CONTEST: A backbone?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 17 July 2009

Okay. So let's say you've got some notions, there's a goal, maybe a bit of an inciting incident, some characters, all that stuff swirling around in your head. How do you organize it?

Let's take a look at a website that might help. Jim Butcher writes a very popular fantasy detective series (the Dresden Files) and others, and he's been blogging about his process over here. http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/ I thought it was a little odd -- he seems to have written the blog postings in order, which means the ones for starting are at the bottom... (psst? Anyone else recognize that Scene-Sequel structure? Yeah, James Bickham's Scene & Structure http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/tag/sequel ) Anyway

Jim's story skeleton is this:

*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?

Okay? Pretty simple, right? Plug in

1. What happens to kick things off? (the inciting incident)
2. Who's the protagonist?
3. What's the goal?
4. Who's the antagonist? How do they oppose the protagonist?

Go ahead. Take the ideas you're playing with, and plug them into Jim's skeleton. (Oh, the foot bone's connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone's connected to the shin bone, the shin bone's connected to the knee bone, keep on moving up the line...)

When Jim finds a treasure map in his dead uncle's sea chest, he decides to recover the fortune. But will he succeed when the Bloody Hand Gang finds out that there's a treasure out there?