The Preptober Countdown

Dear swap partner (I will add the name in future comments, as soon as partners are assigned),
today I did one At Home Workshop. I chose to do Day 02 - Develop Your Hook, for I have a nice story and all, but I still don't really know what to include/say when I pitch the idea to somebody. Therefore I have tried to figure out what kind of hook/story it really is. I'm rather unsure about the outcome to be honest. I think I narrowed it down, but will have to take a night or to sleep on it, I guess.

Partners are assigned! Let's get (and continue) posting!

2/7:
Okay, dear all, as we are all our partners 😅 Today I did Day 04 - Creating your characters. As I have already about 65000 words to my story I extended the task a bit, so I was of course listing my main characters but also the ones with only a few entries/lines. And as I have three protagonists but still they are all starting out at the same place I have made this a mind map like graphic with arrows marked with the kind of relation they have with each other. I think the outcome is pretty cool and I can definitely use this for writing and also for the story bibles swap. So this time I am really happy with what I've got, even though my husband looked at it and shook his head. Obviously for others it looks a little confusing, haha!

3/7
This morning I have done 08 - Character arc. Actually I like to read my characters' development when writing the story. But for the part I have already written I have done this detailed and for the part I have not written yet I was intentionally more vague. Of course I have ideas of how the story will develop and also where the characters need to be for it to happen, but I would rather let this unfold by itself, because otherwise I'd lose interest in writing. Whenever I know too many details of a story or the character's development I have never finished the novel. And whenever I let myself learn about it while writing I was interested enough to finish a story because I wanted to know what the outcome was. 😅 But doing this exercise I found out I will have to give more thought on one protagonist in particular. This is a rather helpful result I think

4/7:
I have just finished 11 - Finding Your Theme. This was by far the best preparation I have done until now! It was challenging to reduce the story to that basic a topic, but in the end now I think I've found my main three themes. I have written down "loyal friendship", "pacifist" and "equality". And suddenly I found that these might be the themes in every story I have written in all my life (with changing emphasis on each of the three). And that might be because those are three of the most important themes in my life too! This was rather eye-opening experience for me 🤗

5/7:
I have just finished 13 - Determining Your Goals. For me the theory behind this was rather old hat for me, but actually writing down goals is something I have lost sight of often enough. So I guess this part was not so much eye-opening as it was a necessary laborious task. I have written down the story goal, the story goal for each of the protagonists and the goals of every protagonists for every written and planned sequence of the story that they're in. I like the outcome. I guess I could've gone without this task, but it'll definitely help to make the protagonists act more consistently. So, a nice thing to have. :-)

6/7+7/7:
As I find many of the steps between 13 and 30 go into detail too much for me as a pantser, I feel like skipping them for this swap. I will actually take the time in the 20 days to come and do some of those workshops in a modified version, but I think that would not be according to the swap description. Therefore I have decided to do the last two steps now.
30 - Summarize Your Novel.
In university we have learnt a synopsis must have only 3 sentences and not too complex. For this step I tried to stick to that rule but with all the question asked at the end of the description I felt that was not possible. So now I went for five sentences. In the end I think a synopsis for me was a good way to summarize my plot ideas without getting into too much detail to risk spoiling the fun of and interest in writing. I'm rather happy with the outcome of this. 🙃
31 - Prepare to Write
This of course I didn't do physically, because I'm not starting tomorrow. But I made a detailed list of things I want/need to have close by and also I talked with my husband in detail, how I can manage to write as much and how we can schedule writing times so that he won't be too busy or even overstrained looking after our son and the dog. I hope to take 25 days in November to write 2000 words each, so I can take 5 days off if something unforeseen happens and makes it hard to write on that day.

This swap and the workshops was fun! 🤗 Even though I think not all of those workshops matched my writing routine. But that is why we could choose any seven of them I guess and some were really helpful! 🤗 I hope to hear from you all soon 🤗

@Stachel -- wow! You've done all of yours. I'm still working through some of the days. Will post details later.

@Artistic Yes, I had to actually. I knew the second half of October would be too busy with my birthday and some other appointments.. :-D Also this was fun and I couldn't stay away, haha :D

Dear swap partners, October has gotten away from me and I'm (as usual) behind in everything. However, I started off planning for this story in a mess of thoughts and have ended up super happy with where we are headed. Here are some of the exercises!

1 - Exercise 7, Antagonist: By sitting down and figuring out this kinda bad guy, I've developed the overarching plot for several books. I figured out his past and his quirks and why he is doing the things he is doing - and why my characters will do what they do! My antagonist started off as an ambiguous figure that was doing bad things but I had never sat down to write out why. I was really worried that I wouldn't figure out a way to make this series into, well, a series. By sitting with my antagonist, I've got a plan!

