Plotting Act 2

Act 1 of my current upper middle grade science fiction really wrote itself. It's very

character driven, things happen in that story because of what the protagonist or the deuteragonist do.

Similarly, in Act 3, everything is cause and effect. The protagonist is pushing through the innermost cave, towards the climax and the reward similarly is all due to the protagonist and deuteragonist.

This is not true for Act 2. Act 2 is a series of things that happen. It wasn't working. Even with using Lisa Cron's Story Genius scene cards, I just couldn't do it right. The 'And so...' at the end of the scene card didn't always make sense. It was more like, what I wanted to happen in the story and it wasn't coming together. It still isn't, if I'm honest, but I'm on the way.

I'm trying something else.

Can my day job help?

Story structure from Ingrid's Notes

Act 2 of a novel, film, story is often called the Trials and Rituals. Other names include Fun and Games, Resistance and Struggle, Push to Breaking Point, the Special World, there are lots of names for things that happen in Act 2, and after that, there's the Mid Point and Approaching the Innermost Cave. These are from

I thought I'd change it up a little.

I thought I'd call it, Teach, Practice and Apply.

In the day job, if I was teaching Phonics for example, I'd teach the sound /ee/. We'd practice sounding the sound out, practice the sound in words, read the sound in words and write the sound in words. Then we would apply that to reading an entire sentence or writing an entire sentence.

Could I apply this to Act 2 of my novel?

Teach

In this section, the main character learns the rules of the new world. Maybe she has new powers, she learns how to use those. It's the learning section. Everything that is new in the new world, through the threshold, the main character is learning.

Practice

This is where the main character has learnt a little bit about the new world, her new powers, new relationship or whatever it might be, and she fails. Her efforts are frustrated, but she's practicing and she does get some things right.

Apply

I was thinking that apply might lead more into Act 3, where the main character uses what she has learnt and practiced to bring the climax and reward. 

Give it a try

Between day job and kids, I've found it a bit tricky to get round to actually applying this idea to my novel. I've sketched out the idea on a notebook, and it's getting typed up. At the moment it is a series of things I want to happen, to make sure the ending happens, so I've got to think about how to make it all character driven and support the character arc of the main character. 

Hopefully using my day job skills will bring it together. Here's hoping. 

I'm Back!

If I'm honest, I've never been away! What I have been doing is writing. And reading. Lots and lots of writing and lots and lots of reading.

I've been reading books that I can't put down, much to my husband's annoyance, and reading books about writing.

I've been writing draft 3.440,004 of my upper middle grade science fiction. I did try writing a middle grade fantasy but my science fiction always calls me back. I don't think I can be finished with it until the whole thing is written and submitted.

I've been working really hard on my sci fi. I'm working on connecting the reader to my characters. I've done a lot of work on tragic characters as that is something which apparently captures the reader. I love reading my book so I don't think I'm a good judge haha!

I'm also baring in mind the words of my amazing beta reader, @MarieKorman, who said she really liked the part of the story where they go through the threshold. That is something I'm really working on and I'm going to do a blog post all about how I'm tackling that, using experience from my day job to help me. And, of course, Lisa Cron's book, Story Genius.

There's something about this particular story that I can't put down. I'm usually quite good at thinking, This story isn't working, time to try something else. I've done that with a number of projects I've thought about starting in the mean time. But there is something, something special about this story that needs to be written.

Next blog post will be about how I'm plotting act 2 of my story. I've got act 1 down, pending editing, and act 3 sort of wrote itself, also pending an edit. But making act 2 character driven rather than a series of things that happen has been a challenge.  Don't worry, though, I'll get there!