I was a beta reader for this practical workbook, and it’s impressive. I expected no less from Mari, who for sure knows what she’s doing as a writer, as a writing coach, and as an editor. I’ll be using the worksheets and other ideas in my future planning sessions for my own books, and I recommend it to those who want a robust way to improve and shorten their planning process (before, during, and after that crucial first draft).
Brainstorm Your Book: Planning the Parts of Your Next Novel
Brainstorm Your Book: Planning the Parts of Your Next Novel is a hands-on, pen-to-paper, rubber-to-road workbook to help you generate ideas for all the elements of your next fiction book—character, setting, plot, and theme—to produce a more robust first draft more easily, and improve on your later versions. Whether you are writing your first book or your fifty-first, no matter your genre or personal process, Brainstorm Your Book will spark creativity, increase productivity, and make writing your novel a whole lot more fun.
In a series of questions, prompts, and exercises, Brainstorm Your Book probes your imagination, pulling small and large details from your creative mind and the world around you. The workbook will introduce you to your characters and help build solid friendships with them, show you both a bird’s-eye and closeup view of your settings, generate action to drive the plot forward, and enhance the underlying messages in your manuscript. It will walk you, step-by-step, through choices you might never have considered, act as a catalyst driving progress through the whole first draft, and increase your chances of ending with a high-quality finished novel.
Coming soon: Brainstorm Your Book Workbooks for Memoir and Nonfiction!
Buy link: https://mariannechristie.com/brainstorm-your-book/
Contest:
Win a Kindle Fire 7 and free extra brainstorming worksheets for life!
For the entire month of August on Mari’s blog, you will find daily brainstorming prompts from the book. If you follow the prompts and comment with some of the writing that results, you will be entered to win.
Follow Mari on the web:
Author Website www.MariAnneChristie.com
Facebook www.facebook.com/MariChristieAuthor
Twitter www.twitter.com/MChristieAuthor
Pinterest www.pinterest.com/MariChristie
Goodreads www.goodreads.com/author/show/5055425.Mari_Christie
And, for more tools to improve your writing and your novel, find Mari on Patreon:
It looks helpful, thanks. I don’t expect to start my next draft until NaNo and scribble a few notes in October. If I start sooner or spend too much time outlining or detailing, my muse gets tired and frustrated and hates the project. (hence my two failed NaNos) Q&A seems workable, and might unclog on of my two novels. Alas, I cannot use paper workbooks and must work exclusively on a computer…
I’ll pass that feedback on, Marie. Clogging is the bane of our existence, isn’t it?
Yup, the one already went through two NaNo drafts, and the other one. Ans a revision class I took did nothing. I suspect it was too granular for my writing. I just need to consistently allocate writing time…
The research shows that pen-to-paper gets better results in stimulating brain activity, which is why it is paper-only. You certainly aren’t precluded from opening the workbook and answering questions on the computer, but there is method to my madness. 😉 I have been seeing you on the blog, BTW, and love your entries. My life has just been really out of control the past few days. I will pop over and say hi later today. 🙂
Constant writing time is the key to everything.
Yep. Which reminds me, I haven’t done my words today!
Well, you’re the second teacher I’ve met who isn’t interested in adapting. I have a severe physical disability and CANNOT spread papers out to work with them. I cannot hold the pen and the paper and a hard surface at the same time to fill out forms. Nor can the writers who multitasks during a commute and has no table. These methods exclude me and others who can’t worship at the looseleaf paper stacks. The questions are nice, but I’m looking that won’t require I scan everything in just so I can use it. Pen and paper may be stimulate, but that is not a problem, I have written a lot and have no shortage for ideas => (my answers are from three different original pieces, though I also have three active fanfics and bulging idea files)
I’m not really mad at you, as I said. You’re the second who still takes a kitchen table as the model and I’m terribly disappointed.
First things first, I’m not a teacher. I have taught writing in small groups and done adult training on various topics, including writing and leadership, but I would be a horrible teacher, and would never do it as a formal occupation. (And yeah, I wouldn’t allow laptops for note-taking without requiring a medical accommodation request, which, incidentally, would not be the biggest reason students would hate my classes.)
All the worksheets, so, all the questions in the book, are downloadable on my website (www.MariAnneChristie.com/brainstorm-your-book) for $1 each in PDF format, which makes it about half of the cost of the entire print book. E-book isn’t viable as a fillable format, so I assume you would open Kindle half-screen alongside your word-processing program? That can be done with the PDFs as easily. The PDFs aren’t fillable, because that is a really time-consuming process and I would have to charge a lot more for them.
If you have a medical need for a PDF copy of the book, I can make one available to you by special request for the same price as the print book. What you are missing by using worksheets only is the introduction to the book and to each section, 1-2 pages on character, setting, plot, and theme, and the mind-mapping section, which is available on my blog with a search. You are welcome to contact me to get a PDF copy if you want the additional information.
I am sorry to have disappointed you, and I assure you it isn’t the first or last time I will be a disappointment to someone for something. Please let me know if you want to go a different route than the ones available to get the workbook.