This is a review for S. Evans book Novel Writing Mastery: Proven And Simple Techniques To Outline, Structure And Write A Successful Novel – I finished it 3 days ago and want to share what I learned. Honestly, there was not much new information, most of the ideas I had read somewhere else before. For me that’s a hint that I have done quite a lot of research on the topics of novel building, structure and such.

I like the first few pages where Evans busts some myths about the writing process. Most of it was not news but it is written entertainingly and – even more important – from an unemotionally point of view.

The next topic – on how to create realistic and compelling characters – held only few new ideas, but to recap the already known points is not a bad idea either. Useful for my WIP was the reminder, that each character has some dark side within her personality. I tend to forget that. Same goes for the behaviour within groups – there will always be a hierarchy.

I was a little disappointed about the third and fourth chapter. I was hoping to glimpse some new insights, some new approach to structure development but Evans (just) describes the already known snowflake method and some key components like forewarnings, consequences or goals that one needs to keep in mind when writing character arcs. But there is not much detail to these points and I miss a wider range of examples

Nicely done are the next parts that deal in detail with the beginning (Hook) and the ending (satisfaction). Can’t read enough about those – I think these are key.

What really helped and offered a lot of new information were the pats about publishing and the classification of a book. Especially the part about expected word counts for several different categories.

Best part was the bonus about poetry that comes as an add-on with the book. I enjoyed that very much. Especially since I was thinking about looking into that topic for a while. Evans describes the basics in an understandable manner – I might give it a try soon.