The Book Blueprint: How a Story is Structured and Why it Works

Readers and Writers!

We’re launching a bimonthly, online book group, starting in June, in which we will discuss how a book is structured and why it works. We will meet for an hour, every two months, via Zoom. The class will run for three sessions. The cost is $150($50/session).

Our first meeting will be Thursday, June 13 and we will discuss Nathan Hill’s Wellness.  We will meet via Zoom from 6-7 p.m. We’ll send you a Zoom invite as we get closer.

Our second date will be Thursday, August 1 and we will discuss Leslie Jamison’s memoir Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story.

Our third date will be Thursday, October 3 and a book TBD.

In this book discussion, in addition to discussing structure, we will ask the following questions :

• How well-written was the book? More specifically, was the story so absorbing that as the reader, we forgot where we were when we were reading it and stopped doing everything else so we could finish it?

• Did the characters feel “real?” Did we feel that we understood them intimately? Could we imagine what it was like to live these characters’ lives, navigate the challenges they faced, even if in our own lives, we would have done the opposite?

• Could we see what the characters saw, smelled and tasted? If they were having sex or eating something delicious, did we feel that we were doing it with them?

• Did we feel moved by the events in the book?

• Did the book offer a turn/pivot/surprise?

• Did the book educate us in some way?

• Did the ending blow us away?