Story Structure... Demystified, by Larry Brooks

I stumbled upon the blog at storyfix.com because of a post critical of Stephen King that popped up from a Google search.  A few hours later, after reading quite a few posts, I downloaded a sample of his book, Story Structure...Demystified, onto my Kindle.  Later that night I bought the book.  How's that for internet marketing?

Ever since I've thought about seriously trying my hand at writing, I've been looking for principles of good writing, especially in creating suspense with a good plot.  Well, I think I've found it with this book.

Brooks doesn't claim to have discovered these principles.  He's merely adapted them from screen-writing principles so they apply to novels.  What I liked most about his presentation is that he not only tells us the principles, but why they work.  He also gives many examples, including a detailed analysis of The DaVinci Code, which I found very useful.  I won't go into the principles here because his blog has a good overview.