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   Liminality Officer
   Liminality · Oct 9, 2022

   Hello, hello, and welcome to Planning Month (PlanMo)! October is the time to prepare for National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) in November, and we hope the activities we have this month will help you with that.
   
   In the PlanMo club, you can start your own thread. In your thread, record your responses to the challenges, so you can refer back to them when writing later. You can work through the following challenges at your own time and pace. Feel free to do as many or as few of them as you want.
   
   (There may be some badges for those participating, and that's just an extra incentive to give this a try!)
   
   Here are the challenges for the month.
   
   Main Challenges
   
   Elevator pitch
   
   An elevator pitch, elevator speech, or elevator statement is a short description of an idea, product, or company that explains the concept in a way such that any listener can understand it in a short period of time. Describe your novel as though it were an elevator pitch.
   
   Character tweets
   
   Character tweets. How would your characters introduce themselves to social media? Write their first tweet. You can do one for as many of your characters as you like, but remember you only have 280 characters.
   
   Main Character
   
   Write a few paragraphs about who your main character is before the novel starts. Not what they look like or what they do, but who are they on the inside? What do they believe? Want? Where are they in their life? (Why is the plot of this book you're about to write going to change them?)
   
   Character Motivations/Goals
   
   Write a few paragraphs about a tangible thing your main character wants before the book begins. Why do they want this? What will getting/achieving this thing mean to them? What do they think it will say about them? What is your main character's biggest fear keeping them from getting what they want? What is their misbelief about the world that fuels their fear?
   
   Inciting Incident
   
   What is the change that occurs in the main character's life that forces them into the story? For example, in the Aesop's fable 'The Sick Lion', the lion's old age causes him to be unable to hunt prey. This leads to him deceiving prey animals into entering his den by spreading the news that he was very sick, which sets up the entry of the story's 'hero', the fox. In another fable, 'The Dog and the Shadow, the inciting incident is when a dog snags some meat from the butcher's shop. Because he had the meat, he was deceived by his own reflection (of a dog holding meat) to think there was another dog in the river with a treat, which leads to the main event of this very short tale.
   
   
   Most challenging character
   
   Describe which character you think will be the most challenging to write. Plan how you will rise to that challenge! Do they need extra research? How might you tackle the scenes they are in differently to other scenes?
   
   Question & answer
   
   Questions! Post two (or more) questions in your entry, then, go round other threads answering questions with your thoughts. This month is likely to lead to different realisations for different people, or maybe some people are more experienced with NaNo than others. Either way, we are sure that if you ask a question of the YWS hivemind, the YWS hivemind will answer.
   
   Extra Challenges
   
   Use the media code to put in a song that will inspire you to write this story when the going gets tough.
   
   It could be the something that reminds you of the location your story takes place, one of your characters or just a good motivational song!
   
   

   CodeSelect all

   [media][/media]

   
   
   Character & location List
   
   List down all the characters and locations that will or might appear in the story. Include some that seem unlikely, but might for example be a cool setting to add to a scene that needs some spice. You could also include some names or general descriptions for supporting/ background characters that you might need in a hurry.
   
   Character questionnaire
   
   Fill out the following questionnaire from the NaNo site about at least one of your side characters, though the more you do the more prepared you will be.
   
   

   Spoiler

   Name:
   Age:
   Height:
   Eye colour:
   Physical appearance:
   Strange or unique physical attributes:
   Favourite clothing style/outfit:
   Where does he/she live? What is it like there? --
   Defining gestures/movements:
   Things about his/her appearance he/she would most like to change:
   Speaking style:
   Pet peeves:
   Fondest memory:
   Hobbies/interests:
   Special skills/abilities:
   Insecurities:
   Quirks/eccentricities:
   Temperament:
   Negative traits:
   Things that upset him.
   Things that embarrass him:
   This character is highly opinionated about:
   Any phobias? --
   Things that make him/her happy:
   Family (describe):
   Deepest, darkest secret:
   Reason he/she has kept this secret for so long:
   Other people's opinions of this character:
   Favourite bands/songs/types of music:
   Favourite movies:
   Favourite TV shows:
   Favourite books:
   Favourite foods:
   Favourite sports/sports teams:
   Political views:
   Religion/philosophy of life:
   Physical health:
   Dream holiday:
   Description of his/her house:
   Description of his/her room:
   Any pets? --
   Best thing that has ever happened to this character:
   Worst thing that has ever happened to this character:
   Superstitions:
   Three words to describe this character:
   If a song played every time this character walked into a room, what song would it be?

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