Young Writers Society

ExOmelas
Oct 17, 2017

Que, Steggy, Konijnje, BluesClues, Mea

I think rather than planning these out regularly the best thing to do is just do them when I have free time, ie right now xD

Challenge 7 - The Great Plot-hole Quest

Now that you've had a bit of time to reflect on the outline you began in challenge 5, I'd like everyone to interact on those a bit. Post your outline on the club's wall, then everyone go around commenting on each others' pointing out plot-holes.

This can be as simple as asking a question about a character's motivation, or as fundamental as noticing a systematic problem with a novel's entire setup (although if you decide to point out something like that, please be sensitive - it's very brave to expose your not-entirely-formed ideas to critique).

I think this is really important because everyone has different instincts and intuitions. There are probably aspects of your plan that entirely make sense to you because of some experience you've had or some bias you just can't shake. If we merge all of these instincts, I am sure we will be able to correct for any big problems.

I'm envisioning threads of discussion below the posts on the wall, but it's probably also a good idea to collate everything into a post in your journal/log/etc in the forum.

Have fun everyone!

(ALSO: If your outline is quite long make sure to enspoiler it so the wall doesn't get too cluttered. Spoiler code looks like this: (spoiler) (/spoiler) but with square brackets instead of curly brackets.)

The Official PlanMo Club
Oct 15, 2017

BluesClues, Steggy, Que, Konijnje

Totally not a way of procrastinating from doing my reading...

Challenge 6 - Structure

A lot of the stuff I cover from now on will have been looked at in the Spark to Story workshop I ran, this is one of those. But since I live in a very inconvenient time zone and not too many people were able to attend, I'm hoping this won't matter over much.

A lot of my favourite stories have extremely interesting structure. Recently, I read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, which has a present-time character telling the story of his past, but with occasional interludes from the present (I'm not sure they're quite enough to merit a hundred pages of present-time at the start, but that's by the by). There's also another two of my favourite novels Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, who uses a historian-like narrator figure to make you feel like you're reading this in the world of the story, as well as The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin, which alternates between the main character's present and past and brings the past up to where the present started right at the end. All of these stories would have had the same essential meaning had they not included these techniques, but who knows if the latter two (especially Strange and Norrell) would have ended up on my list of favourite books.

What these things do is add another layer to the story that doesn't take away from the plot. It occurs at the same time as character development, often in fact contributing to it. I therefore think it is a really really important thing to explore.

Obviously you don't have to have interesting structure, since stories can happily exist without it (eg Harry Potter), so even if you just want to think about what you could do but not actually do it, I'd consider this task complete.

I don't have an ATLA example because a discussion of structure would have to be so holistic, so here are a couple of techniques I think it would be worth exploring:

- Anonymous narrators whose character is important to how you view the story
- Flashbacks and flashforwards
- Changes in perspective
- Are you writing in first or third person? Why that choice?

Hope this helps,
Biscuits

The Official PlanMo Club
Oct 12, 2017

BluesClues, Steggy, Que, Lumi, Virgil, Aley, Mea

Hey all, I'm going to a debating competition all weekend so I should probably outline challenge number 5 just now.

Challenge 5 - The beginnings of an outline

Hopefully you should have a lot more details about character, setting etc in your head by now. But I also expect they're kind of a mess of thoughts. It's quite intimidating to get from there to an orderly outline, so Kays has come up with a couple of techniques.

1. Draw your outline as a graph. There's definitely something about this in the NaNo workbook too and seriously if anyone knows where I found that the first time I would loooove a link. Anyway, I think there's a couple of ways to go about this.

(a) Your vertical axis is how fast the plot is advancing. This means the climax of the story would be right up at the top with possibly a big drop signalling a cliffhanger right after it.

(b) The vertical axis is how good things are for your protagonist. Basically think of it as measuring their happiness up and down.

2. Write everything important that you've thought of in order, but leave big gaps in your list. Then in between write in smaller letters (though size is not essential if you don't know the bbcode for it) what happens between those events. How do you get from your beginning to the setup of your main action? etc

I understand that Kays' workshop is going to be about this kind of thing though so if these ways of outlining don't work for you make sure to drop by for that and see if anything there is of more use.

Hope this helps

ExOmelas
Oct 11, 2017

Que, DragonNoir, Steggy, ScarlettFire

Alrighty everyone, the pad for the next workshop is live! I hope to be starting in about half an hour but will wait a while for people if necessary.

https://biscuitsleguin.writerfeedpad.com/113

ExOmelas
Oct 11, 2017

BluesClues, Que, Aley

Back again!

Challenge 4 - Side Characters

Side characters are really important that they be just that, characters, not just sidekicks. It can be difficult to devote enough attention to them to make them realistic when they're not your main focus, so that's what this challenge is for.

I've stolen this character questionnaire from this NaNo prep workbook on the actual website but unfortunately I don't remember where it is to link you to it. I got the questionnaire itself from a WFP I had it saved on (oddly enough for an Advanced Higher Computing project, long story).

(Any ATLA fans feel free to suggest alternatives Also can anyone think of ones for Zuko and Toph? I'm thinking MCR for Zuko but not sure what song and just no idea for Toph.)

