This guide is divided into five sections:
1) Planning for Success - This section includes deciding what type of novel to write, forming an idea, and creating your characters.
2) Your Complete Plotting Guide - Marshall offers a step by step guide on plotting out your novel: from beginning to end, from section to section. He goes as far as to tell you how many sections you'll need and what needs to happen in certain sections.
3) How to Write Fiction Like a Pro - Marshall touches upon the tools needed for writing: dialogue, conflict, viewpoint, background, thoughts, and much more.
4) Polishing Your Manuscript - Marshall gives a quick take on editing.
5) Marketing your Novel - From proposal to approaching editors to a sample Synopsis, Marshall closes with an idea of how to get your novel published.
This book successfully takes you through these steps and may very well help you to produce a novel.
The plot guide is rigid, and Marshall requires you to have certain character types to complete his plotting system. However, it is an interesting look at a plotting system that may be adapted to guide you in your plotting. The steps are worth reading and thinking on, possibly incorporating to create your own guide to your own plotting system.
I read a one-star review that suggested this book was only about the process. I give this book a four-star because it is about the process of writing/plotting. He touches briefly upon many areas. This is a guide worth reading.
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