The Irresistible Novel: How to Craft an Extraordinary Story That Engages Readers from Start to Finish, by Jeff Gerke
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The Irresistible Novel: How to Craft an Extraordinary Story That Engages Readers from Start to Finish, by Jeff Gerke
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The craft of writing is filled with various debates: Should I include a prologue? Should I delete all adverbs from my manuscript? Just how much backstory--if any--can I include in my story? These questions--and their often-contradictory answers--can cause confusion, frustration, and even paralysis in the writer.
The Irresistible Novel frees you from the limits of so-called "rules" and instead provides you with a singular goal: You must engage your readers from beginning to end. Filled with down-to-earth discussions on the various debates of writing, as well as innovative research on neuroscience and reader response, this book shows you how to:
- Navigate the various debates on writing fiction--showing versus telling, purple prose, outlining, writing description, and more--to decide what kind of novelist you want to be.
- Hack your reader's brain to hook her interest and trigger emotional engagement from the very first page.
- Incorporate enduring elements of storytelling from masters like Joseph Campbell, Aristotle, and Carl Jung.
- Amazon Sales Rank: #118427 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-05-13
- Released on: 2015-05-13
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
"Jeff Gerke's The Irresistible Novel encourages authors to break from restrictive "rules" in pursuit of the true goal--to engage one's readers from beginning to end. Chapters explore different points of view on everything from nuances of grammar (and why their paralyzing rules should not always be strictly obeyed) to mapping a story path with respect to engaging the reader's brain chemistry." --Midwest Book Review
About the Author Jeff Gerke is the author of both fiction and nonfiction titles, including the Operation: Firebrand novels, Plot Versus Character, The First 50 Pages, and Write Your Novel in a Month. He is the founder of Marcher Lord Press, the premier publisher of Christian speculative fiction.
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Most helpful customer reviews
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful. Resist The Irresistible Novel By cmwriter I’ve read and enjoyed several of Jeff Gerke’s books. This is not one of them. I’m not sure who his intended audience is, but this does not seem to suit either beginning writers or more advance writers.In Part One (pages 1-145), Gerke presents some frequently given writing advice. Topics range from prologues to amount of detail to particular grammatical features, such as gerunds and passives. For each, he presents the stand of those for the device and the position of those against, and then his own opinion on the topic, and he gives reasons why each takes the position they do. For each topic, these opinions are followed by a section Gerke calls “Getting Past the Gatekeepers,” in which he tells novelists how to avoid getting their novel instantly rejected by agents and publishers who may be against the device in focus. For example, when discussing whether or not prologues are acceptable, he gives the viewpoint of the opposing sides (never versus Sure, why not?), plus his own opinion, which seems to go along with the ‘Sure, why not’ group. To get past the gatekeepers he says to avoid titling a section “Prologue,” and to call it “Chapter One” instead.Following Gerke’s own formula, here is My Opinion on this section: Beginning writers will not find enough solid information in this section to make it useful. He may say what the various opinions are, but if a beginning author doesn’t yet understand showing versus telling or point of view, Part One will neither help him or her handle the device well nor make an informed decision about which opinion given is most valid. On the other hand, experienced writers have probably already figured out what Gerke mainly ends up saying: it depends. Sometimes third person works, sometimes it doesn’t. Usually showing is better, but sometimes we slip a little telling in there to accomplish a particular purpose. A writer should learn what these devices are, practice using them, and come understand how, when, and where they are most effective.Part Two of this book (pages 147-179) is where Gerke makes his main point: “You must engage your reader from beginning to end.” This is not revolutionary. In fact, much of what is stated in this section is not new; Gerke says so himself: “There’s really nothing new or surprising in what we’re learning…” (169). I believe Gerke feels his approach is different because he tries to use brain chemistry to give us new understanding on the matter. I found two problems with this. First of all, as I mentioned, the main points were nothing new: engage the readers, create a main character readers can relate to, make your readers feel as though they are experiencing the events alongside the characters (transport your readers), add conflict… Secondly, the “science” he uses in this section is weak. In a sense, he seems to think so too. Here are some of his own statements about this material: “The findings about oxytocin and narrative are validated by Dr. Zak’s laboratory work, but much of the rest of it is extrapolation and his educated guesses” (151). “Dr. Zak was pretty much horrified when I told him I wanted something like a brain chemistry story map. That’s because we can observe and theorize about what’s going on in a reader’s mind…But that