Do you have an amazing idea for a novel but you struggle to get words on the page? Maybe the problem isn't writer's block. Maybe you need a writing process.

Publishing veterans and best-selling authors Zach Bohannon and J. Thorn share their proven system for developing a plan that will bridge the gap between a collection of random notes and a cohesive first draft.

This comprehensive book will teach you the foundations of fiction: Plot, Structure, Genre, Theme, Character, and World.

Discover:

Why you need a system to finish a first draft whether you plot or pants
What Aristotle said about storytelling thousands of years ago that still applies today
How studying Star Wars can make you a better writer
What some of the most prolific authors believe about the craft
How all stories can be reduced to three components
Which archetypes create a more engaging reader experience
How the Hero's Journey is alike and different than the Virgin's Promise
Why you should cast your characters like a movie producer

Developed over 10 years and applied on millions of words of fiction, Thorn and Bohannon will show you how to layer your approach and build a fantastic story from the ground up.

No more staring at a blinking cursor when you sit down to write!

Become a master storyteller today. Three Story Method will transform you from a struggling writer into a career author.

Downloadable worksheet and full list of resources included! Get it now!

Listening Length

3 hours and 13 minutes
Author

J. Thorn, see all
Narrator

J. Thorn
Audible release date

June 3, 2020
Language

English
Publisher

J. Thorn
ASIN

B089BTXCKB
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	3 hours and 13 minutes
Author	J. Thorn, Zach Bohannon
Narrator	J. Thorn
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	June 03, 2020
Publisher	J. Thorn
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B089BTXCKB
Best Sellers Rank	#137,376 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #307 in Writing & Publishing #592 in Words, Language & Grammar (Audible Books & Originals) #1,243 in Authorship Reference

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

273 global ratings

5 star		66%
4 star		16%
3 star		11%
2 star		4%
1 star		4%

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M. Forseth

So simple and effective!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 13, 2020

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Three Story Method is a deeply practical approach to crafting a functioning story. The method itself is concise. Honestly, I finished the text and thought to myself, “that’s it? I know that.” After all, I’ve heard J and Zach say a lot of this before. The principles are simple. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

I downloaded the worksheet. In a couple of hours, I worked through an idea I had in my head. It was quick to get through the first several steps. And I thought “this is simple.”

This is the fleshing out the idea stage. Does your story work on the grand scale? In a basic three-act structure kind of way. I found that I already felt better about the second act in this story. The method gave me more to work with there. Hopefully, smoothing over a pain point for me. If you listen to The Career Author podcast, you will be familiar with some steps in this early stage.

I was nearly finished with the worksheet and I thought, “hmmm, this is it.”

I got to the character stuff. Again, with some extra practical steps, which should save wasted time in the drafting and ensure that the characters serve the story even as they develop.

Then we get to the part that is simple and practical, but which gave me pause. Apply the same approach to each scene in the story. I knew this. I read it. I’ve heard it. Here’s the part where you actually do it. Here there are a few small boxes to apply the three-story method to your first scene with the instructions to copy and paste this template, so you have one for each scene.

Depending on your style, this could result in a very light functional document or a very dense outline.

I envision that in a couple more hours, I will complete those steps. While I haven’t written the story yet, I have confidence this method will give me a functioning first draft quickly. With just a little more awareness and a tiny bit more practical effort on the front end.

There is some other good stuff I didn’t mention, and the appendix has several interesting ideas to play with. If you want to get your first draft done, quickly, easily and enjoyably without fear of getting stuck or needing a major rewrite, give The Three Story Method a try.

24 people found this helpful

Helpful

JWalch

The one book that every aspiring novelist needs to read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 8, 2020

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There’s no one right way to approach writing a novel, just as there’s no one right book to guide you. There are many excellent books on the subject and everyone of them has something positive to offer the aspiring novelist, but Three Story Method is one of the best. I had heard a great deal about Three Story Method but didn’t feel the need to add it to my collection of books on writing until I entered one of J. Thorns online 5 day writing challenges. The five-day challenge was called “Supercharge Your Scenes” which was based on the Three Story Method. What I learned about the Three Story Method during that five-day challenge whetted my appetite for more of the three story method. I just had to read the complete book. This is a book that every writer needs to have in his/her library.

The book by itself is invaluable, but I urge everyone to purchase the Three Story Method Workbook along with the Three Story Method book. Having the workbook will make doing the exercises found in the book much easier, and you must work through the exercises to get the most value from the book. The workbook is inexpensive enough where you can purchase extra copies to use with your actual works in progress. I have six setting on top of my filing cabinet ready for use.

If you want to take your storytelling to the next level, then you must read The Three Story Method, not once, not twice, but many times, keeping it close at hand to refer back to as you write your masterpiece.

Helpful

Jon Svenson

Interesting new author resource

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 9, 2020

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I bought this after following the Career Author Podcast (RIP),as it was written by the same people.

I read through it, then I read through it again. Bear in mind that the actual book is ~60% of the total page count, with the rest taken up by an interview with the author of the Virgin's Promise and other author resources.

