Full Book! Novel Writing Prep - USA TODAY Bestseller Monica Leonelle -The Productive Novelist Series

To OneMind, where this book started. Introduction. Welcome to 30 Days of Novel Prep. I'm going to get right to it. You want to write a novel, and you would ideally like to make that first draft happen fast. Maybe you are trying to increase your speed at publishing, or maybe you are on a tight deadline with your publisher. Maybe you are an aspiring author who wants to participate in National Novel Writing Month, #NaNoWriMo, for the first or twelfth time. Maybe you don't have a deadline or a plan, but just want to improve your writing craft in 30 days. All are welcome! 30 Days to a Better Novel. For the next 30 days, I'll be sharing the most important 30 snippeted lessons from my Story Symmetry framework. Each lesson includes a short description of the concept or exercise we are learning for the day, several examples from popular franchises, usually modern books that have been turned into movies or television shows, and prompts, questions, that help you apply the concept to your novel. I also have a section on challenges and gotchas called "Feeling Stuck?" in case you, well, feel stuck at any point. How to use this book. Do I really have to do it over 30 days? The lessons are designed to take about 20 to 30 minutes each, so you could probably get through the entire book over a long weekend or even a focused several hours a night after work for a week. Additionally, once you've read the book and understand the concepts behind the prompts, You can get the companion workbook called Novel Writing Prep Companion Workbook: The Productive Novelist Workbooks #1 and work through that for each new novel you are plotting. If you really love my style of outlining, you may also want to check out Story Symmetry for Novelists: Tune Your Story into Harmony and Alignment to Create a Better Reading Experience: The Productive Novelist #5. Both of these supplementary resources are available at all online retailers. Can I use this book as a pantser, someone who writes by the seat of their pants? I am agnostic regarding the age-long debate over pantsing versus plotting. In my opinion, it doesn't matter in the slightest what phase of your writing you discover your story. All that matters is that your best story makes it into print. You can discover parts of your story at all points in your writing: outlining, drafting, and editing. If you are a plotter, this is a great book for preparing a detailed outline of your novel before you write. If you are a pantser, you can use this book to edit your draft into submission after you write. While this book was designed to be used before writing the first draft, writing craft does not change just because you have more words in front of you. Do I have to do all the lessons? No, you don't. Feel free to skip any lessons that you don't want to do. If you do even one lesson, you will set yourself up for greater success with your novel, because you've made more informed decisions about your story before writing it. Additionally, you can just read along with the book to learn more about storytelling and writing craft. We internalize story naturally, so just reading the book will likely improve your ability to write your next novel. Will I encounter spoilers in this book? Yes. I use lots of examples from modern stories to illustrate specific storytelling concepts. You may encounter spoilers for any story across books, movies, television, plays, and other storytelling mediums, if it was released before the publication date of this book. That said, the examples I pull are primarily from these franchises, including the books and movies: The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. The Martian by Andy Weir. You do not need to have consumed any of these books or movies to understand the concepts in this book, but it may help. Is this really going to help me through National Novel Writing Month? Or an equally challenging sprint to write 50,000 fiction words in one month? Yes, you can write 50,000 good words on your novel in as little as a month, as long as you prepare yourself. After helping thousands of authors develop the skills to hit huge word counts in a short period of time, I've found one thing in common across all authors, at all skill levels, from those who have never written a novel to those who publish professionally. This one thing not only helps writers get their book to make sense, and read well, on paper, but also helps them write it faster in the first place. And it's simple: you must know what you are going to write before you write it. Most writers can at least double their writing speed, some can triple it, meaning they can do twice as many words in the same time period as they were doing before. Additionally, these writers encounter fewer bouts of writer's block and are more likely to see their book in print down the line. It worked for me, and continues to work for me, and I believe that it can work for you too. If you want to learn more about writing faster, you'll probably like my books The 8-Minute Writing Habit, Write Better Faster, and Dictate Your Book. They are books 2, 3, and 4 of the Productive Novelist series respectively. Who are you? My name is Monica Leonelle, and I have been publishing fiction since 2011. I write young adult fantasy, science fiction, and romance under Solo Storm and another pen name. Between these two pen names, I have about 20 books. My urban fantasy novella The Last Daughter hit the USA Today bestseller list in 2017 as part of a boxed set. I've also written over 10 nonfiction books about writing, editing, publishing, marketing, and business. You can learn more about my work at theworldneedsyourbook.com. That's not much of an introduction, I know, but I also know that many of you are here for prepping your novel, not hearing my life story. I've shared my story around struggling through my first few novels and novellas in the next section, but I have no qualms if you skip that and go straight into the 30 