Young Writers Society

PLANMO PROGRESS PART 1

I've had the book Story Genius by Lisa Cron sitting here staring at me all year. I tried to use Story Genius for a camp planmo situation this year, but then never really finished. In doing that, I learned that while I find a lot of aspects of Story Genius really helpful for my little pantser brain, it doesn't work as well for me when I first draft.

Now! I've already written the first draft of NO BUNNY BUT YOU. So I decided to return to Story Genius to help me figure out my developmental edits and team, it's actually been so helpful.

I have a few chapters left to read of Story Genius and so far I've:
* fleshed out my main character (Maia) a lot more and dug into her internal conflict
* solidified the major developmental plot change
* planned & wrote a new opening scene
* realized there was a major flaw in logic in the new opening scene that impacts the new major plot change
* figured out a possible fix for said flaw in logic and am now working on tweaking my opening scene again!

*Gilmore Girls vibes + fall vibes

My kind of vibes <333

PLANMO PROGRESS PART 2

I have finally finished reading Story Genius
Not all aspects of the second half worked as well for me compared to the first half, BUT there's this lovely thing in Story Genius called "scene cards" that will definitely help me rework my plot.

I've now:
* written a version of the first chapter that I don't hate but will likely still be tweaked
* loosely plotted the first five chapters
* realized there will be more rewriting than I originally thought lol

I'm feeling good though! My plan now is to plot ~five scenes at a time and then write them. I have my major goal posts and the overall arc of the story in mind already. I'll definitely start writing before November 1 and my goal will remain to do all my developmental edits by the end of November!

When I say developmental edits, I mean the major plot changes and rewriting. I'll do at least two more rounds of edits (strengthening the prose edits and line edits) before I send it to my next round of betas)

PLANMO PROGRESS PART 3

I've always felt like developmental edits feel like open heart surgery (which I feel confident about saying not because I've ever performed open heart surgery, but because I've watched approximately 827591741 hours of medical dramas). Well developmental edits for bunny rom com feel more like open heart surgery than usual.

I was pondering how I'd keep track of *new* words written for NaNo, rather than words I'm able to recycle from the old draft to this new draft (because I would still like to try for 50k). I write in Scrivener so it's easy for me to access the first draft compared to the new draft. I decided to put first draft chunks that I think will work in the new draft (based on what I've outlined) in a different color in my current draft so it's easy for me to tell the difference resulting in beautiful frankenstein scenes.

So far I've done the first three chapters, and it's been surprising how much I haven't recycled so far and how much is new words. I'll be curious to see how that balance continues as I go! I'm happy with the direction the story is going so far and how my story genius planning has translated into the actual writing.

this is the most prepared i've ever felt before nano and i'm not sure what to do with myself

ahh i truly am always in love with your plot ideas. i can't wait to see how you edit your projects!!

Thank you @JustPerks!! That's so kind <3

DAY 1

Bunny rom com (No Bunny But You) is starting the month at 14807 words. That's sort of a fake word count though because some of that is chunks of the last draft that I think could work in this draft, and those bits will get changed a lot. Basically, don't think too hard about my daily word count totals and my total manuscript totals and why the math doesn't make sense.

Today: 1706
Total: 15793
NaNo total: 1706

One little line: "Getting lost in history wasn’t part of the plan."

My goal/plan is to work on one scene per day with breaks sprinkled in to plan the next chunk of scenes. Today I finished chapter 4! It was a battle to get there because most of this was new words, but we got there in the end!


For reference...

DAY 2

Today: 796
Total: 16035
NaNo total: 2502

One little line: "Hearing the request come out of my mouth, I appreciated how odd it sounded and how odd it was that he was really pulling a whole knife out of my bag to cut into a whole apple I stashed in there."


My intention today was to finish chapter 5 and I'm about halfway there. I plotted the scene after this one, which also needed to be done, so I'm calling today a success! I figured my word could would appear lower today because there's a lot of recycled pieces from the first draft in this chapter. (the chapter is actually just shy of 1400 words right now, but i'm only counting new words for my nano totals).

As of yesterday, we're halfway through act 1 and my hope is to finish act 1 by the end of the weekend!


EDIT: WAIT. After I posted this I had a little brain wave about the scene after the one I plotted tonight. I had half the ingredients, found the rest of the ingredients, so now that scene is plotted too. I also wrote 38 more words (that will actually be for this new scene I plotted a few scenes from now) because they popped into my head and I didn't want to forget them!
none of this makes sense it's time for bed

DAY 3
Today: 12 lol
Total: 16047
NaNo total: 2514

One little line:


Today I succumbed to the siren call of Sims 4. We.... won't talk about how long I played today after work.........

I'm officially behind where I wanted to be today, but it's okay because there's a whole weekend of possibilities ahead! Still wanted to write something today even if I didn't have it in me to finish this scene.

Today I succumbed to the siren call of Sims 4. We.... won't talk about how long I played today after work.........

Are we...the same person? I literally wrote 10 words today for this exact reason, I was too busy advancing in the detective career...

@IcyFlame lol I decided that November would be an excellent time to restart the 100 baby challenge and I'm already five babies in and she's pregnant right now.....

DAY 4
Today: 757
Total: 16029
NaNo total: 3271

One little line: "Compliments to my therapist."


I worked on about 1500 words today, but again only about half ended up being new words and I'm only counting new words for NaNo. We're done with chapter 5 and I started chapter 6. My goal was to get through ch. 6 today as well to get back on track after my sims 4 derailment, but I think I'm still in good shape to have a shot at finishing act 1 this weekend!

DAY 5
Today: 1283
Total: 15956 lol at my ms total going down
NaNo total: 4554

One little line: "The last time Seth Lorenzen was in my bedroom, I had Tangled sheets and a posters from [something] on my walls"

IT'S SATURDAY AND IT'S SUPPOSED TO RAIN MOST OF THE DAY WHICH EQUALS A PERFECT WRITING DAY!!

I'm actually really pleased with my progress today! I worked on about 2000 words worth of this scene and finished ch. 6, got a start on ch. 7, and planned a few more scenes. My overall word count went down because remember I said at the beginning my total word count was fake. A lot of ch. 5 & 6 were recycled from the last draft and about half of each ended up being new words, so deleting the old stuff that I didn't end up needing made the total go down.

I'm still a little behind where I hoped to be and I don't think I'll finish the first act tomorrow, but that's okay! The month is young and I don't want to push too hard yet and burn out or write stuff that won't end up working.

DAY 6
Today: 554
Total: 15929
NaNo total: 5108

One little line: “I’m thinking pumpkin chocolate chip cookies,” I said because honestly it was a crime to deny yourself fall flavors once the leaves started to change.


I wasn't really feeling it today and didn't end up doing as much as I planned. After doing two very recycled scenes in a row, it was hard writing a scene that I have to do pretty much from scratch! Actually the rest of the scenes for this act will be pretty much from scratch.

Did a little more planning, and I'm calling it a day!!