Reverse Engineering Books

REVERSE ENGINEERING BOOKS AS A SELF-LEARNING METHOD:

The one area on YouTube that I never found any ‘work flow’ videos on was the method of reverse engineering story in order to learn the craft. I reread two or three of my favorite novels and reversed engineered them myself. I wanted to see what this method would teach me in terms of how these favorite stories fell into these novel format templates I was finding.

I had trouble, and still have trouble understanding what a first plot point is compared to a second plot point, or the mid-story point. If your story is about someone setting off on an actual journey or adventure, I think it is easy to fit this plot line onto these templates, but if you story is a slice of life backdrop with a mystery and romance, it was harder for me to see how this all fit into these templates.

This dilemma is what led me to reverse engineer a few of my favorite books.

WHY WOULD YOU REVERSE ENGINEER A STORY?

My purpose in reverse engineering the stories was to find out how these stories fit into these template structures. I wanted more clarity in identifying various plot points and pinch points and how that was different from the mid-point. That was my only purpose when I took on this task.

HOW DID YOU DO THE REVERSE ENGINEERING?

I re-read the book, and during and after each chapter, I wrote down what happened and where I thought this fit in the template. I also tried to identify the conflicts and obstacles, and anything else I thought was relevant to the story.

Having done this a few times now, I believe it is easier to do the reverse engineering with a book you have already read so you can read for structural understanding instead of trying to understand the story. It is also easier if you choose a book you enjoyed. You will enjoy it even more as you begin to see how the author structured the books and laid out the clues, etc.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM REVERSE ENGINEERING A BOOK?

What I learned from the process was different from what I thought I would learn. First of all, I found the stories I liked didn’t really fit into these “journey format templates” either. I could identify the resistance to the call to action, the call to action itself, and the setbacks. I still couldn’t tell you which was was a plot point or a pinch point, even to this day and I’ve been at it now for three years, which is not that long, but I want to be honest. The clarity I got from this process was not what I had set out for.

What I did end up learning was that I picked up so much more from the story than I did the first time I read the story. The act of recording a summary after each chapter added a layer of understanding that allowed me to enjoy the books even more.

I also learned that “conflict” didn’t have to be a huge hostility between characters, it could be a sore spot, or a difference of opinion, conflict can be of the subtle kind. This freed me to understand that small deep inner conflicts were enough to write into the story. This was important because I don’t enjoy stories with these abrasive and brash personalities at play. I don’t like these people in real life and I don’t like them any more in print. So that was a big eye opener.

The other thing I learned was that as a newbie, I had to operate on the premise that I was only able to identify the inciting incident, call to action, refusal of the call to action, the circumstances that changed the call to action from a choice to almost a moral obligation. This would have to do until I got more experience under my belt.

But I noticed in my reverse engineering that in the long mid-act of the book, it is important to never led the book lag. So in lieu of operating with the pinch points and plot points, I focused on making each chapter have a purpose, drop some clues, and have some level of character development going on. This way, I figured the story was always moving and going forward. Only time will tell if this is enough.

WHAT IS THE REVERSE ENGINEERING OF A BOOK PROCESS?

For those of you who want a real how-to, I opened the books from Amazon.com on my computer and I had a notepad document opened and I put the summary for each chapter under the Chapter heading, so that after it was done, I could see this outline on the one document. Then I printed it and tried to figure out the plot points, pinch points, etc. Again, like I said earlier, the plot points and pinch points still evade me, but I was able to learn how the author laid out the clues and kept the story moving. I may have a blind spot regarding this plot point vs. pinch point because I am new to this, or it hasn't sunk in yet. If you have any tricks or tips you want to share about recognizing these in writing, please let me know and I can feature you in a blog post coming up!

FOR THE CURIOUS:

The books I reverse engineered were The Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille and An Inconvenient Woman by Dominick Dunne I would recommend both of these writers and both of these books! They are linked with my associate links to the left or above.

KNOW WHERE YOU ARE STARTING FROM:

I am a new writer myself and by no means do I hold myself out to be any type of an expert. But I am still very close to the "very beginner status" and still understand some of the obstacles only a brand new writer is faced with.

The experts can't remember having "two left hands" anymore, but I sure can. My purpose is to blog as I move through the learning process, so I can share my experience and research and save other newbies research time as there is so much to learn!

Some new authors will already have studied writing or may be young enough to decide to study writing in a college or a formal learning environment. Hopefully, the institute or teacher you have will have circularized the information you need to know and you will be taking it all in in some organized way.

Others may be writing as a hobby or a second career, or like myself, preparing for a busy retirement. Either way, it’s important to know where you are beginning and what you even know about writing. Having gone to parochial schools, I had English classes until I was just about drown in them. So that is one of my strong points. However, I never took a creative writing lesson in my life and so writing a novel, specifically, I had no clue when I started out.

I worked as a court reporter and legal assistant for many years and although I am not a lawyer, I sat in more trials than many real lawyers, know what the court office of a Judge looks and feels like, what a busy lawyers office looks and feels like, and many more “mini-careers” like this. So I bring a broad spectrum of experience and a bit of legal understanding to my writing. I consider that a strong point too.

KNOW WHAT TYPE OF BOOKS YOU WANT TO WRITE:

I have always loved shows that use the church or the Vatican or some other religious theme as a background. Unfortunately, hollywood and the publishing world in general are very disrespectful to religious symbols and this always took away from the enjoyment of the stories. I knew I wanted to use a church backdrop of some kind, but leave out all the blasphemy and spittle.

I also knew that I loved to read mystery, suspense and they usually have at least a splash of romance in them. So this too would be where I would concentrate.

KNOW WHERE YOU WANT TO GO:

So the first task was to figure out how to go from wanting to write a mystery romance with a church/Christian backdrop to actually writing a novel of this kind. My legal skills or grammar skills were not going to get me there, so what is a person to do? I went to YouTube an began watching videos, and there are thousands of them, written by successful authors as well as young college-educated editors. I got a mix of people sharing about creative writing, story beats, plots points, etc., to successful authors who, like me, started with one book and self-published their books on their own.

KNOW WHAT SKILLS YOU HAVE AND WHAT SKILLS YOU NEED:

I needed to learn what a mystery romance novel needed, story structure, how to break up the story, how to pace the story, plot points, story beats, pretty much everything. So for about a year and a half, I dedicated myself to simply learning about writing to see if it was something I could do, as I did learn very early on that one simple phrase of “I want to write a book” encompasses so many skills that must be acquired or paid for, that it can be an overwhelming process.

My first area of focus was structuring a story. How to organize the story seemed to be the first over-whelming obstacle for me so I began reading books on structuring a story.

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks was my favorite as he was, I believe, an engineer by trade before becoming an author and he has a very organized mind and he laid out planning a novel with an overview that I found most helpful as a newbie. I have an associates link below to the book.

I would recommend this book because I needed an overview of the process, like a birds-eye view, in order to even have the files to hold the information I was taking in watching various YouTube videos. You can learn anything on YouTube, but you need to learn to circularize your own course. You need to figure out how to take in the information so it all makes sense.

Category: Reverse Engineering Books