Alright, NaNo Warriors,

We’ve done some pretty good prep work up to this point.  Today, we are just going to add one more thing and examine a couple other spots.

We’ve looked at how our character begins and ends the story and we looked at the character’s journey with the Midpoint and 3rd act break so today we have one more act break to look at.

Act 2 break

Act 2 should be the point in the story when the main action is starting to kick off, so it should be somewhat of an important event in regards to the story.

In Star Wars, this is the point when Luke decides that he’s going with Obi Wan off into space and to become a Jedi.

If you’re writing a romance, this is probably when your characters start to come together or date for the first time.

Something needs to happen here for your main character to accept change.  Hopefully, that change is the one that we are writing towards with the ending you picked out.

Examine your character’s decisions

Like I said yesterday, make sure that your character is the one driving the action.  So many times when we are thinking about plot, we think of the plot acting on the character, and it really needs to be the other way around.  The characters need to be the ones really driving the change.  So while Luke’s entire world has been turned upside down (his aunt and uncle were burned alive) he could still decide to stay on the planet and mourn, or he could go off into space with this crazy old man.

He chooses to go, and so we have a story.

So what we’re going to do on this Friday is take it a little slow and examine all of our major story points so far.  The major turning points we should be looking at are all the ones that we’ve planned out so far.

• The beginning of the story
• Break into Act 2
•  Midpoint
• Break into Act 3
• Ending

So far, I haven’t really talked about how many folders or cards you should have for each one, and there’s a reason for that.  Each one can span multiple cards.  Instead of thinking about the Act 2 break as a single point, think about the moment as a multiple card/folder idea.  The pivot from Act 1 to 2 or 2 to the midpoint is a single point, but without everything leading up to it, the moment doesn’t have much impact.

So while you’re plotting and planning, think in broad strokes.

Wrap up

We don’t have too much time left, but hopefully, some of these scenes are coming together.  If you can get these major points established, I feel like it makes all the fun stuff in between easier to make.  Your story has now been divided by major scenes, so you just have to figure out how to get from point to point.

Are you having trouble coming up with these important points?  Where do you think you’re struggling the most?

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