days. However, if you're curious, you'll learn some juicy and dramatic details about how I got started as an author. Ready? Why I Wrote Novel Writing Prep. Like many of you, I've been a reader for years, with a special place in my heart for young adult books as well as fantasy. My favorite book series as a child was The Chronicles of Narnia, and I had refound my love of reading and writing during my teenage years, through the Harry Potter and Twilight Saga series. I had recently finished the last of the Mortal Instruments series, and all I wanted was to get lost in some more amazing young adult fantasy that made me feel something. At the time, I was in my early 20s, married, and in a relationship that had fallen apart before the wedding. I had married him in part because of my incessant people-pleasing tendencies, I was the good girl who honored my commitments, plus the wedding invitations had already been sent, and I didn't want to disappoint people or fail. Looking back, I now understand why I loved fiction so much during this time in my life; I desperately needed a place to escape from my challenging reality. But the thing that shifted me from reading books to writing them was that I had run out of content that excited me. I had loved being a part of so many fandoms for so many years, but where was the next big one that could capture my attention and keep me up until all hours of the night? Because of my failing marriage, I took a job in Atlanta, a solid 12-hour drive from Chicago where my husband lived. Of course, my pattern of finding abusive men came right along with me in my new boss, who broke a chair in a fit of fury during my first week on the job. It was not a pleasant work environment, but I made a friend at work, whom I'll call T. I started sending T little bits of the young adult urban fantasy about angels that had been brewing in my head. She would send me emails back, "Love it! More please." My new book was moving forward. I was so excited to have one fan who I could try to write to. Fiction or Corporate? "It wasn't until about a year later that I left the job and got serious about writing my book. At around the same time, fiction authors like Amanda Hawking and John Locke were uploading their novels to a new Amazon program called Kindle Direct Publishing and making boatloads of money to quit their jobs. I had always wanted to work for myself after never really finding my place in corporate." I knew I wanted to have a best-selling fiction book and series, but I had no idea how to do it. I had self-published one book already, a non-fiction book about social media in 2009, when Twitter was really taking off with corporations. It flopped in terms of sales, but I secured not one but two high-paying jobs with it, so technically I did make my money back. Still, I felt anxious about repeating my many mistakes with that book with my fiction. But I also knew that I couldn't keep working in corporate, as my personality, no matter how I tried, didn't seem suited for the jobs I was doing. My biggest self-sabotage was that I had too many big ideas, many of which weren't practical to implement, and many of which were a hard sell in a workplace. I was far too creative and wild to fit in, and this clashed with the workplace goal of playing it safer. I also struggled with getting my mind to focus on the task at hand, as whenever I had a new idea, my mind and all my energy would build momentum for that idea, even if I was supposed to be working on something else. I've since learned that I can succeed at channeling my energy into my own projects, but I struggled to maintain energy long-term for others' ideas and goals. I knew that I needed to permanently quit the workforce so I could thrive instead of merely survive, but I wasn't exactly a trust fund baby. I also needed a paycheck. As I finished my book, I had to decide: did I want to go all in on marketing the book, which I knew would take my attention and energy away from my new job? And possibly get me fired or labeled a poor performer in the workplace? Or did I want to set the book aside, likely for years, and do everything I could to make my new job at a growing startup work? I didn't have enough energy and time to do both. Was I going for the creative life or the secure paycheck? I decided to do the book because I couldn't fathom putting it on hold. I still went to work, but I certainly wasn't putting in startup-level hours. I was gliding by and saving all of my energy for the after-hours, when I would write and market my book. The Launch. My book launched, I sold a few hundred copies, and hooray, many people loved the story and were waiting for the second book. I also got a bunch of feedback in my book reviews that pointed to inability to tell a story, which was ultimately incredibly helpful. People liked the story, but many felt it was wandering quite a bit. I later figured out that I wasn't giving the story a proper story structure, which was causing issues with the emotional resonance of the book. I set my second book launch date for July of that same year, and then my husband and I separated. It happened very quickly when he started talking about children, and I realized I don't want to bring children into this relationship. I wasn't able to leave the relationship for myself, but when I thought of putting my children through all of the fights, name-calling, object-throwing, screaming and yelling, and violent outbursts, it was a clear hell no for me. In the aftermath of my separation, I found myself undereating and abusing alcohol to numb the pain and exhaustion of divorce. A few months later, my pattern of filling myself with alcohol instead of food had me falling headfirst into a glass table at a coworker's apartment. Just weeks after that, the company I was working for was bought by PayPal, and my lackluster performance had me out the door. Left with no energy to write the second book in the series and no steady paycheck, I knew I needed to make some changes in my life. A Happy Compromise. I decided not to get another full-time