Customer Reviews

A Story is a Promise: Good Things to Know Before Writing a Novel, Screenplay or Play

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This is the best "how to" book I have read on writing screenplays, novels, and plays. The advice comes alive through extensive analysis of well-known stories, using a disciplined outline of story elements. The application of these points is greatly aided by questions directed at helping you write your story. Although intended for fiction writers, this book is equally applicable to nonfiction writers and can add great balance to critical reviews of literary works.

If you are like me, you learned to write by doing small exercises . . . such as short stories, scenes, and descriptions. That's all fine, and it does improve one's writing, but somehow something is left out when you sit down to the first blank sheet of paper and begin writing a longer work. It is for just that moment that this book is wonderful.

The purpose of the book is to help you create the kind of gripping stories that vividly fulfill peoples' unmet needs. The method is to give you a way to create a structure (and fill that structure) that serves that purpose. This structure features creating a promise to your readers in the first scene, creating a story (separate from the plot) that fulfills the promise, a story line to flesh out the story, a plot to support the story, a plot line to flesh out the plot, developing conflict, and employing thrusts and counterthrusts to create and sustain dramatic tension. Using this structure, you ruthlessly weed out what is extraneous, even if it is terrific writing.

You are probably nodding your head agreeably at this point. But what you haven't seen yet is Mr. Johnson's wonderful analysis of Romeo and Juliet, The Hunt for Red October, Rocky, The Usual Suspects, Moby Dick, Die Hard, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Reservoir Dogs, The Exorcist, Pride and Prejudice, and other powerful stories to examplify these points. These examples are incredibly effective in bringing the structure to life. They also make it clearer what critics and book reviewers should be on the look-out for in reading fiction.

Section one of the book develops the key theme, a story is a promise. Section two works on helping you design the elements of your story. Section three looks at the distinctions between story line and plot line, and introduces a structured analysis to help you. Section four focuses on that dreaded moment of getting started with the writing. Section five contains detailed reviews of several popular stories to help ingrain the lessons outlined here.

One of my favorite sections deals with the mistakes most often made by new fiction writers and how to overcome them. This section is worth the price of the book alone!

Each chapter also has extensive questions and assignments, which can turn this into a workshop-like experience. The author also suggests ways for you to take your answers and assignments and get feedback on them. If you live by yourself in an isolated area with no telephone, he even gives you ideas for trying to help yourself to improve the writing as your own alter-ego.

Highly recommended for aspiring writers!

After you have finished thinking through this wonderful book, I suggest you move on to one question that Mr. Johnson did not raise. What should be the need that your story fulfills? Most stories today deal with wounds, like not having enough love, feeling low self-esteem, or being helpless. How can you pick needs that will make people stronger and start a chain-reaction of good results? For example, rather than showing people how love can conquer death (the Romeo and Juliet theme), how about showing people how giving love will help them acquire love? I suspect that we can create a much more wonderful society if we pay a bit more attention to the promises we make in our stories. We need to balance building capability with healing wounds if we are to reach our full potential as people.

Write a great story!

Recently I wrote a short story for a friend and it amused her to no end, yet she said the ending was somewhat surprising to her. I wondered if I had in fact left something out of the story, which would have otherwise prepared her for such a harsh ending.

I had never written a story before, let alone developed a plot. I had also never thought about how emotionally fulfilling a story would need to be, so I was a great candidate for reading this excellent guide. I simply sat down and wrote the story one night on a whim. I saw the story playing in my head and simply wrote down what I saw. It was fascinating since I had never experienced anything like that before. I mostly write recipes and this was new territory for me.

Since I review popular novels and movies, I have noticed a deeper truth running through them. After watching "The Big Country" I noticed a theme of "pride" running through the entire movie. Everything in the movie revolved around the fight between two very selfish men. Most books which also capture my attention have a definite theme running through them.

Since I read "A Story is a Promise," I realized how true it really is. When reading "Kitchen" by Banana Yoshimoto, I felt cheated by the ending. Something was missing......"Had I really spent that much time reading, only to feel a sense of anger at the ending?" While I was addicted to reading the entire book, nothing prepared me for the ending, which seemed to drift off into nothing. Had the promise been broken?

