EXERCISE: Where's Your Nanowrimo?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting Nov. 8, 2016

Let's see. November 8? So in theory, if we're pounding out 2,000 words a day, we're hitting around 16,000 now? Aiming to leap over tall buildings, or at least rumble past that 50,000 word goal with words to spare?

Although... One week in? So about a fourth of the way? And more than likely heading into the dry gulch known as the middle, where so many caravans have come to an end, sputtering and gasping as the initial steam ran out?

How about this? Here's some points along the way that you might want to check off? From the Hero's Journey.

1. Ordinary world
2. Call to adventure
3. Refusal of the call
4. Meeting the mentor
5. Crossing the first threshold
6. Tests, allies, enemies
7. Approach to the inmost cave
8. Supreme ordeal
9. Reward (seizing the sword)
10. The road back
11. Resurrection
12. Return with elixir

Just consider. What might that look like in your story? Where are you right now? Have you crossed the first threshold (aka the doorway without any return)? Starting into the complications, the try-fail cycles of tests, allies, and enemies?

Or you could go with the full-blown Blake Snyder's 15 beats:

1. Opening image
2. Statement of the theme
3. Set up -- who are the characters, and what's the hero missing?
4. Catalyst -- What kicks off the action?
5. Debate -- wait a minute?
6. Break into act two -- The hero takes that step
7. The B story -- changeup
8. Fun and games -- let's try it out
9. Midpoint -- raise the stakes, hit a false victory
10. The bad guys close in
11. All is lost! The mentor dies, friends turn away
12. The dark night of the soul.
13. The break into act three. Aha! There is hope!
14. The finale. The climax. The hero wins.
15. The final image

Again, consider which of those landmarks you want to try to fill in, and then write it in!

Heck, if you get bored, try The Big List of RPG Plots available at http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/plots.htm and see if one of those sparks your thoughts.

The point, of course, being to keep writing! Only 34,000 words to go (more or less, depending on how many you've gotten down now).

And the world, will be better for this, that one writer, alone with a computer, wrote a nanowrimo tale so true... alright, blue. What color is your tale, anyway?

tink