job, despite having offers. I felt I knew where that road led: me ultimately unfulfilled and wasting the company's time and resources, and they eventually having to let me go or relinquish me to a dark corner of their company where I would work on low-impact projects. I wanted to write, but I had a lot to learn about fiction, and I wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to start churning out novels as a profession. So instead, I chose a middle-of-the-road path of freelance and consulting for companies while also learning everything I could about writing fiction. This assuaged my guilt of not being truly present for the company I was working with while giving me time to pursue my real dreams. I knew the next step in my writing career. As much as I valued my creativity and expression, I needed to write a marketable story, I needed to embrace story structure and increase my understanding of it. So I went to Amazon and purchased 60 print books on story structure. I stacked them against the wall next to my TV so I couldn't forget to study, study, study. I read one of these books every day for several months in between the emotional darkness and tears of my life as I knew it crumbling around me. How Story Structure Changed My Life. As I read, something changed in me. I felt like I was unlocking the secret to success at fiction and storytelling. I had been so resistant to story structure before, wanting to do it my way and be unique. Perhaps you resonate with some of these? I wanted to write for fun, and outlining felt like work. I didn't think I could be imaginative or inspired if I outlined first. I wanted to be the artist, not the business person. I didn't think story structure was a part of my writing process. I worried that outlining would make the story feel boring while writing it. I didn't want to outline in a logical or linear structure as it felt like the opposite of creativity. I worried about the time that outlining took and wondered if I was better served writing words. I felt justified in not outlining because insert successful author here doesn't outline or never outlined and did just fine. But as I read those books and I started to implement the story structure advice within them, I learned how wrong I was about every single one of these. My beliefs were false, and I needed a new set of beliefs to move forward on my writing journey. Here's what I learned about each thing on this list: I wanted to write for fun, and outlining felt like work. I thought that if writing wasn't fun all the time, then it would kill the joy of it for me. But writing a book with or without an outline is going to take work. Yes, it's a fun kind of work, but it's still work. No matter how you write your book, it's likely going to take you a lot of time. And few writers want to spend 100 hours writing something to never have it connect with readers. The secret to life is that working for the things you want is worthwhile. Too many people think it's not. But that feeling of finishing a book or seeing it published or getting 5-star reviews on it is priceless. You never get to feel that unless you do the work. I realized I wanted to have fun, but I also wanted the result of writing—a finished book that I could be incredibly proud of and feel good about sharing with others. Sharing my work was a big part of the fun of doing it to begin with. I didn't think I could be imaginative or inspired if I outlined first. I thought that putting the actual words on paper or the screen was the inspiring part, but ironically, I didn't start writing a lot of those words until after I learned to outline. Writer's block and the fear and anxiety of staring at a blank page were real for me. The less of an outline I had, the more likely I was to procrastinate on writing. I eventually learned why this was. Mystery equals fear. Fear equals resistance. Resistance equals procrastination. Once I learned to take the mystery out of what I was about to write, I actually felt more inspired and imaginative, and I actually did the writing too. I also quelled my anxiety while writing because I knew that the quality of my output would be stronger. I had already done some of the heavy lifting in the outline, and it comforted me to know that my efforts were producing something real that could actually be read and enjoyed later. I wanted to be the artist, not the business person. I believed that outlining was not very artistic, but over time I came to realize that outlining helped me be more artistic. If you want to be an artist, you likely want to spend most of your time creating, not trying to edit or rewrite your story to fix plot holes and dozens of poor choices in every chapter. A book is made up of at least 1,000 small decisions, and you're unlikely to get them all right in the first or even fifth draft. In truth, you're either going to fix your story before you write it or fix it after. By outlining, I was able to significantly cut down on my editing time, which was such a relief, as I didn't enjoy the editing process much. I didn't think story structure was a part of my writing process. I felt attracted to a challenge like NaNoWriMo because I truly believed that getting my butt in chair and getting the words down was all I really needed to do. Story structure? That wasn't a part of my writing process. I learned that story structure is a part of every writer's process, regardless of whether the writer outlines or not. The real question was, will I fix the story before I start writing it, or will I fix the story in a dozen rounds of edits after I've written it? I found it much easier to fix the story before I had done all the drafting work. This kept me from going down random paths for tens of thousands of words, that would eventually get cut anyway. I also found that continuity errors and lack of emotional resonance added up quickly, and it was much harder for me to find and replace all of that than to just never write it into the book to begin with. I worried that outlining would make the story feel boring while