October 22, 2014
Hi Friend,
Welcome to Week #4 of the 30-Day Writing Challenge to Preparing Your Novel for NaNoWriMo.
This week we focus on your Scene-by-Scene Outline & Plotting.
Can you believe we're already at the fourth and final lessons?! But this course isn't over yet! The challenge is for 30 days and then on the 31st day of October we celebrate! So stay the course. You can do this!
Get ready! In this week's email, there are 4 lessons.
Keep in mind: Review your notes on elevator pitch, story synopsis, character development, world building and character's worst fears.
Remember: For this week's lessons, you can download the identical material in handout format here: http://30daywritingchallengefornovelists.bethbarany.com/course-content/#week4. Password: #30DAYWC (case sensitive)
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Part 1: High-Concept Pitch
Revisit your story idea by compressing the story accordion back to its smallest size.
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High-Concept Pitch
This lesson comes Ezra. It's one of his favorite tools... He uses it to design his story and use the plot-building tools of "Problem-Solution" and "Scene Setup" (described later in this week's lesson.)
No one cares what your story is about, though they think they do. They only care what experience your novel will give them. Sometimes, a blurb summarizing the story can convey the experience, but a high-concept pitch usually does a better job.
WHAT: With just a few words, convey the kind of book your story is by blending together two other famous stories or by defining a unique twist to a famous story. HOW: For example, a movie about an ancient species of shark terrorizing the present beaches could be pitched as "Jurassic Park meets Jaws." They actually shortened the pitch to be "Jurassic shark." This pitch immediately conveys the experience by conjuring familiar experiences we've had from other famous media. I (Ezra) always say my book is "a Jewish version of The Da Vinci Code." (Ezra's book is, The Torah Codes, an international bestseller.) Right away people know to expect a thriller with clandestine religious overtones.
Usually, though, the high-concept pitch is "[famous movie or book] meets [other famous movie or book.]"
Another good thing about this pitch is that it's easy for your friends and family to repeat to their friends and family and accurately pass on the excitement of the book.
Your turn: What might your pitch be?
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Part 2: Problem-Solution tool...
Now that you have brainstormed your characters and your story world, set up the plot in a linear, step-by-step way.
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Design Your Plot with the Problem-Solution tool
I (Beth) wanted to write a novel, but I didn’t know where to begin. So I found the book, The Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray, and used it as a guide to write every weekend to get going. One of the tools I really liked was the “problem-solution” tool, helping me design my story plot in a quick way. Plot was so confusing to me. This tool helped me get a handle on it. Here’s how it works: - What’s the starting problem of your story?
- What’s the solution to this immediate problem?
- What problem is caused by this solution?
- Create a new solution,
- which creates a new problem.
- This leads to a new solution,
- new problem…
- etc. until you get to your story resolution.
Your notes may look something like this...
EXAMPLE: My brainstorm for my novel, The Volcano Witch, book 3 in my young adult fantasy series.
Problem: Henrietta has to cross the mountains in the middle of winer with a small child who seems to have two identities and who she can't understand most of the time, and who calls her Mommy.
Solution: Luckily, she has Franc with her to help her manage the boy, so she can focus on navigating the tricky mountain passes she knows well.
Problem: While they reach the peak without incident, the eastern side of the mountain is a steep and unfamiliar climb down.
Solution: Antoine takes charge in his strange way and guides them to the bottom, all the while chattering away in his native tongue. They are after all walking back into his land.
Problem: They're walking into a land no foreigner is supposed to go. All who have ventured here have never returned. The rumor is that they were killed.
Solution: Henrietta hopes their chances for survival are better since they are returning a child of the Land of the Horse.
Your turn! Design your plot with the problem-solution tool and find your way into your story. ============================================
Part 3: Scene Setup tool...
Envision each scene. This is especially helpful if you've never drafted scenes before.
For Ezra, this is the final step he takes before writing the story.
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SCENE SETUP
What makes up a scene? This was a conundrum to me when I was first starting out as a novelist and is a mystery to a lot of novelists I've worked with.
The standard definition is that a scene is action that takes place in one place and time. Think of your story as a play. Each time you have to change the set to show a new location, you're starting a new scene.
When I first learned about scene setup a big light bulb flashed on for me. Here was a way I could take a step back from my story, and craft a moment in time and place. Specifics! And specifics are what you need to create your scene setups. Another way to think about it is story boarding or stage setup, an idea that comes from film, stage, comic books, graphic novels, and TV preparation.
As with the Problem-Solution exercise, I learned this from The Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray.
Here are the elements you need to brainstorm for each scene. Take 20-30 minutes to fill out these elements for each scene.
Scene setup
Time/and place: (Make sure this is one moment or one place.)
Temperature/season: (Be specific.)
