Monica Leonelle breaks down the Wanderer energy, the internal character arc from roughly 25-50% through your novel where protagonists gather resources, break false beliefs, and rebuild their support system. She walks through a worksheet to map each character's emotional journey, new skills, and relationships, then track their shift into Warrior energy by Act 2's end.
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Hey there, Igniter! Monica Leonelle from theworldneedsyourbook.com. Today is day 15 of the challenge. We are halfway through the challenge, so crazy to me, and today we're talking about the Wanderer energy. We are on day 15. We're talking about characters in the Wanderer energy. So we are still in the middle 25 to 50% of your book. The Wanderer energy and the response the response, they correspond to the same portion of your novel. During the Wanderer energy, similar to the response, your character is gathering resources and skills that will fight the antagonist. And this is going to be more from an internal perspective. So, you know, the response is kind of like externally what's happening. They're building specific skills and The Wanderer energy refers more to, um, the internal character arc. So what, you know, what false beliefs are they breaking through? What emotions are they going through? And so this is going to kind of map out the emotional roller coaster of this section for the character. So they're going to be, um, meeting new people. Especially new mentors. They're also saying goodbye to the old. So, uh, the way I think of this is you strip away their entire support system during the Orphan energy, you rebuild it during the Wanderer energy. And so that, I mean, that is a very like hero's journey type of, um, explanation of that. So it doesn't, you know, you, you think about like, well, how does that apply to like a romance novel, for example? Um, I mean, basically it's— with the romance novel, it would be like they're breaking through false beliefs. Um, and so this is the same thing, you know, you're taking away all of their comfort basically, and you're putting them in uncomfortable situations, and they have to rise above that and, um, meet challenges head-on. So in this energy, it's a very passive energy still. So, um, you know, this is where they are kind of letting life happen to them as opposed to coming up with their own plans. So they're almost in like survival mode instead of, um, in an attack mode. Defensive mode versus offensive mode. So you can think of this as many different things. The warrior energy is really the contrast or the foil to this. And so that the two energies together they make up the middle section of your novel, or what some people would call like the Act 2 of the novel. Um, okay, so not much more to say about this. Uh, this is, you know, it's pretty straightforward. So, um, you're gonna do the same thing that we did a couple days ago in Day 13 where we talked about the orphan energy. Uh, you have a, you know, this person on the screen, and you have the Wanderer and the Warrior sides. So what it— what does this character look like as the Wanderer, and then how do they look by the end of this section as the Warrior? So they may have new skills, new knowledge, friends, foes, new assets, new objects. What are the highs and lows of the transformation? If you're writing an action type of sequence, do they get injured at some point? Uh, there, you know, there's a lot that you can map out here. How do they carry themselves differently? So as you visualize these changes, you will actually be able to show this more easily throughout your book. So you can do this for 5 characters, and then at the end of this section, there is room for scene notes again. There are actually 4 pages of this. Of course, you can— if you have the printable version, you can print out more if you'd like. Um, and so with this, it's again, it's scene number, scene description, scene notes. And so what, what you're ideally doing with these pages is you are combining the last two days. So day 14, the response, and day 15, characters in the wanderer energy. You're kind of combining that to figure out what scenes need to go in this section. Thank you so much for watching and listening to Day 15. If you haven't seen Day 14, which was all about the response, just know that the response and the Wanderer energy, they really go together, so it will be helpful to you if you watch both. If you have any questions, make sure you leave a comment below. I'm happy to help you and support you in any way. Perhaps I could answer your question, maybe drop a resource, who knows? But you won't know unless you ask. So make sure you leave a comment if you have a question. Additionally, if you haven't signed up for the challenge, you still have time even though we're halfway through. 30 days is a really long time, so we will be here for another 15 days. So make sure that you sign up if it's of interest to you. There are links in the description. Hope this has been helpful to you. Have a wonderful day.