writing it. I'm the type of person who hates spoilers and avoids them at all costs. So why would I spoil my own story before writing it? I learned that writing an outline didn't mean that the drafting process had to be boring. First, the outline could be as detailed or not as I wanted. I also didn't have to stick to the outline if it wasn't working. The outline was really just a battle plan, but it could change as I went along. Finally, I learned that many writers did just that on purpose. They wrote the outline of just the first part of their book, then wrote that section, then wrote an outline for the second part of the book, and so on. My process could be whatever I wanted and whatever worked for me. That's why I encourage you to skip around in this book and do the lessons you want in the order that resonates with you. I didn't want to outline in a logical or linear structure as it felt like the opposite of creativity. I'm a "let's make this an art project" kind of person. I found outlining materials stodgy, boring, and schoolish. But your outline can look however you want, as there are many ways to organize data. I found myself organizing my novels with color-coded notebooks and binders, and through bullet journaling layouts, mind mapping, and flashcards. If you get any of my workbooks, including the Novel Writing Prep Companion Workbook, you'll see that these visual data tools drive many of my layouts, plus I include lots of thematic artwork to color in while you're thinking. I worried about the time that outlining took, and wondered if I was better served writing words. I thought that outlining was a waste of time, and possibly a way to procrastinate on writing the actual words. I was bothered that there was no clear reward, like seeing the word count on my draft go up and up. But I found that outlining helps the writing part go much faster, and made my production process more predictable. Outlining also helped my larger writing process by significantly cutting down my editing and revising time. I never had to rewrite big chunks of my book or cut tons of chapters. Finally, it also kept me from writing an unsalvageable draft, which is the biggest time-waster of them all. In independent publishing, it means either never publishing the book or publishing a book that doesn't sell. In traditional publishing, it means never getting an agent for the book. Outlining saved me a ton of wasted effort and embarrassment. I felt justified in not outlining because [insert successful author here] doesn't outline or never outlined and did just fine. I thought that if a successful author didn't have to outline, I didn't either. But that's a bit like saying, "If a world-renowned baker can bake without a recipe, I can produce a first-class soufflé by banging a few pots and pans together too." Successful authors have a strong internalization of story structure that is gained from writing dozens, if not hundreds, of books over a lifetime. Now that I've been teaching the work for a while and worked with thousands of readers and students in my books and courses, I've seen that few, if any, writers start with a killer instinct for story, and even if they do, it must be nurtured. Successful authors work very hard at their craft, and professional authors who depend on their book royalties write outlines to speed their productivity. Don't be fooled by what random writers say online, as some people's advice is worth significantly more than the rest. If you continue to write, you'll likely be able to scale back your outline over time, especially as you specialize in certain genres. All of these false beliefs were holding me back from succeeding at my dream of becoming a full-time fiction author. My First Four-Figure Month. Although my understanding of story was shifting, things didn't happen overnight. I struggled to apply what I was learning to my already written novel. The story was so strong in my mind, and I didn't have enough distance or enough know-how to fix the problems. I was largely trying to learn a new writing skill and do expert-level editing on my book, which didn't work. Luckily, I kept myself afloat through freelance writing, which allowed me to work from home and coffee shops. That marketing startup job was my last full-time salaried job, and I've never looked back with even a twinge of regret, even though things did get challenging financially at various points. I did have a few major wins along the way. I wrote a second book, The Ya Cyberpunk Science Fiction, and garnered over 100 reviews 4 stars and above. I realized I understood how to apply my digital marketing skills to my books, which was cool. I also learned how to write fast, the full story of which is in Write Better Faster, and started a pen name to practice. Between my many projects, I was producing more books and building a catalog. Eventually though, I needed to make money with fiction. Specifically, I wanted to have a 4-figure month, at least $1,000 made from fiction in a single month so I could prove to myself and my new boyfriend that the time and effort I was putting into this was worthwhile. Enter National Novel Writing Month. I completed my first NaNoWriMo in 2013, writing the first 50,000 words of the first 2 serials of a new series under my practice pen name. I made sure to write in a specific trope around romance to a billionaire, and the series took off. From there, I wrote about 5 serialized books in short succession, about one every month or two, and began earning about $1,000 a month through royalties in mid-2014. I did it. This was enough to get me motivated to keep going. It had been a long road to becoming a full-time author, with so many ups and downs, but I had the proof now that I could make money doing exactly what I loved. Since then, I have written over 30 books and, aside from a stint of burnout, made a moderate full-time income from my writing without taking on freelance clients. The lessons I've included in this book were integral to my success with NaNoWriMo and beyond. In writing stories that were