Brooks makes the point many times that the problem for many writers is that they didn't know what they didn't know. True in my case, and there is a great deal of knowledge in here about the craft of story that will balance that equation more in favour of knowing than ignorance. It's a little heavy going at times, especially when he delves into quartiles and percentages etc., and in term of non-genre fiction, some of it is open to a certain amount of licence, as he admits himself. However the essence of it is sound in terms of what makes stories work and what makes them fail.

Brooks' explanation of story criteria was (and still is) very useful in my own writing! The only criticism I have is that about half of the book is Brooks explaining why criteria is necessary in multiple different ways. Writers who already know about story criteria do not need to be told for multiple chapters that it is important for writing a good story.

Larry Brooks is my go-to writing craft guru. He gets it, and I "think" I get his ideas after reading all four of his craft books (and referring to them when I need help with an outline, plot structure, and all the other critical components of a successful story.

His concepts aren't easy to understand. The book is dense--lots of material to digest. But the wisdom is there. And if it were easy to do, there would be a far greater number of outstanding books being written and published.

My greatest compliment to Larry is to say that my books are so much better because of what I've learned from his writing. I don't claim to have mastered story structure, or that my books are the equal of any bestseller in recent years, but I know they're works I'm proud to have written and that tell an entertaining story because I constructed them correctly.

If you're a novelist struggling to find an agent or just trying to write a book that people will want to read, and you know something's missing in your plot or character arcs or scene choices, this book will open your eyes to what you might be missing. However, I'd recommend his other writing books first because this book builds on what he teaches you in the first three.

I've read and done a deep-dive into Story Engineering, and kinda found this was more of the same. If you haven't read any of his other craft books, it's probably revolutionary, but I was already converted and didn't need the pages of defense of his methods. He was preaching to the choir.