K. M. Weiland Archives - Gary David Gillen

Storming by KM Weiland

Introduction

Storming by KM Weiland is a historical/dieselpunk mash-up novel set in Nebraska in the 1920s. Barnstorming pilot Robert “Hitch” Hitchcock runs into a mysterious girl, Jael. She drops from the clouds and falls onto his biplane. Jael looks and acts like she comes from another country and another place. Who is she and what does she want? Hitch’s life becomes complicated when sky pirates come looking for her and try to take over his hometown in Nebraska.

Summary

Storming by KM Weiland begins with Hitch returning to his hometown of Scottsbluff, Nebraska on a barnstorming tour. He left his hometown many years ago searching for adventure and escaping from secrets from his past. Hitch is in Scottsbluff practicing flying an old plane wanting to impress a big shot hoping to join his flying circus. On a practice run with his biplane, he sees a woman drop from the clouds onto his plane. She falls into the lake and he tries to find her.

Along the way Hitch runs into the colorful characters found in Scottsbluff; Sherriff Campbell, Hitch’s brother sheriff’s deputy Griff, a mute boy Walter, feuding brothers J.W. and Matthew Berringer, and the Carpenter family who are farmers. Jael is from Storming. She has something that the maniacal Zlo from Storming wants from her. He comes looking for her and the citizens of Scottsbluff are in his way. Zlo will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Hitch must reevaluate his life and make a choice; help Jael with an impossible task or run away from everyone along with a fortune.

Recommendation

I read Storming by KM Weiland from February 15, 2017, to April 3, 2017. There were three books I read in 2017 for which I did not write a book review at that time. This is the first of the three retro posts that I will write. Storming was a fun and quick book to read. I enjoyed checking my notes on the book to prepare this review. I liked all the characters and the setting was interesting. By reading the complete outline transcript (as I detail in the links below), I understood how she developed the ideas to end up with this story. It would have been a different book if she had used Jael as the protagonist and set more of the story on Storming. I agree with her reasons for her choices and I’m happy with the book as written though.

Links

This is the link to the Goodreads page of Storming by KM Weiland

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28099189-storming

I also read a book by KM Weiland which was about writing named Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys to Writing an Outstanding Story.

This is a link to my review of her book.

Structuring Your Novel by K. M. Weiland

In the outline, she writes her idea brainstorms, orders her ideas into scenes, and then writes summaries for each of the 50 scenes for the book. As a writer, what was most helpful to me was examining the complete outline transcript from her novel Storming which is available on her website.

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/

The transcript uses the ideas from her book, Outlining Your Novel, and from her other books on writing. Another resource that is available on her website is a free template for the writing program Scrivener. The Scrivener program is available for 30 days free on their website.

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview

Using the ideas of KM Weiland should help any author to improve their writing.

Introduction

K. M. Weiland believes that structure is the most important component of storytelling. Structure is required in all of art, does not limit creativity, is not formulaic, offers a checklist of the must-have elements of a story, and solidifies the mastery of the craft. She details how story structure, scene structure, and sentence structure defines the writer’s work.

Summary

There are two camps in the theory of writing. One is called the plotters, who create outlines and view storytelling as a construction. The other group is the pantsers, who write from the seat of their pants and see where the story leads them. Perhaps the best description of this theory is by George R. R. Martin who says, “I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they’re going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there’s going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up.

The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have, they find out as it grows. And I’m much more a gardener than an architect.”

K. M. Weiland shows in this book how to become a plotter/architect. Her thought is that if the writer has a solid structure built before writing then the writing will go smoother and there will be less false starts and extensive rewriting in the second draft.

Recommendation

I believe in much of the advice in Structuring Your Novel by K.M. Weiland and have used it in the novel that I am writing. What was most helpful was examining the complete outline transcript from her novel Storming which is available on her website.

The transcript uses the ideas from this book and from her other books on writing. Another resource that is available on her website is a template for the writing program Scrivener. The program is available for 30 days free on their website.

Using the ideas of K. M. Weiland should help any author to improve their writing.