Here's what I like: taking a different approach than the overdone hero's journey. Although this is mentioned, the focus isn't on the work that Campbell and others have done. It felt fresh for that reason, and kept me reading.

Here's what I didn't like so much: the three story method is difficult to encapsulate in a few words, which is why I read the book more than once. Bear in mind that I didn't purchase the workbook, which I plan to do soon. This is only on the book. Hopefully I'll have a clearer picture of the three story method with the workbook.

5/5*

Helpful

Michele T Berger

Practical Advice to Get At Scene Structure

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 20, 2020

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This book contains a good overview of several very popular story methodologies and then drills down on the '3Cs'. I was less familiar with Kim Hudson’s 'The Virgin’s Promise' story structure so that was intriguing. The 3Cs in a scene (Conflict, Choice and Consequence) is what Thorn and Bohannon focus on in the book. It’s a short but practical book with several creative resources in the appendix (i.e interviews, using tarot and mind mapping to help storytelling, etc.). They offer a free worksheet to support plotting, but some people also like to order their workbook, too.
Since I tend to be a pantser/discovery writer, I have found that the 3C structure is helpful at the scene level to track of some basic elements of moving the story forward, so I don't veer off into talking heads or rambling scenes. I like front loading the process a bit more to save the rewriting time. If you have some trouble with plotting and have gotten feedback that nothing seems to happen in your scenes or many scenes fall flat, this book belongs on your shelf.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Emilija Stalaza

Very few positives to this one. Muddled, prescriptive, and rude sums it up.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 20, 2021

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The book starts with an extended preamble of moans and prepatory filler. It then regurgitates theories of many other story structures in a dry, academic manner (mainly with quotations). This wouldn’t bother me, but they don’t fully explain the borrowed theories, which makes them difficult to apply. They then proceed to merge these theories together into a mangled method which is not well explained or simple. Having read the book, I still struggle to picture what their method entails exactly from start to finish, including what it is in their convoluted plan that makes up each of the three segments. Does this refer to their three Cs? Or three stages of planning? Still not sure. The book had far too many tangents into other theories to focus on their “own” method, and there was no summary page or diagram to show the exact process they’d follow.

The author also repeatedly denigrates anyone who calls themselves a pantser or discovery writer, beginning the book with an extended rant about how they’re doing it wrong – what a way to offend many of your readers! Despite much later in the book mentioning discovery writers and planners are on a spectrum from one to the other, they repeatedly suggest discovery writers always start with a blank page, which is inaccurate. Many of us identify with the discovery label because that’s the end of the planner to pantser spectrum we naturally fall on. We often have an extremely loose plan, we just gain more energy and ideas from writing than planning. In line with that, with extensive planning, we often throw that out the window during the writing process as we get better ideas. In the end, a discovery writer finds much of their structure during the edit, and the planner finds much of it before writing. They both “waste” time, just at opposite ends of the process.

Some quotes to show how bad the tone gets:
“Pure pantsers concealing a hint of shame call it “discovery writing”.”
“If you want to write more than one book and make a living as a career author, you simply cannot pants your way there.”
“This is usually what I hear from less-experienced writers or from writers who have goals instead of dreams.”

As others have said, the best thing about the book is the appendix, because here you can find something to read that will be more useful.

2 people found this helpful

BudoJo

Possibly good, even great for some, but with limitations

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 17, 2020

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I don't want this to be a negative review. I enjoy their podcast and there is much that is useful in this book, particularly for those new to things like the Hero's Journey and three act theory. For me it was too derivative of other methods, but knowingly so. Their basic structuring outline is a neat idea, breaking down the long second act into smaller chucks. But this had a contradictory logic, as they go on to criticise four act methods, which seek to do the same thing. There is no mention of five act methods. John Yorke's IN TO THE WOOD is one such example and far superior in its depth of story understanding, in for example showing how everything from character to dialogue serves the wheel of story structure. For my money Save the Cat Writes a Novel and Into the Woods are much better guides. The appendix is also too long and too tangential. In sum, IMO this book could be great as someone's first intro to plotting the basics of story theory. Also the tone is lovely and very easy to read.

6 people found this helpful

Sacha Black

Must read for writers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 7, 2020

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J and Zach have knocked it out of the park with this nonfiction book for writers. They distil thousands of years of storytelling into a simple framework that will help you structure your stories for the rest of your writing career. Insightful, straightforward and with poignant examples, this is one of those books that should be in every writer’s library.

One person found this helpful

Gloria

Worth buying!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 27, 2020

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Very straightforward and easy to understand. I downloaded the worksheet, which I found it particularly helpful. I'll certainly use it for planning and structuring in the future. Some interesting book recommendations included. The appendix is quite long, and only a part of it interested me. But that's a very small complaint. As I'm sure many will find those parts very helpful. I would recommend this book to novice writers.

Editor1

Intriguing and relevant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 19, 2020

Verified Purchase

Very well-researched, highly recommended

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