Here’s my ROW80 (Round 4) weekend update: With only two weeks left in October, I’ve been working frantically all week trying to put together a workable story-outline that I can take into NaNoWriMo. I have a basic idea of a story with a simple plot, but it feels like it needs so much more than I have time to give it. I went through several “what if” scenarios with my story-idea, trying to find my premise and theme while working on a log-line. I like some of the ideas, but they still need a lot of work. My hero and villain are well-matched, but I’m still working on their goals. I know that the villain will drive the conflict and the hero will react to that conflict, but I still need to know their motivations and internal needs. I have a mentor and ally in mind, but no details. I know how I want my story to end, so I’ve focused all my energy there, working on that emotionally satisfying ending. By defining my ending, I can work backwards to figure out how the story might begin. Then from the beginning, I’ll know what each scene needs to accomplish to get me one step closer to my ending. Knowing my ending gives me a destination to aim for. My hero is strong and skilled in the end, so he needs to be weaker and unskilled in the beginning if I’m to have a proper character-arc. Since people don’t usually change on their own, I’ll need to introduce a mentor and an ally. I have a few scenes in mind, but I’m having trouble stringing them together. I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress this week, but it doesn’t feel like I’m making the progress fast enough. Slow down, October, I need more time…
That’s enough blogging for now. I need to get back to my story-outlining.
Keep the Fire Burning!
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"Since people don’t usually change on their own, I’ll need to introduce a mentor and an ally."
ReplyDeleteYour villain could be enough motivation for your hero to change. There needs to come a time when your hero stops reacting to the villain and starts taking the fight to him (see . The decision to do that should come from inside the hero, not from an outside mentor or ally. The mentor can help, but the hero should be proactive in coming to the mentor.
Larry Brooks illustrates this nicely in Story Engineering, where he splits Act II into two parts: The Response, and The Attack. I recommend this book, and James Scott Bell's Super Structure for plotting help, if you haven't already read them. They both have helped me immensely in getting a grip on what needs to happen in my novel, and when.
You're right, Esme, if the hero is to defeat the villain, he needs to be proactive and not reactive, usually at the midpoint of the story when he has that look-in-the-mirror moment and sees that he must change in order to win. I think James Scott Bell calls it the "mirror moment" (Yes, both are great books --- I'll have to look at Story Engineering again as I've read it many years ago). Although the mentor isn't necessary for hero's change, I was trying to work in a mentor to my "hero's journey" plot structure. Usually, the mentor helps the hero with his emotional goal while the ally helps the hero with his physical / plot goals. I've been reading several screenplay writing books lately, and one of the ways they describe to create a satisfying ending is to have the hero apply the "mentor's lesson" at the climax. It's introduced early in the story disguised as a visually interesting, yet seemingly unimportant lesson. The mentor's lesson gets repeated in a different way later in the story, and then gets applied by the hero in the end to defeat the villain. The mentor’s lesson is the story’s theme. The character's flaw is the opposite of the theme, and when the hero has that moment of revelation during the climax and remembers the mentor's lesson and uses that lesson to defeat the villain, the climatic moment can be emotional and memorable. Anyway, that's what I'm shooting for. Not sure if I can pull it off in a NaNo-Novel, but I want to set all the pieces in place for later revisions. Thanks for your advice and encouragement!
Delete*no edit comment ability* Ignore that opening parenthesis and the following 'see'. I started to say something, but put it in the following paragraph instead. :)
ReplyDelete:)
DeleteSending lots of good thoughts for your writing goals. =)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your positive energy, Morgan, it's much appreciated!
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