2 - Exercise 8, Character Arcs: I always fear that I am writing Mary Sue characters about halfway through my novels. I rewrote a previous version of this series because I just didn't get what she was going through. Now I have sat down and figured out the motivation driving her. I've also figured out her turn into a hero from just a random person. Her details are her own and I like her even more now that I know what she is doing. I also took the time to write out a secondary character's arc. I knew he was going to become a bigger character but I couldn't figure out motivations. So now I have his motivation, his history, and where he is going to go. He even has development and is not one dimensional. :) I've got a couple more characters to get done too.

3 - Exercise 16, Stakes: I was struggling with the plot/stakes of this novel and where it was all heading. The original idea was confusing. Now my stakes are that my character has to participate or lose access to her life - her friends, family, all of faerie. But, by participating, she could be losing her life to those hired by my antagonist. Everything is on the line and it's up to her to choose who, and what, she will become.

4 - Exercise 19, Brief Outline: This was a good exercise because while I am a plantser, I find that it’s easier to sit down and write when I have a selection of scenes to write. I had an idea of what was happening in the book, but it’s nice to have it written out so I can fill in the holes. The book begins with my main character being all but in witness protection after turning her cousin in for being a serial killer in the last book. She has heartfelt conversations with two other characters. She gets an ultimatum that she either participates in the Trial that comes around once every 100 years or she leaves Faerie entirely. Whilte participating, assassins come after her. She makes the decision to not run for the exit and instead hunt her hunters. At the end, she confronts the main antagonist (who is finally revealing himself as the villain) and takes a stand for herself. The two characters from the safehouse help her at the conclusion and she realizes that she doesn’t have to be alone.

5 - Exercise 31 - Prepare to Write! I’ve told my husband that I am not allowed to play a game with him unless I meet my word count for the day. We’ve been playing an online game, Sea of Thieves, together and have been enjoying it. It’s part of the reason I’m behind on everything. It eats up time and is a good procrastination tool. When I told him I needed to make my word count first, his response was “Okay, so I’ll bug the crap out of you to write then.” He gets me. Having that reward/goal will definitely get me to get words done in the morning and right after work before he gets home. That will help us have together time and keep me from procrastinating too much.

6 - Exercise 21, Opening Scene: I have been trying to open up all the novels in this series with the end of a bounty hunting scene. I don’t know why, I just think it’s a neat way to do it. For this novel, I am having her running with her bounty into the jail because she’s being chased by those pissed at her for turning in her cousin. Afterward, she’ll be walking downtown and someone will throw a cup of coffee on her for the same reason - her cousin was a charmer and his date of execution is soon. This should show her in a bit of a desperate and depressive situation. It will help her think about leaving Faerie later on.

7 - Exercise 11, Theme: The themes I’m trying to get across in this series/novel is standing up for yourself and going against the grain. The Seelie Court is supposedly the “good” fae. The Unseelie are the “bad” fae. And the Wild Court are supposed to be the “neutral” and wild fae. But nothing is ever what it seems. Aine could have chosen family over doing the right thing. She could have chosen fae over human. She could have broken the law that keeps them all safe, but she stood up and did the right thing no matter the personal consequences. Another theme is being true to yourself and discovering just who you are. No one is fully good or evil, we’re all somewhere in between. Find your own tribe and cling to it.

Hey there, swap partners!

The month of October absolutely snuck past me, thanks to work craziness, but I did manage to get this swap done. I just forgot to post here until now. LOL

1/7 - Day 1: Brainstorm Your Idea - So I knew before I even came into Preptober that I'd be working on my OutlawQueen Advent Calendar project for NaNo, but that was it. It didn't give me a lot to work with, but I ended up pretty sure I wanted to work in one of the Hyperion Heights AU verses that I created, preferably one of the DragonOutlawQueen ones. Beyond that? No clue, as I'm something of a plantser.

2/7 - Day 4: Creating Your Characters - So technically, since I'm using characters from Once Upon a Time, there aren't many characters to create. That said, I have some secondary OCs that I created to help round out the cast in my various Hyperion Heights AUs. Also, depending on which AU I end up writing in, I needed to create the cursed personas for the canon characters that weren't included in the curse. But, unless I create a brand new AU, those are already created.

3/7 - Day 9: Choosing a POV Style - This was a bit easier, particularly given that it's going to be a longer piece than I normally write for fic. Third person limited POV, present tense, alternating by chapter between the main three characters [Regina, Robin, Maleficent, but using their cursed names where apropos] and possibly some of the other "major" secondary characters, depending on the AU I settle on. Sometimes I like to write in first person POV, often alternating POVs by chapter, but it all depends on the project in question, to be honest.

4/7 - Day 10: Choosing Your POV Characters - Well, I kind of jumped the gun and did this one and the last one together. LOL It's going to be a given of my main three [Regina/Roni, Robin/Rob, and Maleficent/Mal], but I may throw in a POV chapter here or there from a secondary character if it's warranted.

5/7 - Day 12: Choosing Your Setting - Of my established DOQ Hyperion Heights AUs, they're already set in bars, so that's kind of a given. It's just a matter of who owns/runs the bar, tbh. If I go with a brand new AU, then I'm not sure yet. I'd kind of rather work in an existing AU because it's less overall to have to create, and I'm feeling a bit lazy this year, especially due to the pandemic making my job more stressful and I'd like to keep my writing/NaNo as easy/simple/stress-free as possible.