That is the problem with many stories written without an underlying purpose. Bill Johnson explores this in depth. This is the best book I have read on understanding the most difficult of all arts: writing! To create a dramatic engaging story takes and understanding of the underlying principles. Authors of the most popular works have tapped into this deeper understanding. They have fulfilled the promise to the reader.

Bill Johnson knows why human's need stories. That is something many of us have most likely never really considered. Why do we love a great story? Is there something within us that wants to escape? Or do stories help us survive when we can't think of any other way to explain our lives? Do the stories we tell ourselves give us a sense of belonging?

"Take away a person's sense of place in the world, and you'll have an unhappy person." -Bill Johnson

This book is a highly intellectual look at how to fulfill the promise to your readers. It is written in a more conversational style. Bill took his nagging feeling that there was more to a story than just the plot and turned his quest for answers into a book which can help you write that next novel or screenplay.

You will discover how a story function like a promise, learn to develop dynamic characters and be more aware of the role of ideas in a story line. The role of conflict in storytelling, writing that first dramatic sentence and developing a plot are all discussed. By reading this book you will in fact be taking a fascinating journey to the heart of storytelling. This book will fulfill the promise of making you a better writer! :)

~The Rebecca Review

Mr. Johnson spends the beginning of the book trying to explain what he means by a "story promise." He admits himself that his students often have a difficult time grasping it, and it doesn't help that his use of terminology seems somewhat fluid. Eventually I figured out that what he refers to as a "story promise" is something most writers would call a theme. To be fair, it's possible that Mr. Johnson would say "no, that isn't it at all." But even if that wasn't what he meant, he could have cut and clarified his clunky 45-page explanation drastically by comparing and contrasting the two ideas rather than starting from scratch.

In addition to those 45 convoluted pages, Mr. Johnson has a wordy and often redundant style. However, there's also a lot of good stuff in this book. If you're having trouble making your stories dramatic and attention-grabbing, this book could seriously help you. Johnson's explanation of why the"story promise" is so important to drama makes a lot of sense to me. He believes that "issues of human need" are what pull an audience in and cause readers to invest emotion in a story. He goes into plenty of detail on the how as well as the why.

He uses examples from well-known movies and books; these help to prevent you from using his suggestions to accidentally create formulaic stories. I'm not saying that his system creates formulaic novels. However, there is a type of formula that could serve as an example of what he's trying to teach, and you could easily fall into it out of sheer familiarity without even realizing it. The examples help to prevent this because he likes non-formulaic examples. However, the book could really use a section about this trap, how to notice if you're falling into it, and how to avoid it.

This book teaches a valuable enough way of thinking about writing that I feel vaguely guilty pointing out its flaws. But the truth is that while Mr. Johnson's methods are fabulous, his expository writing can be convoluted and confusing. With some changes in the writing and some extra material on formulaic writing this could easily be a five-star book, but for me it's currently a three-star book. It's well worth your time and energy, but it may cause frustrations along the way.

Alas, I have studied many of the popular books on the craft of writing. Bill Johnson's stands at the very top of my recommended list.

Why? Well, most books teach specific techniques and/or discuss structured approaches to storytelling. This is fine, but they somehow skirt the issue of what really separates the good stories from the bad. Bill gets to the bottom of this most critical issue (it is curious that so many of the other books have overlooked the essence of these most important points). I found that the principles Bill outlines are a great complement to the "hero's journey" approach taught in many popular books on the craft.

Bill's book is NOT about teaching specific techniques as much as it is about understanding the essence of what will make your story compelling. As Bill will teach you, there are some specific things you need to do . . . and if you don't . . . well, you will struggle more than you need to. If you are serious about writing, don't go without studying this wonderful book.

