Day 29 Sorry I’ve been MIA for a few days. As I posted in an earlier blog, I had to take Friday off to go out of town for an appointment. Yesterday I just wrote like crazy, trying to get my word count up to at least 45,000 so I wouldn’t have too much still to do tomorrow. Today is my Sabbath day, so I took it off for church and family and didn’t write. (That took a lot of discipline!) I hope to get to bed on time for a change and start tomorrow early. I have a lot of words still to write!!!!!! Thanks to Sandy Hall and others in the NaNoCoach forum, I know it doesn’t have to be pretty – it just has to be. I will take a half hour for breakfast and a half hour for lunch, but I will probably not break for dinner until I’ve verified my novel and won this challenge. I’ll let you know on Tuesday how I did and what time I finished.
So, I promised you more tips on this blog. Here goes;
Writing an Outline for Your Novel
This is the outline I found easiest to follow, taken from several writer’s magazines.
Act 1 The Status Quo. Your hero’s everyday life.
The Catalyst. A call to action.
Denial. Hero rejects the opportunity.
Guru. The hero gets a mentor.
Acceptance & Action. First threshold of change.
Act 2 Trials. Finding friends and foes.
Edge of the Abyss. Decision of second threshold.
The Plunge. Faces the greatest fear.
The Pay-Off. Hero gets a reward of some sort.
Act 3 The Way Through. On the way home. Maybe being chased.
True Test. Hero proves they learned their lesson.
The New Normal. Returns home, transformed.
I hope that helps some of you who are like me and just starting out on the fiction journey. There are a lot of good magazines available for writers. I usually find mine at Chapters. I love flipping through the magazines and deciding which to buy – don’t you?
Well, tomorrow’s the day. I’m at word count 43,950. Just over 6,000 words to write tomorrow before the verification deadline! (Must remember to stop to eat, and pet the cat. Wait – no, she’ll remind me).
Lynne out till Tuesday.
Lynne Collier 