Today's goal is 36,666 words and I'm going strong now that I'm over a complete plot block on my story.
When I finished writing last night, I knew exactly what scene was next, but when I looked things over this morning I thought, that's all well and good for today's writing, but I don't know what's going to happen after that. My main character, Elsbeth is somewhere around L, M, N, then there's a huge gap of ignorance and unknown, and I know what is going to happen around Y, and Z.
So I did what any respectable author who is sure of themselves 100% of the time would do. I did something else. I stepped away from the story and cleaned house to prepare for the holidays. I moved away, got distance, cleansed, etc.
This didn't exactly help. Sure, it made me less tied to the story, less invested for an hour, but I came back, sat down, and still didn't have any ideas. And then I talked it out. I told my husband everything I knew and then said, "but here's this huge gap, what do I do?" He, being a helpful and honest soul said, "I have no idea, can I get back to work now."
So I talked it out with myself, and continued to flip the situation over, look at the underside, discuss the antagonist's view point, the secondary character's views, Elsbeth's goals, and then, I knew what needed to be done: Elsbeth needed to go somewhere.
Then I talked to myself about where, what, why, how, who (that journalism class really pays for itself sometimes) and the more I processed the information aloud, the more the blanks started to fill themselves in. Now I have a sense of direction again and I know what Elsbeth will be told in the scene I write today that will push her to go to this new place.
If you're finding yourself stuck thinking about your story, then I hope you'll try just saying it out in the open and see what muses you bring to your door.
Have a tip about solving plot blocks? I'd love to hear them.
Showing posts with label outlines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label outlines. Show all posts
Day 17: Giving Your Characters a Hard Time
Day 17 and the goal for word count is 28,333. I hope you're keeping up. I slipped back by 667 words yesterday, but I'll make it up today.
By now you may be feeling like your story is getting out of hand, is playing everything just right, or you're falling in the middle. Sometimes your characters comply and sometimes they show you sides you didn't know they even had. No matter what they're doing, if you want to make your novel interesting, I hope you're giving your characters a hard time.
My daughter is doing the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program this year. She's eight and had a story she wanted to tell of a girl in the woods with her siblings. Other than that basic information, she didn't know what to do with the story. Here's what I told her:
Think about what you want your character to do. What is their goal? Know that about your main character, get familiar with them.Think of how they will acheive their goal and what they want to do about it. Then, you as the author, make it difficult for the main character to do this. This may mean the character needs to change their goals, or do something else before they can acheive their primary goal. Whatever it is, make it hard for them, but not impossible.
For example, last night my main character, Elsbeth, needed to escape from having been kidnapped. I wanted her to slip out the window. Done. There's her goal.
Instead of letting it be that easy, however, I wrote her peeking to see if the coast was clear one last time, and this time the antagonist, Hopkins, is standing in the doorway and lunges after her. She still makes her escape (that is the plot afterall), but this way there was a lot more tension, action, and drama than originally planned.
If you're thinking your plot is going blah-ville or your characters are just milling about, then it might be time to shake things up for them and make getting from A to B a rougher road.
What's the worst you've done to your characters to give them a hard time?
By now you may be feeling like your story is getting out of hand, is playing everything just right, or you're falling in the middle. Sometimes your characters comply and sometimes they show you sides you didn't know they even had. No matter what they're doing, if you want to make your novel interesting, I hope you're giving your characters a hard time.
My daughter is doing the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program this year. She's eight and had a story she wanted to tell of a girl in the woods with her siblings. Other than that basic information, she didn't know what to do with the story. Here's what I told her:
Think about what you want your character to do. What is their goal? Know that about your main character, get familiar with them.Think of how they will acheive their goal and what they want to do about it. Then, you as the author, make it difficult for the main character to do this. This may mean the character needs to change their goals, or do something else before they can acheive their primary goal. Whatever it is, make it hard for them, but not impossible.
For example, last night my main character, Elsbeth, needed to escape from having been kidnapped. I wanted her to slip out the window. Done. There's her goal.
Instead of letting it be that easy, however, I wrote her peeking to see if the coast was clear one last time, and this time the antagonist, Hopkins, is standing in the doorway and lunges after her. She still makes her escape (that is the plot afterall), but this way there was a lot more tension, action, and drama than originally planned.
If you're thinking your plot is going blah-ville or your characters are just milling about, then it might be time to shake things up for them and make getting from A to B a rougher road.
What's the worst you've done to your characters to give them a hard time?
Creating a Story Outline
I like to write as a mix of planned plotting (outlines) and discovery writing. I may know what's going to happen next in a general sense, but the details come during the writing of the scene. I might know what one character will say, for sure, 100%, and will have written the quote down on a scrap of paper, but I might not know what the other character's reaction will be, not entirely anyway.
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