NaNoWriMo: A story skeleton leads to a plot
Back in 2004, Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files series, started a blog about writing. He only made a double-handful of posts, spread out over four years, but he said a lot of useful stuff. The one thing that stuck in my head was this simple but useful tool. The story skeleton boils your novel's plot down to its most basic elements. If you can't fill in the blanks, you don't have a story yet.
*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?
Let's try this:
After running away from home and stowing away on an interstellar cargo ship run by smugglers, 9-year-old Nathaniel just wants to get back home. But will he succeed when the smuggler's ship is hijacked by aliens?
I keep trying to figure out how my stories end before I've figured out the central conflict. I think the story skeleton helped with that… it doesn't ask how things end (the climax), it insists on knowing who gets in the way of the main characters goal (the antagonist) and why he's an obstacle (the conflict). You can't have a story without conflict, and apparently I've been trying to come up with a resolution to a conflict without knowing its nature first.
There, my book has a plot. Looks like I'll do some outlining tomorrow.
NaNoWriMo: Has he decided what to write yet?
I really need to do that, don't I? The one crazy thing about NaNoWriMo is that, while you can't start writing your novel until midnight, November 1, you can do all the planning you like. Write an outline, take notes, write character descriptions, and so on.
But here I am, having decided to do this just a week ahead of time, and I don't have any of that preplanning done. In some ways, I think this is a good thing. I tend to over-plan, and I'm afraid that the planning process would actually discourage me from writing. As writing day approaches, I'd get worried that I'm not adequately prepared, and I'd end up quitting before I ever started the writing.
So in some ways, I'm blocking this out of my mind… I'm putting off all the heavy lifting until November 1, because the whole point of this (for me) is to dive into the hard part with guns blazing. The hard part is getting started, and a "soft start" of doing pre-planning when the schedule is squishy just gives me time to waffle and think too much. And thinking about it is the killer.
But it's Friday, writing starts on Sunday. That "9-year-old stowaway on an interstellar freighter" actually has some legs, now that I've had time to think about the plot.
NaNoWriMo: Lots of ideas, but few stories
The story I want to write isn't going to fit in 150 pages. And I'm not sure it's the story I want to tackle first… it's complicated, has a lot of viewpoint characters and a lot of emotional conflict, both external and internal. I think I'm going to have to skip that one. Though it's possible that I could aim to write the story in 50,000 words, with plans to expand it later on, once the core plot is worked out from beginning to end.
But I'm thinking I want a simpler story. I'm considering writing a "middle grade" book… something my bright nine-year-old son would like to read. I've got this idea about a sixth-grader who thinks he's a werewolf because of mysterious clues pointing to it… except he's not. The werewolf is his best friend. Problem there is, I have an idea, but I don't have a story. I have an opening scene, heck I have the opening line (which I think is unique among all of my story ideas). I've got a lot of those… ideas for stories that are just beginnings, people in situations, but I don't really know what the story is.
I've got a few more days. Maybe I'll write about a nine-year-old that stows away on an interstellar cargo ship.