doesn’t mean we’d understand it or be able to do it intentionally” (162). And he quotes Dr. Zak as saying on this matter, “I think this is where the art beats the science…Writers have deep intuitions on how to engage readers and how to do this across genres, but the science of what is happening step by step, which would allow one to reverse engineer the process, simply isn’t there” (162).My Opinion: Gerke believes he is revolutionizing how we write, saying that what we need to do is use the science of the brain. However, the scientist says this isn’t possible to do yet. That doesn’t stop Gerke, though; he goes right on to build his story map, even while adding qualifiers: it’s what may go on in a reader’s brain and the details about the hormones involved are simply a guess.Part Three of the book summarizes the ideas of a number of others and covers the monomyth—the hero’s journey, character archtypes, and how to engage your readers’ emotions.My Opinion on the book as a whole: I admit that my opinion is partially formed by this book’s errors (for example, implying that Chicago Manual of Style’s guidelines are rules that should not be broken—CMS considers them guidelines), contradictions (spending Part One debunking the rules and then stating “Theoretically, some of these rules can be used to strengthen a section (or an entire manuscript) that isn’t working,” (p. 147) followed by a number of examples of how these rules can help), and guesses about the science (as mentioned above). Gerke justifies the need for this book of his by stating readers don’t really care about craft, so we need to get away from craft. Yet the same could be said about what Gerke teaches; when reading a story, readers don’t really care about what’s going on in their brain or about whether the story conforms to the monomyth. The rules of craft and Gerke’s suggestions presented here are all possible tools writers can use to engage readers. I just feel that the material is presented in more depth elsewhere and in a way that will do a better job of helping novelists improve their skills. Unless you are intrigued by how the brain chemistry may figure in to the way readers react to a story, save your money. If you are wanting a book that gives more usable instruction, choose a different one, perhaps James Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure for a start.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. The AHA Moment Arrived! By Dianna I found the information in this book to be highly relevant to my needs. Jeff has an amazing way of "talking" to you through his words and it feels like he has your back because he completely gets your struggles. This book opened my eyes to what is transportation and why is it so important. In understanding brain chemistry released at specific times for specific events in your manuscript, you have the ability to fine-tune each chapter. This book has already been abused, marked-up, sticky noted, and has found a forever home. Thanks Jeff!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Great resource for writers, especially those paralyzed by "rules" By Christopher or Bethany Jennings This is a fantastic resource, particularly for the writer who is stuck in the paralyzing stage of trying to obey all the "rules." There are three portions to the book, which are sort of unique from each other:PART ONE goes through various writing rules, chapter by chapter, and gives the "for" and "against" for each one, and a small manifesto for you to fill out at the end, proclaiming your stance (opinions which you are given permission to change however and whenever you want!). The first several chapters were very refreshing and satisfying, and it was wonderful to stake out where I stood on the "rules" and forget about the alternate view. As this portion went on, though, I found myself skimming a bit...a lot of the rules discussed were little things I didn't care about or had settled in my mind a long time ago. I felt like this section could have been covered in just a few chapters and then a big "you get the idea," but there are probably some writers who can really benefit from those chapters too.PART TWO is short, and talks about brain chemistry and why certain kinds of stories are likely to delight readers and create a connection with them. Again, I felt like it could have been summed up more quickly, but it wasn't too technical, which made it approachable and easy to understand.PART THREE is in my opinion the real meat of the book - having gone through the rules and encouraged you to toss the "rulebook," Gerke uses Part 3 to explore some very classic formulas, archetypes, and such that are found in classic, popular, and beloved fiction. Readers connect with these things, so if your book contains them it may be compelling as well. These are not rules, but rather helpful aides to making your reader fall in love with your book, if you use them. Personally I was quite excited to discover that my own work in progress contained most, if not all, of the monomyth (hero's journey) elements! That section was a thrill to read...very encouraging.In summary, there is a LOT of good information here - and it is not only actionable but exciting to learn. I felt it could be shorter in places, and once in awhile I was amused to see Gerke suggesting what appear to be rules, himself!...but I imagine he'd probably be the first to point out that they're only guidelines and free to be broken. ;) As he teaches in the book, the first and most important thing is to hook your reader from beginning to end. And "The Irresistible Novel" is a great resource to help you do that!
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