilling to entertain the possibility that a calculated, logical blueprint can dramatically improve your writing process and the inevitable chaotic result, go ahead and pass on this. This isn't for you.

For the rest of you, this book will be a guiding light.

I have found it relevatory and invaluable. Be sure to take notes!

worth the credit

Not a fan of the narrator, but it's worth preserving to get to the meat of the book. Highly recommended. I found if you speed up narrator's voice, it will be more palatable

Great Information, Annoyingly Read

I’m going to have to buy this book in print. Worthwhile information, but the reader is so over the top in his delivery that I just can’t listen.

Great book, awful narration!

One of the greatest how-to writing books ever conceived, mated to the worst narration job I have ever heard. How could this possibly happen?

The book and its content is worth the purchase price several times over. I recommend the book itself wholeheartedly. Any would-be story writer would be benefited greatly by receiving this content.

Now, about the narration. Imagine Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. Now imagine Sheldon's irritating, whiny voice being put through a Microsoft Sam filter. I can already see you cringing, and yes it does sound just as bad as you imagine. It's so bad that I have to turn it off after listening for only 15 to 20 minutes, even though I really want to listen to it. I don't see how I could ever make this into a repeated listening experience, even though that's why I bought it.

Larry Brooks, if you ever see this review I would strongly encourage that you hire a new narrator and have this book reworked. It deserves so much better.

not all typed up to be

let's start with a narration. It is as bad as the other reviews say it is. some of that can be mitigated by increasing the speed to 2, which makes the annoying narrator less noticeable.
as for content, if you studied writing craft before, truly this isn't going to be anything new. The approach is slightly different but not really.
if you are inexperienced, there's great content here. If you have a lot of experience, this could be an okay refresher.

Book worthwhile, narration an abomination.

This book is an important member of my writing books collection so I wanted to have an audio version to listen to during the day. Unfortunately the naration makes listening to this nearly unbearable. The reader sounds like if I were to intentionally make up a disagreeable nasally voice for an over the top conniving bad guy character while reading to children. Remember Templeton the rat from Disney's Charlotte's Web animated classic? He sounds like that, but worse.

I followed along in the printed text for a while and wondered at how a professional reader could so systematically ignore proper emphasis, sometimes even when text was italicized for such, overiding it with the same whiny tones over and over. Each sentence ended in a drawn out last word as though he were trying to call special attention to how annoying his affectation could be. And this is someone with 160 or more audio book titles to his name?

Great concepts, HORRIBLE narrator

If I was a person that had time to sit down and read a book, I would have done it for this book. The concepts are great and the writer tells things in a frank, but fun way. The narrator, however, is hands-down the worst I've heard. His tonality was a mix of the announcer from the beginning of UP and Mayor Humdinger from Paw Patrol. At 1.8 speed I was finally able to stomach it enough to finish. However, I highly recommend the physical copy if you can find the time to sit and read.