Lighting/sounds/smells: (Be evocative.)
Symbols/images: (Let your imagination pull in whatever it wants.)
Character/relationships: (List all who are "on stage" in the scene.)
Dialogue
Subjects: (What are people actually speaking about?)
Subtexts: (What are they not saying, but only thinking or feeling? Think: Hidden agendas and secrets. These may some across in body language or be completely hidden from the other.)
Action
Large: (Think big movements that move the story forward, like stepping out of a car and crossing the street.)
Small: (Think micro-movements, facial expressions, gestures, from the characters.)
POV: (From whose heart and mind is this scene being told?)
Climax: (Show the moment of crisis, conflict, or dilemma. Every scene needs one.)
Exit line: (What does a character say at the end of the scene? Hook the reader with this to want to know what happens next. Make us worry.)
A handout of the story board cards as well as the lesson are available here on the course content page here: http://30daywritingchallengefornovelists.bethbarany.com/course-content/#week4. Password: #30DAYWC (case sensitive)
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Part 4: Draft the Scene by Scene outline...
Use this tool as an alternative to the Problem-Solution tool or in addition to it. For me (Beth), this is the final step I take before writing my story.
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Drafting the Scene-by-Scene Outline
Lesson Prep for Drafting the Scene-by-Scene Outline There are as many ways to structure a story as there are stars in the sky. The goal with this week for you is to find the story structure or outline that works for you and trust your gut as you flesh out the outline.
I like to draft my scene-by-scene outline in one chunk of time. The first time I did this exercise it took me about 4-5 hours. I sat at my favorite cafe and wrote long hand on whatever scarps of paper I had. It was a lot of fun, and scary, in a good way.
The subsequent times I've done this exercise, I dictated my thoughts into my iPhone in two to three sessions 45 minute sessions.
My point is there is no right way to proceed.
Just go for it!
As an outline, use the Problem-Solution results you created, or your character's list of fears. I (Beth) usually need to just know ahead of time my starting incident and the general feeling I want to end the story with, then I just dive in.
I skip Scene Storyboarding because I've internalized this and know how to integrate it into my prose, but I highly recommend you do the scene story boards if you're not sure how to draft scenes.
Start:
Start your scene-by-scene outline by writing the scene number and putting in parentheses the point of view character. (POV)
Next, draft the external and internal problems in relation to the character's goal, what makes these problems worse, and the dilemma the character faces. Or draft your scene in a way that works for you.
EXAMPLE from my book, The Volcano Witch Scene 1: (Paulette) Paulette is sitting in jail near the castle. She really wants Jaxter, now King Jaxter the Just, to treat her as a friend, and perhaps more, and not as a criminal. She doesn't deserve to be there. She has to get out. Maybe if she masters her wayward fire magic, Jaxter will finally respect her. She has to escape, but how?
Scene 2: (Paulette) In the middle of the night, Paulette convinces/bribes/seduces/promises (not sure until I write!) the guard to help her and gets out of the jail without raising an alarm, but now needs to find passage off the island. A little bribing does the trick and she finds a boat to hide in. She has no idea who owns the boat, only that it's due to leave in the dawn tides. (Note: I may not use this scene since there's no real conflict, but I like knowing what happens.)
Scene 3: (Paulette) Paulette awakens in the middle of the sea to rough voices and threats of violence among the small crew and realizes she's in a tiny boat with a group of thugs and smugglers. Once ashore, she has to use her fire magic to fend off unwanted advances and threats to sell her into slavery. She escapes into the woods barely. She only hopes she's going in the right direction: North to find the Volcano Witch in Varangia, the land no one has traveled into in over 100 years. She hopes the Volcano Witch will help her master her fire magic and finally gain the respect of Jaxter.
=> I'll draft more for the rest of my novel. My goal is to draft 60-70 scenes, all about this long. I know from experience that that's how many scenes I need to craft a 250+ page novel. (If you're curious to see the first 2 novels in this series, they are both published and available at many online retailers. More here: http://author.bethbarany.com/ya-fantasy/.)
Your turn!
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HANDOUTS For this week's lessons, you can download the identical material in handout format here: http://30daywritingchallengefornovelists.bethbarany.com/course-content/#week4. Password: #30DAYWC (case sensitive) ==========================================
Ready for feedback? Share with your writing buddies or with the #30DAYWC group on Twitter, Facebook or in the private Facebook group.
♥
If you have any questions about the course, just reply to this email and we'll help you out within 24 hours during business hours, Monday through Friday.
Best, Beth & Ezra
PS. The final live teaching will be Tuesday, October 18, 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern. Reminder emails will come separately.
Oct. 1-31, 2014:
http://30daywritingchallengefornovelists.bethbarany.com/
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