Hopefully, you guys are making some good progress.  I haven’t had any time to actually spend on my own novel prep, but hopefully, that will change this weekend.  Even though I haven’t sat down to plan this out, I have been running through these prep ideas in my head.

Still, I have lots to plan.

To the Middle

Today’s exercise will mirror what we’ve done this week, but now from the beginning of Act 2 to the Midpoint and beyond.

If you filled in your Act 1 by writing questions you wanted to answer about your characters, you know what we’re going to do for the Act break to the midpoint.

Now though, we need to address how your character gets to that midpoint.  If you remember from last week when we plotted out that midpoint, this point should be an emotional high or low for your character.  So your main character will need to get there somehow.

So how do you get them to that point?  It depends on how you set it up in Act 1.  For Leddy, my main character, I’ve established in Act 1 that she is an addict that wants to get clean for her son.  She wants to do this because she feels like she lets her son down.  Heading towards the Midpoint, Leddy is going to do well controlling her addiction and being there for her family.  At the midpoint, she is going to start to think that she’s invincible and that she has everything under control.  As she hits that midpoint though, she will be tested with drugs (because of the case) and she will fail.

Things will then spin out of control for her.

But you have to set these moments up in Act 1 to make these things pay off later.

Conflict

Once you have everything plotted out to the midpoint, you’ll do just like we did yesterday – check for conflict.

Each scene still needs to have conflict.  If the characters aren’t under duress why is the reader still reading?  If they are standing there being talked to and there’s no tension, there is no story.

There doesn’t have to be a fight or a person in every conflict.  It just needs to be something going against your main character, something holding your character back.

The recovery

Once you get to the midpoint, take a break.

It’s always good to get away from your writing.  It helps you get your mind straight and not just plow through everything.

Once you’ve taken your break and you’re ready to handle the next part tackle the rest of Act 2.  We talked about it last week that Act 3 starts when your character starts to overcome whatever it was that knocked them down at the midpoint.

Don’t go too far at this point.  We’re just starting to head towards recovery – towards redemption.

We will need to save some stuff for Act 3.  So for now, we’re just going to lay down scenes that will be giving your main character something they need to overcome.

Mystery novels might unleash another -major- clue here.

Romance novels might have one of the characters come to the conclusion that they need the other, so they better find the way to apologize, etc.

Wrap up

By the time you’re done with this section, you should have two-thirds of the novel plotted and every scene should have conflict.

Hopefully you feel good about what you’ve created.  If you don’t, don’t panic.  Not yet anyway.  We’ll have more coming soon.

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