When NaNoWriMo 2020 is all over and I’ve moved onto other creative thoughts that don’t fall into the category of “writing a frantic novel in one month” I will likely divert the topics of this blog into other avenues.
For example, we are getting a dog in less than a week.
Or, y’know, this whole working-from-home during a pandemic lifestyle collapse that I’m coping with.
For now, however, my spare moments are largely connected with a single effort: putting words onto a screen in the shape of this weird little story I’ve come up with.
For those who remember or even just read archives, I kicked my plotting (literal) off this year with a simple jog around the Dan Harmon story circle. The point of that being to break your tale into eight concrete phases, work through those phases, and .. voila: story. Those phases are:
- A character is in a zone of comfort,
- But they want something.
- They enter an unfamiliar situation,
- Adapt to it,
- Get what they wanted,
- Pay a heavy price for it,
- Then return to their familiar situation,
- Having changed
Nineteen thousand words (and change) into the writing effort (and careful planning of the plot around this structure in advance) leaves me with a completed first draft of the first three phases on that list.
We did some character introductions, set the scene, built some simple motivations, and opened a few curtains to let the light in.
Then I exposed some frustrations and piqued some curiosity, making it clear that the characters were motivated to strive for something besides what they already have.
This kicked off the third phase, which was a small search for something that was essentially under their nose if they had bothered to look for it. They found it, and it captured their imagination and cracked open their reality.
As I set off to write on day twelve, chapter twelve (because roughly that’s how this thirty day effort is shaping out — one chapter per day) they are due to be given a glimpse behind the scenes, asked to adapt to that, and offered a chance to let it envelop them.
In other words, things are moving along nicely with a clear and satisfying momentum. And I should probably be actually writing instead of explaining it on a website.