To catch you up, I had started work on my urban fantasy piece and almost immediately hit a stumbling block. I still like the concept for the story, but was having problems getting the characters to come to life for me (even if one was a vampire, but that's not important yet.) I did some character development but was struggling with starting and couldn't figure out why, until I realized I wasn't at all sure the tone I wanted to take with it. Yes, vampires are usually rather dark and ominous but I wasn't 100% certain that was the direction I wanted to go; in fact, I was pretty sure it was not. But then what was my tone? I could go humorous or just straight, but without that, I didn't know how to move my story forward, what sort of events would or would not be appropriate, etc. So I put it aside.
Instead, I decided to tackle a project that would (hopefully) give me a lot of experience in arcs - both plot and character - things I know I need to learn, but struggle with. The project? A fantasy quest-type story, serialized over a number of novelettes. This would give me the opportunity to plot out the entire arc of the story, track the development of the cast of five main characters as well as the mini arcs in each of the individual novelettes. This would also give me lots of bite size pieces to edit and polish, rather than having to finish some mammoth 90k thing. Plus, then my very kind writing buddies would have something to read, as I've given then nothing since we started! Oh, and bonus, I would have something to show to readers, that I could spin out over time. Perfect, right? Yea, except that I had no idea what I was doing with the whole plot thing, which was sort of the point, but also the problem. I needed to learn plot, but that's kind of like saying, I want to learn to bake bread and then going into the kitchen and throwing things into a bowl that I thought was in bread, doing stuff to it and hoping it turned into bread. Not a great plan for baking, for those of you who aren't familiar, just sayin'. So I did what any good retired librarian would, I took to the web and did some research. Normally a good plan, until it's not. I was DROWNING in approaches to plotting and outlining and planning, each with it's own set of terms and definitions that while defined, weren't explained in a way I could use. So many blog posts, how-to books and YouTube videos later and I was frustrated, like really frustrated. While examples were helpful in getting the ideas across, those were all backwards-facing; here's a fully formed story, start to end, let's identify the various points. But looking forward, at a blank page, from the start of an idea, putting those plots on the map in front of me was an impossible task. What to do next? Ask the tribe. Social media, for all it's ills and bad press and rabbit holes, has an incredible cross-section of the world and if you can find the right group for the right task, you have a gold mine. So I crafted a simple cry for help, posted it on a few writers groups I was in that seemed the most appropriate, apologizing in advance if someone happened to see it more than once as I acknowledged I was posting wide and went to bed, hoping for some gold. I was not disappointed. Well, I was a little, but not entirely. Yes, I got lots and lots of suggestions on books and blogs - about half I'd already read and while informative, weren't what I needed. For the rest, I put them in a to-do list and fully intend to watch/read all of them. But what was really great, were the handful of people who offered to help me work through it, because that was what I'd asked for. Some kind soul to help walk me through MY story, of trying to identify potential points for my yet-nonexistent story. And while I haven't made much progress in this arena yet, I am so much more confident in my capabilities with a safety net of kind and knowledgeable people at my back. I do want to give a couple of shout outs for resources that I found helpful just in the 36 hours I was looking into things. While I've watched a ton of videos (and my to watch list is longer than ever) I found Dan Wells's talk on the Seven-Plot points VERY helpful. If you decide to watch, I warn you, the opening and closing music is OBNOXIOUS, but at least the video poster acknowledges that in the info. Just skip through the intro and get to the meat. What I think was most helpful for me was not how he defined the points or even what the points were - they match up with most of the info I've found on the standard 3-act structure with a little of the Hero's Journey thrown in for good measure - but rather than he didn't think about them in order they were read. First was the end, then then beginning, then the middle, then various points throughout; as well as why this works. Now, this approach may very well not work for every story or every writer, but for this fantasy piece I'm trying to write, it resonated. But the proof is in the pudding as they say (not sure who says this or why exactly, but they say it dammit!) and I'll have a better handle on if it worked for me in coming days. Oh, and bonus for me - this lecture came out of an event called Life, the Universe and Everything (yes, a riff on Douglas Adams) that's hosted by BYU in Provo, UT every year. They have some incredible videos out there on various topics and one of these years I'm going to watch through them all. Also put this on my calendar for next year to try and attend - I mean, who doesn't want to go to Provo in February! LOL Aaaaand of course this led me down another rabbit hole - we've got events here locally, why not check them out? Why indeed! So I did a little googling and lo and behold, yup, not only do the local sci-fi/fantasy cons have writers tracks, many of them have workshops! Yay! That have very limited spots and require an application including submission. Crap. The first of which has a deadline of mid-July. Oh shit! Guess I have a deadline for the first chapter now. So what am I doing sitting here talking to you?? I gotta go write!
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