I'm not feeling it! Rather than take the book back to the bookstore and request a refund, I decided to write this review.
A story is a promise is an idea that I buy, and probably still do, but the book itself was written in a style so dull and boring that I couldn't focus on it, or finish it. The book's promise to me was broken. It doesn't deliver.

For instance, the "naming" concept is about as clear as mud. Do we name a story's promise, or merely suggest a dramatic purpose to make it less obvious?

And being reminded--in every chapter--that bumbling, "struggling story tellers damage their stories" is offensive. Even if it's true, we don't need to be hammered over the head again, and again, we can see it.

I gave the book three stars, because writing clearly is not easy. Just because I'm confused doesn't mean someone else won't benefit from reading this.

If we want to write fiction, we need to produce characters, and dialogue and scenes, and several other things. One of those is a story. Some folks regard the story as the unchallenged number one priority of film writing. If you have trouble managing the story, or showing how it impacts the characters and plot, then this is the perfect book to learn technique for that problem. Johnson explains in a straightforward manner the concepts of story promise, plot, story premise and other factors that might seem simple at first thought. He shows how to integrate all of the factors to make them produce a great story-driven script. This book is very easy to read. thought provoking, educational and valuable for writers at all levels.

Someone finally has found a clear, concise, and - this is the best part - captivating way to make us understand more than the anatomy of storytelling. Where many books teach dry theories and abstract notions of structure, Bill J. in his easy-to-follow, accessible fashion, looks beyond structure and makes sense of the tools and inner goals that "serve" the storyteller... This is not a theory of stories. This is a new perspective and understanding of their heart-and-soul.

Through the use of examples and his step-by-step approach, Bill J. opens our eyes on the "art" of storytelling, making us understand how it is at once a weave of creativity, purpose and craft. Yet he does it simply... Like a conversation about and between friends.

Clearly, but easily, he guides us to the underlying workings of how and why we find some stories strong, and others weak. When we wonder "Why do we find some books - plays and films - so satisfying and fulfulling, and others not?" Bill J. promises to explain... and he delivers!

Teachers will find in this book a concrete, progressive manner of explaining and studying stories as well as the writing process and craft that stands behind it. High-school and college students for their part will be thrilled to discover a kinder, simpler approach to their reading and writing assignments. And writers... Well, writers and would-be writers alike will surely breathe a sigh of relief when they find how this new understanding leads to paths around the dreaded "writer's block". Need I say more?

Only this: I wish I had come across such a book and Mr. Johnson's teachings a long time ago. Thank you, Bill, for your wonderful help.

This was my first introduction to how I could take my idea and turn it into a screenplay--I was psychically comfortable for the entire trip, which meant that I remembered a lot of what I'd read and used it again and again. Bill Johnson (no relation) tells you what you already know about stories you've enjoyed all your life. Then he applies these ideas to the other end of the process:
actually creating a story, fulfilling a promise you make to your audience. I'm about to start my fourth screenplay; Bill's book was instrumental in getting me going with gladness and enjoyment.

This book is not just another writing book that reviews the basics. This book really gets into the soul of a story. It is not a book that you will read in a sitting, but rather, one that you will go back to for inspiration again and again. Rather than rehashing the same old stuff: plot, character, setting, theme, etc. this book really explores the relationship between writer and reader in a way that is unique and throught provoking. This is an excellent gift for someone who writes.

Bill is an excellent instructor and this book is a testimony of his many years of quality teaching and writing. If you want to fly through this book, you won't. It's not a quick read. It's laid out like a college textbook,(which isn't bad.) This is a guide for the person who wants to learn the nuts and bolts of writing screenplays and fiction, and is well-worth the read. After finishing this book, and applying it's advice to my own writing, my second screenplay was immediately accepted by a Hollywood agent as was my first novel. The book guided me through the development and essential basics of the craft and elevated my work to a professional level. Overall, the book is well thought-out, consistent, and filled with the wisdom of over thirty years of Mr. Johnson's writing. I have many books on my writing bookshelf, and this is one that stands out. Don't miss an opportunity to explore a unique concept in the history of fiction writing.

Doc Macomber, Author of the Jack Vu series...