Writing News

NaNoWriMo starts this week!!!

I have wanted to participate in National Write a Novel in a Month Month for at least a decade, but have never taken the plunge. But this year my 3 sweet boys are all in school (how can this be horrendously sad and lovely all at the same time???) and I am joining the challenge with 2 other writer friends. My goal is not the traditional 50,000 words but a complete middle grade manuscript and 30,000 words. I plotted the whole thing out last month and am excited to have at it. I joined ACFW’s novel writing track to keep track of my word count and my 2 writer friends and I will be nagging each other regularly. Very fun!

So…what else did I do this week?

I finished up my first personal revision of a Passport to Romance idea that I have not sent in to my editor yet. I moved the word count from 24,902 words to 26,618 words and made sure that the romance was moving along nicely and fixed a few plot holes. But I want it to be better so I’m going through it at least one more time before I see what Jamie thinks of it. I also did a few of the writing exercises from my copy of “Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook” and got the word count up to 27,442 and added a few heroic moments for my characters.

Earlier this week, I went over my chapter outline of my NaNoWriMo mystery to make sure that I represent each of my three protagonists well. I counted up how many chapters each protagonist has as the viewpoint character.

Adrian- 11 chapters

Jackson- 10 chapters

Kaden- 12 chapters

Then I went through Blake Snyder’s 15 beat outline and made sure each character experienced a good portion of the deciding plot moments.

Adrian–Theme stated, Break into 2, Debate, 2nd Pinch Point, and the beginning ch. of the climax

Jackson–Opening Image, 1st Pinch Point, All is Lost, 2nd Plot Point, ending ch. of the Climax, Closing Image

Kaden–1st Plot Point, B-Plot Moment, Midpoint, Dark Night of the Soul, Middle chapter of the Climax, The Wrap Up

I’ve shuffled their chapters around once before and I feel that I arrived at a good balance. Jackson has the least # of chapters, but he opens and closes the book, making him an intimate part of the story and he is there for that All is Lost moment. Adrian introduces us to the theme and the debate over whether to get involved. Kaden walks through the Dark Night of the Soul and wraps up the story for the reader. All three characters have a chapter in the climax and really the number of chapters that they star in is fairly even. I’m pretty happy with the set up, so now I get to jump into the actual writing in November and see if this story is any good.