6/7 - Day 19: Create the Most Basic of Outlines - Yeah, I admit that I struggled here. The muses have been very coy this time around as to which AU we're going to work in, so I kind of tried to do basics in each one, just to be safe. They all feel like rubbish to me, but I'm also not one to do a lot of pre-planning, so this is all kinda new to me, tbh…

7/7 - Day 31: Prepare to Write! - I'll be completely honest here: I'm NOT prepared to write. LOL! But I have my rewards for writing [in the form of candy/sweets, plus my Weekly NaNo Rewards from artistic], I'll be setting aside at least 1 hour/night after work, plus as much as possible on the weekends to work on my project. I have all of my previous fics and notes for each AU at the ready, because I still don't know which AU I'm working in yet …and it's the 31st. sighs But this is very true to form for me. LOL

This swap was actually hard for me because I don't typically prep like this or do anything like Preptober, but I may try to do this more often and plan ahead across the board in the future.

Howdy all! I don't know why I waited until Nov. 1 to actually post my entries. I was done about a week and a half ago.

I didn't do the days in calendar order. I picked based on the needs I had for planning the NaNo 2020 project. To avoid confusion, I'll list them by the day on the Countdown.

1) Day 4 - Creating Your Characters. I had the most fun here. I really got started with the Character Sketch Swap hosted by @Statchel I found a photo that matched the image of my main character and outlined her basic background.

Things got really interesting as I started populating the rest of her world: She has a "son" she's raising -- son is in quotes because that's a complication that becomes a plot point. I roamed the internet for quite a while until I found an image that was just perfect. There's also an ex, a mentor and a love interest who will serve as comedic relief.

2) Day 6 - Creating the Novel's Conflict. It took me a while to really come up with this. After going back-and-forth thinking about it (something I've never done in this particular manner), I decided it is Person v. Self.

Perdita, the main character, helps other people but is her own worst enemy. There are three other conflicts that I've created for this story. "Master Lists for Writers" by Bryn Donovan helped in this regard. It's a book of lists that are basically prompts and what ifs to stimulate the imagination.

There is one element that I'm going to have to figure out as I write. Time ran out trying to brainstorm a reason for something the antagonist found and will use against the MC.

3) Day 8 - Developing Character Arcs. This was done simultaneously with creating characters because the arcs were created as I formed the characters. I made a bubble chart (can't think of the right word for this at the moment -- there is a name for it) with the MC at the center and how all of the other characters are connected.

4) Day 14 -- Discovering External Conflicts. This was another exercise that went along with Days 4 and 6. It's driving me batty that I can't remember the name of the bubble chart thing!! The antagonist, the ex and the mentor all needed issues that would in some way impact the MC's life. The antagonist wants to hurt her, the ex is needy with complicated issues involving the boy, and the mentor presents the Call to Adventure that Perdita isn't interested in, but will, of course, wind up in the middle of.

Whoops! Forgot to add the link to the Bryn Donovan thesaurus: "Master Lists for Writers" I mentioned on Day 6.

And while I'm recommending resources, this oldie but goodie is excellent: "The Writer's Partner" by Martin Roth, 2nd and 3rd editions. The first edition (I have both) was called "The Fiction Writer's Silent Partner." The list format of this 1990s book is similar to what Donovan uses in "Master Lists."

5) Day 16 -- Plot Stakes. This was the fun part! I did this with the Preptober 2020 #1: Start with a Plan swap. I generally do this step of the planning process by sitting down with a legal pad and not looking up until I've come up with 20 ideas. This year, I used the mini-zine method E.A. Deverall describes as "The One Page Novel Structure." which takes cues from Joseph Campbell's "The Hero's Journey" and Chris Vogler's "The Writer's Journey." Since those are so well known, I haven't added links. (And, if you're reading this far, here's a little preview -- if you signed up for the Cyber Write-in 2020 swap, you're going to get a handout that has story structure formulas!)

6) Day 17 -- Turning an Idea into a Summary Line. This is an exercise I used to make my students do -- but not the way Janice Hardy approaches it. The end result is the same though: a single sentence (ideally under 25 words) that describes the full story. It's also known as an elevator pitch or a logline. Think the short sentences that describe movie plots -same thing. When I submit story proposals, that summary is usually the first line of the synopsis/outline.

It's a challenge to get it short, but it's easier to do BEFORE the manuscript is written. It's also a focusing exercise. Love it!

7) Day 19 -- Create the Most Basic of Outlines. I did this Oct. 16-17. And since I didn't get around to the full 4- to 6-page outline I usually do, the mini zine outline -- which hits all of the high points of the story -- is going to be my working document for NaNo.

That's it. My seven items.

I close with Day 31 as an extra: Prepare to Write. Frozen dinners in the freezer, Hershey's Kisses in a bowl, stocked up on tea, NaNo mug out and ready.

I'm getting this writing party started right now!