completely out of my niche, I learned to write to market quickly, Detailed outlining was absolutely necessary to my success so that I could easily shape my story as I was writing and make sure it was hitting reader expectations. I can honestly say that I love the work I do every single day because it's entirely mine—my ideas, my vision, and my hard work to bring it to fruition. The first step for me, and when my author career really began to take off, was when I learned to write great stories quickly, which is exactly what this 30-day planner offers you. How to Get the Most Out of This Book. Novel Writing Prep is a great book on its own, and you can completely outline your novel using just the book. I've also put together some companion resources in case they are helpful to you. The Novel Writing Prep Challenge. I run a free 30-day challenge with all the content of this book 3 times a year: October, March, and June. If you want to join these challenges, videos, community, social updates, inspiration, you can check out the latest iteration here. theworldneedsyourbook.com/nwpchallenge. The Novel Writing Prep Companion Workbook and Companion Deck. The Novel Writing Prep Companion Workbook is a collection of workbook pages that follow the 30 days of outlining in this book. It's 200+ pages of bullet journal style layouts in 8.5" x 11" letter sizing. It's ideal for writers who love visual data organization or love getting creative with colors and art supplies. The book also doubles as a coloring book of sorts, with lots of line art that you can color in,, allowing you to meditate as you percolate on your outline. The Novel Writing Prep Companion Deck is a square card deck with each of the questions for all 30 days. You can do a daily card reading for your book edits, pull one, and reflect on it if you like to skip around in the material, or use the cards like flashcards to remind yourself of important concepts after reading. You can also stick these to a board or wall in your house, or in your favorite notebook, to create your own visual layout. If you do this, send pictures, please. The card deck can also be used with the other decks for other books in the Productive Novelist series. You can learn more about how to grab your own copies of these two resources at theworldneedsyourbook.com/novelwritingprep. The Finish Your First Draft course. The Finish Your First Draft course is 10 video lessons that help you get to the end of your draft, with a mix of content around outlining, writing habits, and drafting. If you are struggling to finish your first draft, this course can get you back on track and help you cross the finish line. Learn more at: theworldneedsyourbook.com/shop. The Productive Novelist Series. The Productive Novelist Series has 14 books spanning many independent publishing topics, including outlining, writing, editing, publishing, marketing, selling, business strategy, and mindset. You can read the books in order or skip around based on where you're at in your writing and publishing journey. Learn more about the Productive Novelist Series here. TheWorldNeedsYourBook.com/books 30 days, let's go! Day 1: Idea to Concept. A lot of stories start with an idea, but usually, there's not enough there to begin writing a story. Today, we're going from idea to concept. Here are a few examples of ideas that eventually became stories in our modern culture: Two powerful wizards who battle it out for control of both the magic and muggle worlds. A group of friends in their 20s to 30s living in New York City. Two male vampires fall in love with the same human girl. All of these ideas are extremely popular stories in today's culture, and two of them have spawned multiple franchises. What does this mean? Is there value in an idea alone, if it can spawn multiple huge franchises, none of which are infringing on another's copyright? More on that in a minute. We don't need to think much about an idea, or even define it fully, we just need to recognize that it is not a concept. If we can do that, then we can take an idea and hone it into more. Moving beyond an idea, the concept is the hook of your story. It can usually be phrased as a "what if?" question, and it often points to a theme and/or conflict for the story. For example: An 11-year-old child learns that he is a famous and celebrated hero in an underground magical world he never knew existed until now. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. 24 impoverished teenagers battle to be the lone survivor of the yearly Hunger Games, ensuring their status and wealth for the rest of their lives. The Hunger Games. A teenage girl falls in love with a vampire who wants to kill her anytime he catches a whiff of her blood. Twilight. A concept isn't specific and usually doesn't name names, or provide detail on the characters, the setting, or anything else. It may hint at those things, and it will certainly hint at conflict. But for the most part, it's a marketing piece that sums up the most basic design of the story. In scriptwriting, it might be called a logline or a pitch. At a writer's conference, it might be the sentence you say when someone asks you what your book is about. It is different from an idea because it's much more detailed, usually highlighting a few different elements: the protagonist, the opposition—not necessarily the antagonist, but an opposing force—the situation, which is usually some sort of setting that forces the protagonist to meet his or her opposing force, Larry Brooks, author of Story Engineering, describes a concept as something that launches a series or franchise. For example, what's a show about a group of friends in their 20s to 30s living in New York City? The idea. If you said Friends, you're right. But if you said How I Met Your Mother, you're also right. What about Girls? Seinfeld. Sex and the City? Gossip Girl? Baby Daddy? Don't Trust the B— in Apartment 23? Each of these series is the same in idea, but slightly different in concept. The difference is the "what if" part. What if a woman leaves her fiancé