Today, your assignment, if you choose to say yes, is to carry your Plot Planner index cards and a pencil or pen with you everywhere.
I see you standing in line at the post office and the grocery store serenely grateful for the wait because it allows you more time to ponder your story. I see you waiting in the dentist's office or in thick traffic with your eyes up and to the left glazed over as inspiration fills you. I see you unplugging from negative thoughts about that nasty brother-in-law coming for dinner and plugging into your story instead.
- Story is all about character transformation. How has your protagonist been transformed by the Dramatic Action in the story?
- What is your story really saying? What do all those words you wrote add up to?
- Your story is a reflection of a truth. Not necessarily true for all time, but true for the story itself, and likely for yourself, too. What is the deeper meaning? The truth beyond the physical?
- How do the secondary plot lines support the major plot line thematically?
- How do the secondary character's journey mirror the protagonist's journey?
- Does the setting support the theme?
- What elements in the Beginning (1/4) echo back in the End (1/4)
To proclaim International Plot Writing Month in December and not mention the holidays is like standing mute in a room filled with angels and trolls. In our zeal to capture the holidays just right we run ourselves ragged. Part of this impulse is running from the darkness as the days turn shorter and shorter. It echoes back thousands of years to our fear that the failing light would never return without our intervention.
Fitting in writing time becomes more and more impossible as we await the rebirth of the sun and as the year winds down. Instead of fighting what is, I invite you to continue analyzing your stories instead. The work you do this month will make next month's rewrite a breeze.
Think of the work you do this month as your holiday present to yourself. Think of International Plot Writing Month as your writer's plot guide through the holidays....
Next week we start in on the End of your project (the final 1/4 of the total pages or word count. If you haven't already, write the Climax today. It doesn't matter how vague -- read: inspirational, or how awful -- read: creative, just get something on paper.)
Enjoy!!
Oh, and remember -- no reading your manuscript. Not yet.....
(If you are joining us for the first time, please go to Day One and work your way back. Welcome.)
1 Comments on International Plot Writing Month -- Day Seven, last added: 12/8/2009
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This is a very clever idea, Martha. Thanks for putting it out in the world.
Lynn
www.writeradvice.com
Author of You Want Me to Do WHAT? Journaling for Caregivers