NaNoWriMo planning

As the deadline for the start of NaNoWriMo approaches, I wondered how many of my followers had signed up to join in this year?  Two (possibly three) of my fellow Cleckheaton Writer's Group members are taking part this year and my fellow blogger Charmed Lassie has already confirmed that she will be joining in.

For those of you that haven't heard of NaNoWriMo, this is the annual challenge of National Novel Writing Month, where intrepid writers sign themselves up to the challenge of writing 50k words in a month.  To achieve this, a writer needs to write each day for the month of November (to hit 50k, this works out at approximately 1,667 words a day) and this is an excellent way to get into the discipline of writing each day, so for those writers that feel they need a little motivation in these Autumnal months, NaNo is a perfect way to get you started.

I have spent the past week outlining my characters (strengths, weaknesses, growth), story arc (beginning, middle and end) and structure (a plot plan if you will) to enable me to have a road map to follow to keep me on track to hitting the 50k words.  This will be the third year I have attempted to make it to the end and I am hoping that this year may be the one (last year I got to 42k and the first year 35k, so I get closer each time).

Thanks to an excellent couple of workshops by one of our CWG members and helpful messages from the NaNoWriMo team, I feel I am more prepared than ever before ahead of the challenge and I thought it might be helpful for my followers if I shared my 'road map' so that they can decide if they fancy the challenge of NaNoWriMo this November:

THREE ACT STRUCTURE PLAN

Separate your story into 8 distinct sequences (themes) to plot progression:

1) Status Quo (the real world of the story) - start of the first act/inciting incident (call to adventure)
2) Implication - this is where the protagonist embarks on their quest (following the refusal)
3) Preparation - this is the start of the second act and would show the readers hopes for the hero
4) Triumph - this is where the protagonist is closest to their goals and includes the turning point
5) Unravelling - this is where the antagonist begins to get the upper hand (readers fears)
6) Failure - this finishes with the crashing point (protagonist fails/antagonist close to goal)
7) Resurrection - this is act three (protagonist realises why they failed and why they must battle)
8) Salvation - begins with the false resolution/twist and ends with the balance restored

Let me know if any of you are joining in with NaNoWriMo this year and if you fancy a writing buddy, I am YorkshireBelle on the site.

#NaNoWriMo