Layer Your Novel: The Innovative Method for Plotting Your Scenes (The Writer's Toolbox Series)

Layer your novel to success with this innovative, simple technique!

Writing a terrific novel is a complex endeavor. And while there are hundreds of books, podcasts, and blog posts that teach aspiring authors how to structure scenes and plot out a solid story, none implement the most intuitive and effective method for success.

What is that method?

Layering.

Novels are made up of dozens of scenes, and regardless of genre, time-tested structure dictates what key scenes are needed and where. Most writers are familiar with some of those scenes: the Inciting Incident, the Midpoint, and the Climax, to name a few.

But novelists need more than a few landmarks to find their way across the tricky terrain of novel plotting.

They need a surefire method to organizing all their scenes.

In Layer Your Novel, you’ll be introduced to an innovative, intuitive method for arranging your scenes and crafting a beautifully structured story.

First, you construct the ten most important scenes as a foundation.

From there, you choose from one of three methods to craft a second layer of scenes: the action-reaction layer, the subplot layer, or the romance layer.

Once your second layer is integrated, next comes the third layer: the processing scenes that the glue your plot together.

In Layer Your Novel, you’ll learn:

• What the 5 major turning points are and where they’re placed in your novel
• How to know exactly where to start your story and how to set up your premise
• What the ten key scenes are that serve as the framework for your novel
• What pinch points are and why you need them
• How to craft those essential twists and where they’re placed in your story for greatest impact
• Why your protagonist’s goal is the key to great storytelling
• How to come up with a meaningful subplot that will showcase your story’s themes
• How a romance novel is structured and how to plot out the romance story line
• How to analyze best sellers in your genre to identify and learn from the layers evident in their plots
• How to apply this layering method to novellas

Special bonus analyses!

In Layer Your Novel, you’ll dig into deconstructions of best-selling novels across genres to see how successful authors have their key scenes in all the right places, which gives credence to this practical layering method. In contrast, examples of best sellers are dissected to show the structural flaws due to the lack of the needed foundational framework that this layering method advocates.

Don’t guess what scenes you need in your novel. Don’t guess where your scenes go. Guessing usually leads to novel failure.

With the method you’ll learn in Layer Your Novel, you’ll guess no more.

You can write terrific novels, every time, if you layer your novel following this blueprint!

"Layer Your Novel: The Innovative Method for Plotting Your Scenes mocks pantsers, of whom I am chief. (Well, OK, it teases us, and Stephen King is the chief, but I am a devotee).

And yet I loved this book. There is so much here, yes, even for us pantsers—because in every novel manuscript there comes that point where we wish we were plotters. And as much as C. S. Lakin eschews winging it, her layering method actually allows for enough creativity and innovation that we get the best of both worlds.

If the idea of outlining repulses you, admit there are times when you wish you’d done it, and give Layer Your Novel a peek. It’ll make you a better storyteller.

—Jerry B. Jenkins, international best-selling author of The Left Behind series