The Origin of the Blueprint Method

And a Blueprint Challenge -- because book coaches write books, too!

This is a cross-post from the #amwriting podcast, where I am a co-host. I’m talking about my Blueprint for a Book method and the #amwriting Winter Blueprint Challenge, which you are invited to join! We’re starting January 5 with a 10-week podcast series, special coach-led AMAs, Zoom meet-ups, write-alongs, and other bonuses. All paid subscribers to the #amwriting podcast are invited to participate and there is a sale on the subscription price right now so it’s very low. Sign-up details are over at #amwriting HERE.

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I made the first version of Blueprint for a Book because I had the chance to coach a writer from scratch who was committed to spending the time and effort she needed to write an excellent book. This was the first time I coached a writer from zero and I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I wanted to do the opposite of what normally happens in writing classes. At the time, I was teaching in the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program, and while I adored teaching, I was frustrated by the format. Over a 6-week course or a 10-week course or a 3-day weekend, we never had enough time to dig into the fundamentals of book writing or to give individual writers’ work the attention it needed and deserved.

Students wanted to write pages, share pages, and write some more. They were clamoring for feedback — mostly just wanting to know, Is this good, Is this good, Is this good? because no one was teaching them how to tap into their own wisdom about what was good or how to understand the marketplace they were seeking to enter. They were desperate for validation and gunning to finish whatever they were writing — stories, chapters, outlines, whole manuscripts.

The process did not support stopping to ask WHY they were writing what they were writing, or WHO they were writing for, or what STRUCTURE would best serve their purposes, or WHERE that book might fit in the marketplace, and I knew this was what every one of these writers needed if they were to have a fighting chance of finding their voice and reaching their goals.

The writer who asked me to coach her from zero was a fellow teacher in the program. We had audited each other’s classes and admired each other’s thinking. She was a brilliant story analyst who wanted to write a book about writing. The first thing I asked her was why she wanted to write this book and who she was writing it for — and the Blueprint was born.

I coached her through those questions and many others, as she hammered out her ideas and then began to write.

That writer was Lisa Cron and the book she wrote was Wired for Story, which was quickly followed by Story Genius and then Story or Die. Our work together was transformative for us both.

Evolution

Over the years, the Blueprint evolved and grew. It is an excellent tool for helping a writer start, but it is equally effective when a writer is stuck or when they are beginning a revision.

I refined the Blueprint, and when I decided to launch a book coach certification course in fiction, the Blueprint became the centerpiece of the training. Students would walk a writer through the Blueprint process and turn in their written work and video recordings to prove their skill at asking good questions and helping the writer lay a strong foundation for their project.

I wrote Blueprint for a Book: Build Your Novel From the Inside Out and refined the system again based on the hundreds of writers who had used it.

I went through the same process for Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book and Blueprint for a Memoir — teaching it to book coaches in our training program, refining the process, and then writing a book to cement the ideas and share them more broadly.

Why It Works

I’m tool-agnostic when it comes to writing. A book coach’s goal is to help the writer do their best work. They should use whatever tool or method is effective for that writer for that project. One of my favorite realities about the Blueprint is that it works with popular story structure methods. It plays well with Save the Cat, StoryGrid, Story Genius, The Hero’s Journey, and The Three-Act Structure.

I recently read the excellent book, Write a Must-Read by AJ Harper, which is a guidebook for developing a nonfiction book. I smiled the whole way through, not only because I loved being guided by an expert, but because I kept thinking to myself, The Blueprint works with this method, too! (Hot tip: I recently interviewed AJ for the podcast, which you can listen to HERE.)

The reason it works is that the Blueprint is not itself a story structure method and it’s not a book about craft — meaning it’s not a book about how to write. It’s a method of inquiry to help a writer understand the parameters of their project, make intentional choices about it, and define their relationship to it.

All three Blueprints (fiction, nonfiction, and memoir) guide you through 14 questions about your project. They each culminate with an outline, but it is a very simple outline by design. I don’t want you to make an exhaustive grid of every point in your argument (nonfiction), every scene in your story (fiction), or every moment of your life you will capture (memoir.)

I want you to be able to see your book — to envision it.

If you can envision it, you know what to write towards — and that makes all the difference.

Do The Blueprint With Us This Winter!

Starting January 5, we’ll be walking you through the 14 steps of the Blueprint over 10 weeks. Some of the steps are very short and we combined them into one episode.

Every episode speaks to fiction writers, memoir writers, and nonfiction writers. There are workbooks, and you will get a link to the digital download of the Blueprint book of your choice.

We’ll also be hosting weekly AMAs (ask me anything), write-alongs, and Zoom meet-ups with coaches—and KJ will be writing her own Blueprint, and I’ll be coaching her through it in weekly episodes.

If you finish your Blueprint during the Challenge, you will be eligible to win a review from either me or KJ. (If you missed the #AmWriting Success Story about the writer who won the Blueprint Sprint grand prize in 2022, give it a listen. It’s very inspiring! It’s right HERE.)

Tomorrow on the #amwriting podcast, I’ll be introducing the five Author Accelerator Certified Book Coaches who will be coaching our Winter Blueprint Challenge. It’s going to be such a good time and we’d love to have you join us! Plus, we have a sale on annual #amwriting memberships until December 31, 2024 only—save 25% if you decide you’re in now.

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