Blog Post #1

So, I'm going to write a novel.

It might not be very good. I'm using Nanowrimo as a kick-off point, so no doubt most of the first draft will be the same badly worded sentence repeated fifteen times in a row in an effort to up my word count. But nevertheless. It's something I've always wanted to do, and you only live once, so.

This is day one. Obviously, you need an idea, possibly a plot and some characters, before you write a novel. Different people need different amounts of planning. I mainly need someone to keep me accountable.

With that in mind, I, along with some fellow writers, am going to follow along with a Nanowrimo prep tool kindly provided by a friend of mine. You can find it here.

Some notes on this, first. You probably want to have a vague idea of what your novel is about before you start this. The first exercises are plotting exercises, yes, but it's a bit difficult to plan a plot when you don't have any idea of what that plot might be about. So do a little bit of brainstorming, perhaps, and come up with some rough thoughts first. Then try these exercises.

I have a reasonable idea of what I'm planning, so I'm diving straight into day one. Here we go.

And yes, I realise I am technically already a day behind. I feel like this is great foreshadowing for my Nano efforts, in which I typically don't start until day 5 and then write 90% of my novel in the last ten days. I'm just going to skip some of the free-writing days in an effort to catch up.

Today is day one: plan your antagonist's story line.

The first problem I've faced is that I don't have Microsoft Word, so I actually can't download some of the worksheets. I guess that makes picking one easier.

After having a look around, I'm going with this one.

I don't want to spoil too much of the plot (who knows, people might actually want to read this novel one day. If they don't, I promise I'll tell you everything), so I'm going to talk generally here.

So, step one: the set-up.

I'm excited about this: there are a lot of parallels between the antagonist and the protagonist in my novel, and I'm hoping having both plotlines fully planned out will allow to explore and hint at that more deeply.

So, if this were a novel about my 'antagonist', what would the set up be?

So the set up is: Nell (the 'antagonist') works for a government agency that administrates education. She is due to assess a group of candidates (an apparently typical day on the job) in a series of tests to do with extra abilities of some sort. However, on the morning of the assessment, there are some incidents at the original testing centre. They move the testing to another school. There is pressure on Nell for these assessments to go well: the better the system works, the easier it is to maintain order, after all. And Nell has a performance review coming up, so she wants to do well.

Having the venue changed is pretty normal, and doesn’t really throw her - this is treated as totally normal. She is nervous because she wants to do well, and she believes in the tests, although the reader will soon see that there is something odd about them.

This leads into step 2: the inciting incident.

Her inciting incident would actually be meeting the protagonist, who is, of course, one of the students to be assessed. Despite the disruption earlier, the tests go as planned until the last student, Imogen (the protagonist). Imogen's actions in the test incite something in Nell, and they cause a near fatal incident. Nell is knocked unconscious.

She wakes in hospital. Her boss is there, and they ask what happened. Nell lies, because she knows that she was complicit in breaking the rules of the test (and the law). This causes conflict because she loves the rules and does not want to see them broken. She becomes determined to track down the other student involved and solve what happened.

Next, the rising action.

This worksheet asks you to list five events involved in the rising action.

1. After Nell wakes up and is released from hospital, she starts to research the student. Finding out information about her isn't hard, but finding her location is. Eventually she realises that Imogen disappeared after the testing.

2. Nell researches, and begins to track Imogen down. Eventually, she finds her.

3. She observes Imogen and, once she realises what Imogen is doing, begins to sabotage her actions.

4. She overhears plans Imogen and her friends are making. She is nearly caught by them.

5. She escapes back to the city to try and stop them.

When I wrote this out in my private notes I found it hard to keep to five points. So, I've actually got six (whoops). But this plot planning exercise is really working: I'm able to see how the villain's plot will fit in with and reflect the protagonist's plot.

The climax

Nell arrives in the city where the story began. She confronts Imogen over her plans. They fight, and Nell accidentally kills Imogen's target. Imogen's friends congratulate her for the kill when they burst in, and arrest Nell.

The falling action

This section asks if the protagonist gets what they want and if the antagonist is defeated. Well, as the antagonist, Nell won't get what she wants. At least, not now. She is at the mercy of Imogen now, trapped in a cell.

I feel like Nell is going to have a better ending than Imogen, however. I vaguely had her ending in mind before I started, but working through this plan has given me a better idea of why she might go along with it, and how she might get there.

The conclusion

Well, writing down here would spoil it, wouldn't it? But this won't be the end of Nell - I've got plans for her.

Although I knew that planning out Nell's story line was necessary to writing this novel, I was worried that it might make me want to write her story instead. It hasn't, however: I still want to tell Imogen's story. However, I think I might write what happens to Nell next at some point.

This exercise was great for figuring out how the novel will fit together. I've got a better idea of timelines, how to make everyone's actions make logical sense depending on background, location etc. Even if your novel doesn't have an antagonist as such, I would still recommend plotting the main plotline for your other characters: it'll give you a much better idea of how your main plotline works.

I'm going to start day two tomorrow, and skip the free-writing days to catch up.