at the altar and seeks solace in her high school best friend, whom she hasn't spoken to in years? Friends. What if a man tells his kids about how he met their mother, but starts the story long before he even meets her to explain why she was perfect for him? How I Met Your Mother. What if a girl moves to New York City to be a Carrie Bradshaw type of writer, and finds out that it's nowhere close to the Sex and the City dreams she aspired to? Girls. We've now gone from the same idea to 3 unique concepts. Each of these is a twist on an old idea. Prompts. Question 1: What is your book idea? The first step is to write your book idea out in all its messy glory. If you are struggling with this part, just ask yourself some additional questions: What do I know about my book already? Who is in it? What is the first thing that happens in your book? Question 2: Who is your protagonist? At this point, we only need to know the barest basics about your protagonist. Specifically, you'll want to know gender, age, a rough narrowing to the appropriate decade of life is fine, and a handful of key relationships, but only if related to the conflict of your story. Question 3: Who or what is your antagonistic force? Your antagonistic force can be a person, called the antagonist, or anything else that opposes or stands in the way of your protagonist getting what he or she wants. Question 4: What is the conflict between these two opposing sides? For this question, we look at the conflict, which is a critical part of any hook. If you are struggling to see the conflict between the protagonist and antagonistic force, you can ask yourself some additional questions: What does the protagonist want that he/she doesn't get? How is the protagonist blocked? Question 5: What is the "what if"? Summary sentence for your book. Now is the moment of truth. What is the what-if summary sentence for your book? If you're feeling stuck on this, look at some of the examples I've already given and switch out the protagonist, antagonist, and conflict for your own story. It's not important to get this perfect at this stage. We just want to have something to work from in this spot. Let it be messy for now. Question number 6: How is this a twist on a familiar story already in your genre? Almost all concepts are a twist on genre tropes and conventions. This is possible without infringing on copyright because the answer to "what if" is different each time. For example, what's a television show about two male vampires who fall in love with the same human girl? Go back to the what-if question. What if the two male vampires are close, and one sired the other? What if one ranks higher than the other in vampire politics, and has ordered the lower-ranked one to start a relationship with the human in order to spy on her? The Southern Vampire Mysteries and True Blood franchise. What if the two male vampires were estranged brothers, What if the human girl looked just like the woman who originally tore the brothers apart? What if all three were teenagers living in the same town? The Vampire Diaries novels and television show. In fact, if you wanted to broaden this idea, you would find many movies, books, television shows, and more that are basically a supernatural love triangle. Twilight, for example, fits this idea as well, except one of the males is a werewolf. Keep drilling down on the question "what if?" to get to the root of what makes your story different, but similar, to what's already out there in your genre. Feeling stuck? It's hard to explain exactly how to write a concept, and I've found that the best way to do so is to simply try writing concepts for your favorite books, television shows, and movies. It's much easier to write a concept for someone else's story, and that will give you practice for your own. Look for ideas that translate to concepts, and vice versa. Again, this is really easy to do in television and movies. For example, Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached are basically the same movie that came out a few months apart, and Chasing Liberty and First Daughter are basically the same movie that came out a few months apart, and on and on. You probably know books in your own genre that are similar to yours, so knowing how to distinguish them in concept will help set your work apart. Additionally, don't get too hung up on the specific sentence. You are only trying to prep your novel, not pitch it to agents, publishers, or readers—at least not at this point. The sentence only matters to bring you clarity; no one else will see it. Finally, if you have more information than the single concept sentence, feel free to brain dump it onto the page. The more you know about your book, the better. And if you don't have much beyond this first sentence, not a problem—we have 29 more days to flesh out your book. Day 2: Theme. Today, we are going to explore theme, which I believe is the heartbeat of any book. My story symmetry framework is heavily based on finding the theme of your book, and symbolically representing it throughout your book. The easiest way to go from concept to theme is to ask, "What does my main character represent?" Let's go back to a few of the concepts I listed before. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Sorcerer's Stone. Concept: An 11-year-old child learns that he is a famous and celebrated hero in an underground magical world he never knew existed until now. Character representation: Harry Potter represents good, love, while his nemesis and the antagonist Voldemort represents evil, fear. Theme: It's a classic tale of good and evil or love versus fear. The Hunger Games. Concept: 24 impoverished teenagers battle to be the lone survivor of the yearly Hunger Games, ensuring their status and wealth for the rest of their lives. Character Representation: Katniss Everdeen represents childhood, innocence, victim of the games, while her nemesis the Capitol and President Snow represents coldness, cruelty, power, and lack of compassion. Theme: It's about war and its effects on the children who fight it. Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire. Concept: The death of a king's mentor sets in motion a power struggle for his throne amongst the wealthiest families in his kingdom. Character representation: There are no clear protagonists and antagonists, but everyone is trying to gain power with either good or evil intent. Theme: It's about the struggle for power and how much damage it causes while producing very little. Prompts. Question number 1: What is your concept? If you have this from day 1, rewrite it here. Feel free to update it now that you've had time to think a little. If you haven't created your book concept yet, have a look at the day 1 lesson again. Question 2: What do your protagonist and antagonist (or antagonistic force) represent? If you have multiple characters that could fit these labels, feel free to list out each of them with a short description of what each represents to you. Note that many themes can be laid out as some version of good versus evil or love versus fear, but not all. For example, In The Fault in Our Stars, it's ultimately a love story. Love stories have two main characters, and the antagonistic force is whatever is keeping them apart, in this case, cancer. You could say the theme is "cancer sucks," but take a minute to go deeper with it. The theme for The Fault in Our Stars is around death, and what happens to you after you die. Are you a Grenade who needs to lessen the impact of her death by staying contained and unattached? Hazel? Do you feel you need to leave a legacy to make your life matter, Augustus? The resolution of that theme is that a short life can still be a good life. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. What do your characters represent? Question 3: What topics are you interested in? If you are feeling unsure of your characters, perhaps start with your topics of interest. What matters to you? What is important in this world? Who do you wish you could help more? What do you wish you could say to the world? Is there a way to create characters who represent a protagonist and antagonistic force around this topic? Question 4: What are the main worldviews for this topic? Most major topics have several different camps, Take war, for example. You can probably think of at least a few different opinions on the topic. If you were writing a book that included a war storyline, it would make sense to know the viewpoints of several people and create characters in the story who represented different viewpoints. These characters will approach war differently, and allowing them to interact with one another will be the basis for conflict in your story. Who do you need to add to your story, given any complexities around your theme? Question 5: What are the largest conflicts of opinion within this topic? When it comes to theme, the more heated your theme is, the better. This will cause huge conflict between groups and characters within your story, since the theme persists through all the layers of the Story Symmetry Framework. For example, in The Hunger Games, Katniss ultimately opposes war but is willing to go to war and kill when her life is threatened. Gale, on the other hand, is a proponent of war and wants to defeat the enemy. He wants change through weapons attacks and killings. President Snow wants to avoid war at all costs and is willing to perpetuate The Hunger Games, believing that a small sacrifice will keep the colonies in fear and suppress revolts. For Peeta, war is very personal. He'll do what he must for the people he loves, but overall he is soft, kind, trusting, and hopeful for the future. How can you turn up the heat on your theme? How can you diversify your characters' worldviews around the theme? Feeling stuck? You may not have a theme just yet, or you may have too many themes and are having a hard time choosing. Be aware that your themes will emerge over time. You can keep coming back to this lesson to update it as you discover new theme ideas, as well as groups and characters that represent your theme. You could also just pick something. Ultimately, we like to keep things aligned with theme. You don't have to do this to write great novels; however, it could help to have a true north. Decide on your true north, and let other pieces of your book fall into place easily. Let's keep going. 28 more days to flesh out your book. Day 3: Worldviews. Now that you know your theme or hot topic, it's time to consider all the different sides of the issue. Baseball example: For example, if you were to take a fairly charged topic, like whether the St. Louis Cardinals are going to win the World Series this year, there are a few major schools of thought: Yes, the Cardinals will win the World Series. No, the Cardinals will not win the World Series. Not sure. In those three general schools, there will be different approaches and viewpoints. In the yes category, there will be die-hard fans who always think the Cardinals are going to win. There will be lots of fans who think it's more of a maybe, but will say yes when asked. There will be analysts who are fairly impartial, who will be looking at the stats. There will be people who live in St. Louis and have just become fans, swept up in the excitement. In the no category, there will be people who hate the Cardinals because of: Fill in the blank. You could spin on that one for a while, every reason is a new thread. There will be Cubs fans who will say no, just for the sake of the rivalry. There will be the opposing team's fans who believe their team is going to win. In the not sure category, there will be people who don't follow baseball and have no idea who the Cardinals are. There will be people who do follow baseball but don't feel comfortable making a prediction. There will be people who live outside of the United States, so it doesn't affect them. There will be people who just don't care for a variety of reasons. Baseball bores them. They are only casual viewers. Their team is out of the playoffs, so they stopped following. They are in a challenging career