Check in Day 5!

[charamei]

It's that time again! How's everyone doing?

Poll #6517 WIP check-in 5th April 2011

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

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How are you doing on your chosen fic(s) for the month so far?

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On track for my goals
5 (45.5%)

Ahead of schedule
1 (9.1%)

Behind schedule
1 (9.1%)

Too early to tell!
4 (36.4%)

And what did you do today, fic-wise?

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Write
9 (75.0%)

Research
5 (41.7%)

Edit
4 (33.3%)

Procrastinate
4 (33.3%)

Send to beta
0 (0.0%)

Post the finished fic
1 (8.3%)

Something else I will clarify in comments
1 (8.3%)

If you wrote any words today, how many did you write?

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1-249
1 (11.1%)

250-499
3 (33.3%)

500-749
2 (22.2%)

750-999
1 (11.1%)

1000 or more
2 (22.2%)

In three words or less, how are you feeling about the fic(s) right now?

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Comments

[raletha]

I struggle with plot a lot. I want it to feel organic, but sometimes I feel like I am just cranking the plot device. A book I recently found very useful for helping me to understand and develop structure and plot is Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. Some aspects of the book are tedious: he's very repetitive, and he spends far too much time trying to convince you to keep reading, but the advice and methods are solid.

He encourages the use of a beat list (likely similar to the signposting charamei mentions above) and he names his sections more according to screenplay conventions, but it's all helpful. What I found most helpful is his way of helping me think about my story in a way that plot points develop naturally, from premise and character, and didn't feel artificially imposed.

He covers a lot of similar material in his blog: http://storyfix.com/

HTH! And good luck! :D

[charamei]

When the First Plot Point arrives (right on time, too, and clearly so, as the hero demands answers to the same questions you’ve been asking), it fulfills the primary purpose of this most important of all the story milestones: the hero suddenly has a mission. A quest. A need. One neither he nor the viewer fully understood before this moment. One with an opponent. One with stakes (that weren’t there until the FPP).

And suddenly, I know exactly what the start of my novel's been missing that's been causing me so much trouble: it's the little bit in between 'the world is falling apart' and 'we're going to go and save it, who's coming with?' where the heroes make the decision to go.

Duh.

THANK YOU.

[raletha]

You're welcome!

I had so many moments like that reading his book; I'm surprised my forehead doesn't have dents. Basically, every story draft I had that had made it over ~5,000 words was stalled, and I couldn't figure out how to get any of them going again. I saw his book and picked it up, hoping it might help a little bit more than other books I'd read on structure. It did. Brooks broke it all down so I could see what those essential elements were that I'd been missing, how to develop them within the context of everything else in the story, and how they all should fit together. It's helped me a lot, and I am really hoping that my first story applying his ideas turns out well!

Good luck to you!

[snowynight]

Thank you. My plot is right now missing the scary middle, so I'll definitely check it up.