I am of two minds about this book. First it is a sound scaffold for authors struggling to structure their plot. It's a comprehensive and actionable system for composing a traditional novel, with good guidelines for understanding how characters work and how the rest of the work emanates from them. However it is not, as the author constantly claims, the secret code that underlies all writing. There is very little in here that is as universal as the text suggests. Rather the author is making a value judgment then applying that backwards as a lens to interpret other works. You can absolutely write books, even good books, that do not fit this system. The author even knows some of them because she cites them as examples (Robinson Crusoe, a book whose motions absolutely do not fit the mould she claims it does, comes first to mind). But whether or not a story is good does not determine if it is, in fact, a story. This creates a hard limit on what the system presented can create. This system can't write The Three Musketeers, or the Bible, or your favourite graphic novel, or most cozy fantasy I've read. If a writer accepts this book as gospel, they will one day find this system limiting as it does not permit the chance of stories outside its own boundaries. This book is useful because it systematises composition in the anglophone tradition of the three act structure (this one is actually four, but I think we're all agreeing to pretend) but it will not tell you the secret of all stories forever. Joseph Campbell couldn't do it and neither can Brody. What Brody can do is teach you a foundation to make your stories stronger and I wish that was enough for her.

A simple and actionable system for writing conventional novels with consistent quality. A little over reliant on the philosophy of Joseph Campbell whose work is...limited and perhaps oversold, which in turns limits the applicability of Hawker's technique, but she states herself that this system cannot be everything to everyone. Several examples are used to good effect for demonstrating specific concepts, but could benefit from a more comprehensive bird's-eye view of specific works to show the entire system at work. It's greatest strength is demonstrating the way fundamentals of craft can actually be used in the drafting process to build a story.