ExOmelas
Oct 11, 2017

BluesClues, Que, Mea, Aley

Hey everyone, sorry for the silence on the challenges (a debating competition threw me off schedule both during the competition itself and the rest of this week as I try to catch up). I'm going to make up for this by posting about challenges 3 and 4 today!

Challenge 3 - The Villian

I would say that your antagonist is your second most important character at least. It would even be possible to argue that they are the most important because typically it is the villain that is the driving force behind the plot tension, the reason why your hero can't succeed in their aims. Therefore, I think it's really important to put a lot of work into building up your villian.

There are two sides to any story, so in order to make your villian a person rather than an obstinate brick wall, I want you to write about their aims, characteristics, flaws and fears from their POV, preferable in first person. Of course, if you get into a good flow, you're welcome to write more, but those are the basics I think everyone needs to get down. Stories are so much more compelling when the reader's loyalties are conflicted.

For example...

Hi, my name is Princess Azula and I'm going to win this war for the Fire Nation. My father is my hero and it is my life's ambition to prove my worth to him. I always get the feeling that the rest of my family is a disappointment to him: my brother can't even catch that goddam Avatar and my mother... My mother is the biggest disappointment.

I would describe myself as an ambitious person, as I've discussed, but I also do care about my friends. Ty Lee and Mai have been my friends since childhood and though I don't always understand them I know we'll always be a team.

Well, my mother claims that my biggest flaw is that I'm a "monster". I prefer to think of myself as a victor, of course, but maybe I do get somewhat narrow focus at times.

God, really? Well, if I had to pick a fear I guess I'm afraid that the little Avatar kid will beat us and we won't be able to bring in the great age of the Fire Nation. He's determined, him and his little friends, determined to stand in the way of the world's progress.

I also think it would be fun to write this as a lament if you're feeling poetic/lyrical, but that's just something for fun.

Hope this helps

zaminami
Oct 9, 2017

Can someone give me a template or something for the Worldbuilding question?

I'm still having trouble.

The Official PlanMo Club
Oct 9, 2017

BluesClues, Konijnje, Virgil, Mea, Que

Hey all, hope the challenges are going okay and that Kays' workshop went well I (Biscuits) have been away for the weekend but I'm back and ready to dive back into the world of NaNo. I'm pleased to present the second workshop of the month, From Spark to Story.

The first workshop being the Idea Jam and the third being about plot outlines, I figured it made sense to look at what happens in the middle. It's not always clear exactly what to do, and often there isn't an exact solution that applies to all cases. So on Wednesday the 11th of October at 7pm GMT join us as we look at character, world-building and style. After those three topics I'll open it up to the audience to suggest other areas we could look at, since it is such a flexible and personal process.

It is a long journey from that first idea to a completed NaNo project, but the PlanMo club is here to make sure you don't get lost.

zaminami
Oct 7, 2017

Que

Come jam with meh: PlanMo Help

zaminami
Oct 7, 2017

DragonNoir, Que

Can someone jam on the old Jam thing? I need someone to talk to lol

The Official PlanMo Club
Oct 6, 2017

Que, DragonNoir

https://nikayla.writerfeedpad.com/731

The link to the PlanMo Jam is now open!

- Kays

The Official PlanMo Club
Oct 4, 2017

BluesClues, Virgil, Konijnje, Que, PrincessInk, Mea, DragonNoir

Hey everyone, how's planning going? Given that it's now the 4th of October, I thought it would be a good idea to spotlight the second challenge.

Now that you've thought about the world for your story, it's time to think about the story itself. And where else to start but the beginning? For the second challenge, we want you to tell us about what your opening scene is going to be like.

There are probably a couple of things to keep in mind. The most important is this: what key plot point is going to take place? Your plan may be loose at this stage and details may change, but what is the one thing that has to happen in that first scene no matter what? (It would also be reasonable to consider this as "first important scene".)

You maybe also want to think about how you can introduce your setting in a non info-dump-y way. The best way I can see to do this is to plan your character's actions to include interactions with the setting. Especially if your setting description is hidden in plot advancement, this can help it to feel nice and subtle. For example:

"You don't understand, Uncle, I have to catch the Avatar!" Zuko snarled.

Uncle Iroh flinched and turned his head away. He hated the way Zuko's face twisted up like that, all too much like his father's. Iroh could tell from the heavy breathing that Zuko had not relaxed so he continued to stare out across the southern ocean. But after a moment the longing for the warmer climes of the Fire Nation got too much and he had to return to the conversation at hand.

zaminami
Oct 4, 2017

Hey, can someone delete the conversation about if "fite" or "fight" is spelled right in my forum? I want to keep my forum clean... thanks!

Konijnje
Oct 3, 2017

Que, ExOmelas, BluesClues, Virgil

This will be my first time trying to do NaNo. Any tips for completing it?

TheBlueCat
Oct 2, 2017

Que, ExOmelas, Virgil, BluesClues, Konijnje

I *really* want to do NaNo BUT high school has sooo much homework.. also I can't write two things at the same time but... I am going to plan for it and *try* to do it! I already have an idea in my head so now I just need to plan it out, but I also have a feeling that it will end up being a long story, and I might not be able to write it in a month, but all the same, I will try!