Unleash the writers! Let the word storms commence!

Hello friends!

You made it! This is our last NaNoWriMo planning blog and it’s time to make some shit happen, aka, talk about plot.

With the work that you’ve done, you know whose story you’re telling and how you’re going to tell it. You have some idea about why this story matters because you’ve done some psychological digging into your MC. Now you can start constructing the obstacles (i.e., plot events) that you’re throwing into the MC’s path to keep them from getting what they want. Let the games begin!

What’s the plot? More detail edition

A couple of weeks ago, I suggested writing a very high level synopsis of your story—where it begins, where it ends, and a little bit of detail on how your MC gets from point A to point B. Now we’re going to expand upon that, a little or a lot.

Like most Author Accelerator coaches, I’m a big fan of Pixar’s rules of story-telling. They set out a simple framework for starting to flesh out a plot that looks like this:

1. Once upon a time there was ____.

2. Every day, ____. One day ____.

3. Because of that, ____.

4. Because of that, ____.

5. Until finally____.

6. And ever since that day____.

Numbers 1 and 2 are where you’re starting. Your main character (1) is living their life (2a). They have an unacknowledged problem that they’ve been able to ignore until something happens that forces them to deal with that problem (2b). Hijinks ensue in 3 and 4 (and eventually there will be many more ‘because of that’s). Then the problem is resolved (5) and we leave our MC in their new state of being (6), having dealt with the issue that set them on their journey.

Take a look at the synopsis that you developed. How can you use what you’ve written to slot some answers into the blank spaces above? If you need some additional ‘because of that’ lines, take ‘em!

People sometimes freeze when they start to wrap some structure around a story idea because it feels premature or they’re afraid they’re locking themselves into decisions that they may not be ready to make. Have no fear! Things almost certainly WILL change and that’s fine and normal. You’re going to learn a ton during the drafting process—not only about your MC and the journey that you’ve set them onto but also about yourself as a writer.

What matters, whether you’re in the thick of the mad dash of NaNo or not, is that you make the tools work for you rather than against you.

The most important takeaway is that your plot needs to hold together. One scene should follow logically from the previous one. In other words, you should be able to put ‘because of that’ between each scene and have it work. (I’ve also used ‘but’ and ‘therefore’ when needed; they will all help you achieve what we’re going for).

For example:

Scene: Mary Read is on trial for piracy with her best friend Anne Bonny. Governor Nicholas Lawes, who is presiding over the trial, wants to make an example of them. They are convicted and sentenced to die, but they ‘plead their bellies’ and are given a reprieve until they give birth, assuming they can prove that they are actually pregnant. Pregnancy tests are administered and it’s confirmed that both women are pregnant; they have earned stays until their babies are born.

Because of that…

Scene: After several weeks (during which Mary and Anne have tried to think of plans for escape or other ways to save themselves but come up empty-handed), Lawes comes to their cell and offers to sweeten the deal: cooperate with a writer developing a book on the ‘scourge of piracy’ and he’ll give them clemency and let them keep their children. Mary and Anne debate after he leaves and ultimately decide to cooperate.

Therefore…

Scene: When Lawes returns with writer Charles Johnson, Mary says they’ll do it. Lawes lets it slip that the women are becoming popular. He wants to be sure they are figures of scorn. After Lawes leaves, Charles confirms what Lawes says is true. He encourages them to tell the truth. Mary says that she wants to write her story down rather than tell it to Charles and he agrees to give her paper and pen and pretend, to Lawes, that she’s still cooperating.

I’ll admit I cheated a little bit here—this example comes from my completed novel, so it has been refined over many iterations and sets of eyeballs, but I hope it clearly illustrates how the events (and also the emotional resonance of the events, more on that in the future) build off of what came before in a logical way.

In order to keep yourself moving forward during the frenzy of November, don’t worry about sketching each scene out in multiple sentences. Jot down whatever feels like the logical next step based on what you know now and allow for things to morph and grow as you learn more. This is the beauty of the drafting process, when the stakes are low and the expectation is that the result will be shitty. Embrace it!

Cheers! ♥️

Kerry