Damn Fine Story

Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative

By: Chuck Wendig

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's Summary

Hook your audience with unforgettable storytelling!

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho'okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making listeners care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It's making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Using a mix of personal stories, pop fiction examples, and traditional storytelling terms, New York Times best-selling author Chuck Wendig will help you internalize the feel of powerful storytelling. In Damn Fine Story, you'll explore: Fretytag's Pyramid for visualizing story structure - and when to break away from traditional storytelling forms; character relationships and interactions as the basis of every strong plot - no matter the form or genre; rising and falling tension that pulls the audience through to the climax and conclusion of the story; and developing themes as a way to craft characters with depth.

Whether you're writing a novel, screenplay, video game, comic, or even if you just like to tell stories to your friends and family over dinner, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling - and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

©2017 Chuck Wendig (P)2018 Tantor

This writer's approach might work for some, but. .

Got past the first chapter, Hoped for something where the information would be more efficiently delivered and more suitable to what I wanted to hear, but the style of presenting the information doesn't work for me. I am not saying the information is not useful - if you have the patience - but just that it is much more accessible from other sources. Just not practical enough for me.

But for some, this may be what you need. Writer seem a bit self absorbed. and more concerned with the way he provides the information than with presenting it efficiently.

Outstanding work!

Answered a lot of questions I had and reinforced lessons I needed. A huge help in my writing.

Valuable info but hard to make it through

The information and advice in this is extremely useful and insightful. The problem, though, is the execution. There is way too much interjection of personal comments that try to come off as humorous or clever but fall flat, are at times borderline offensive and make this book almost too irritating and obnoxious to listen to. The comments remind me of a gamer nerd that would offer poorly timed and unfunny interruptions into an otherwise useful debate or discussion in college. Humor can be a great way to break up a lot of information, but these interruptions are neither funny nor benefit the book. It would have been a lot more digestible if the author had just stuck to the heart of the book itself, which again, is very insightful and useful.

A unique way to look at story writing

Definitely a must-buy. The author brought a fresh approach to take in consideration for future projects.

Good Advice and Entertaining

This book is a great piece of advice on story writing, characters, and narratives. it is framed with many of Chuck's own stories and references to pop culture as examples. if you are a writer, or any kind of a story teller, for that matter, take a break and give this a listen.

Wendig is worth listening

Chuck Wendig has an fun unprententious pulpy sensibility and an ever present sly and occassionally (and unapologetically) adolescent sense of humor. He's an inventive witty writer, I used to think was under thw mainstream radar a but I think the world has started to catch on to how special wendig actually is. This is a penetrating direct opionated discussion of the nuts and bolts of writing that aims to keep readers engaged. I have no idea what wendigs real voice is like but Patrick Lawlor is <perfect> for him... he captures wendig's wise-alecky articulate smart sarcastic and playful voice in a way thats hard to imagine improved.

Entertaining narration but doesn’t deliver on the title’s promise

A ball of confusion, however well intentioned. No chapter titles. No summaries. No pdf study guide. You’ll remember the author’s son and dad as memorable, funny, interesting characters. But you’ll keep asking yourself: When is he gonna get to the good stuff on mastering storytelling? Seems self-indulgent on the writer’s behalf vs. being of value to the reader/book-buyer. The good stuff might eventually surface further in, who knows. I stopped reading at Chapter 7 on the audio control, which is out of sync with the announced Chapter at the start of each section. Sometimes wished the narration would take a different tone vs. trying to be always funny. Disappointing.

Fantastic look into narrative structure

I've got this book as an audio and as a book, and I've given it to a number of other people. Chuck Wendig understands how to tell a damn fine story, and he explains it with lots of examples from popular culture and movies. This book makes me appreciate what I'm reading and watching, and it helps me to write better. Besides, it's funny as all heck, unless you mind a little off color language. Personally, I'd hate this to be sanitized to PG level, but keep that in mind if that sort of thing bugs you. The narrator is perfect for this. I've listened to it multiple times, and will certainly listen many more.

humorous conversational storytelling advice

Very down to earth, conversational advice on how to tell a good story and keep it interesting and active. Chuck gives us lots of pop-culture examples of the points he talks about, and speaks with humor and humility. Enjoyable - more like a pep talk with a fellow writer friend to a budding writer than a"serious" fiction-writing book. Patrick lawlor's narration was a little flat and stilted but is serviceable.

Good views and entertaining

In general good. A less structured way of discussing story telling.
A bit dismissive of other systems then sometimes says they same thing in different words as the dismissed book or system.
I had an ex who had to knock down others to feel good. Not a great educational model.
But when in HIS groove valuable insights