Gearing up for NaNoWriMo…Plan of Attack…The Cliffhanger

Today’s coffee is a skinny White Chocolate Mocha, which is total yum!

First off, I’d like to thank all the participants’ for making my first blogfest such a fun and learning experience for me. It really choked me up to witness so many fabulous writers support each other without agenda. You all are stars! I was shocked and humbled to be mentioned in this post by Karlene Petitt on Scribe Sisters here. The four writers who host this blog is completely awesome, and you should all follow them. And finally, thank you to the very supportive and friendliest editor for writers, Cassandra Marshall. Check out her site here.

With that said, in keeping with the theme of the blogfest, I wanted to give you all my plan of attack for NaNoWriMo. If you read my post about my project notebook, you would have seen this . . .

This is what I use to jot down scene ideas for my story. I use three to four sheets. The first sheet is used for scenes that establish the defining event and the rising stakes, which usually takes me a third of the way to the next page. On that second page, the scenes move the story with rising action. Then in the following scenes the character has no choice but to move forward–there is no turning back, and she must keep going to resolve the problem.

As we move to the next several scenes, the character is over her head but has small successes on her way to resolve the problem. Now my scenes are moving into the dark moment where all seems lost and the character must make a great sacrifice to prevent a tragedy (could be physical or moral). And finally, I move the scenes into the climax–the final obstacle to conquer before we can move on to the Resolution–where all the loose ends are neatly tied.

During NaNoWriMo, I’ll be working with my scene prompts for inspiration. I’m going to write in scenes and not worry about chapters at all. Each scene will have it’s own arc–a beginning, middle, and end. Keeping my focus on a scene at a time will help me to reach my goal. I’m not worrying about the big picture, because I’ve all ready mapped it out.

It is in the revision process that the magic happens. I’ll find the cliffhanger of a scene (or more than one scene) at that time and make my chapter break there. That is how I’ll find my chapters’ ends and beginnings. How I’ll make each chapter end in a cliffhanger.

I used to be a “fly by the pants” kind of writer without having a plan, letting my characters take me on the journey, but I found that they were like new computers and needed a program to follow. Their words are their own, and sometimes they point me in a different direction, taking me off my clear path for a bit. We may wander in the overgrowth for awhile, but we always find the main road in the end.

If you are participating in NaNoWriMo, good luck!

That’s it. Slurp!