Saturday, August 11, 2012

The Seven Moments In Storytelling That Really Matter (Christian Blake)

The Seven Moments In Storytelling That Really Matter
Christian Blake
Amazon Digital Services
Nonfiction, Writing
**+ (Bad/Okay)


DESCRIPTION: What makes a person sit in a theater for ninety minutes, or sit with a book for nine hours? Why are some tales universally embraced while others are instantly forgotten? After lengthy analysis of popular movies, author Christian Blake discovered seven recurring elements in every successful story.
A Kindle-exclusive title.

REVIEW: I give Blake credit for attempting a different approach. Rather than focusing on the three-act structure or other staples of writing books, he instead offers seven elements that occur in well-crafted stories on screen or page. Unfortunately, I found these points too vague to guarantee interest; each one can be just as easily abused as properly used, and they still don't answer the age-old questions of how to construct a good story arc. To illustrate his "moments," Blake includes a short story of his own crafting - a story so cliche and unresolved that it distracts rather than elucidates. It might've been more interesting had he pointed out his seven moments in existing popular works; many classics are in public domain, so rights shouldn't have been an issue.
On the plus side, Blake offers a different way to view plotting and story structure. On the minus side, he fails to demonstrate his "seven moments" effectively. His approach might help some struggling writers, but, sadly, not this one.

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2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the review!

    I didn't realize it was ambiguous. To me, the seven moments are crystal clear and quite obvious, particularly when watching a movie. They are just as prevalent and tightly linked when reading captivating stories.

    Based on your review, I re-worked it for clarity and I've included another version of the short story that contains completely irrelevant, absurd information just to make it more clear how to pinpoint what belongs in a story and what doesn't. The new version should be online by Friday the 17th.

    And regarding sample pieces of writing from successful authors...that's already in the works!

    Thanks again for taking the time to read the book.

    fyi: leaving a comment wasn't easy!

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  2. Thanks for the comment! Adding "real-world" examples of your seven moments would definitely help, showing them at work in the field, as it were.

    As for the difficulty of posting comments, I just don't like spammers; unfortunately, Blogger's filters can be a little odd. (I also don't get many people commenting on these things; it's mostly a hobby.)

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