or just had a baby, so they haven't followed the season this year, and so on. Now your theme threads look like this. Yes, the Cardinals will win the World Series. Diehards: maybe but says yes. Analysts looking at the stats. Sunny Day fans: no, the Cardinals will not win the World Series. Cubs fans, Pirates fans, Braves fans, etc. Haters. Not sure. Don't follow baseball sports. Don't count chickens before they hatch. Baseball is boring. Team out of playoffs, thus don't care. Haven't followed season this year. Outside the US, thus don't follow care. These threads are the basis on which we'll create our groups and characters. Prompts. Question number 1: What is your worldview on your theme? You likely have your own view of your theme, and it's important to acknowledge that and look at which characters match your view and which don't. Knowing this will also help to ensure you create lots of characters who don't quite share your view. How can you tweak your own view to create multiple good characters? How can you consider other views to create shades-of-gray characters across the larger issues? Question 2: What is your protagonist's worldview on your theme? Often, this will match your own worldview, but it doesn't have to. Additionally, your protagonist may not know his or her ultimate worldview and may discover it as the book goes on. It helps to know where your protagonist might end up, though you don't have to decide now. Knowing how they feel at the beginning of the book is good enough for the moment. Question 3: What is your antagonist's worldview on your theme? Your antagonist's view should be opposing to your protagonist. After all, they'll have to battle it out to find resolution at the end of the book. Question #4: What are all the different worldviews on your theme? Have a quick brainstorm and see if you can come up with a list similar to my list about whether the Cardinals will win the World Series this year. Feeling stuck? Are you feeling overwhelmed by the many worldviews a person might have on a particular topic? You don't need to explore every worldview. For example, The Fault in Our Stars only heavily explores a few worldviews on the topic of death. Likewise, some characters can share the same basic worldview. For example, in the Harry Potter series, both Harry and Ron think Hermione's desire to make Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare (a protest) is silly. They share the same worldview, but Ron speaks out against it much more, and Harry is often silent on the matter while continuing to do what he wants. If you are feeling stuck on worldviews, it's okay to skip this lesson and move on. Worldviews, like theme, tend to emerge as you learn more about your characters and the situation you are in. 27 days left. Day 4: Groups. Once you have a strong idea of your theme and worldviews, you are ready to create groups and characters. As you might have guessed, you already have. Your groups correspond to the major schools of thought regarding your theme, while the shades of gray per school correspond to different characters you are going to create. Baseball Example. If you were writing a fiction book about baseball, you would have 3 different groups corresponding to the category above. You would create characters across the whole range: people who are diehards, people who are active Cards haters, and people, probably the majority, who have other priorities or no investment in the outcome of the series. It might look something like this. Group number 1: Yes, the Cardinals will win the World Series. Character number 1: Diehards. Character number 2: Maybe, but says yes. Character number 3: Analysts looking at the stats. Character number 4: Sunny Day fans. Group number 2: No, the Cardinals will not win the World Series. Character number 5: Cubs fans, Pirates fans, Braves fans, etc. Character number 6: Haters, undecideds, not sure. Character number 7: Don't follow baseball/sports. Baseball is boring. Character number 8: Don't count chickens before they hatch. Team out of playoffs, thus don't care. Haven't followed season this year. Character number 9: Outside the US, thus don't follow/care. Remember, you don't need a character for every worldview. And you can combine any worldviews you come up with to fit the number of characters in your story. Play with this and figure out what works for you. In Veronica Mars, which is about income disparity between the poor and the rich, and the corruption that comes with it, there are clear groups that represent all sides of the issue. The O'Niners, which is the rich class. It consists of Duncan Cain, Logan Echols, and a slew of others. Veronica was once friends with this group of kids, due to her father's place in the community as the sheriff. The Others, which is the lower income class. Veronica insists that there is no middle class. If you go to Neptune High, your parents are either millionaires or your parents work for millionaires. This group consists of Veronica, Wallace, Mac, and others. The PCH Gang, which is the criminal element of the show. The PCH Gang takes power and frequently riles up the Sheriff's Department. They fight against the O'Niners. The police force, which is largely corrupt now that Keith Mars is gone. Veronica Mars frequently attempts to manipulate them for information on her case of the week. Each group represents different interests in the issue. The O'Niners represent privilege, the regular kids represent the lower-income class or the victims of corruption, and the bicycle gang represents a darker and more rebellious side of the lower middle class. The police force represents the larger corruption that happens when the two different groups are treated vastly differently. That said, none of these groups is homogeneous. Within the O'Niners, there are jerks, nice people, truly terrible and corrupt people, and people who just happen to be wealthy. In the bicycle gang, Weevil, their leader, is generally a good guy who sometimes gets into trouble due to his circumstances. On the police force, Veronica actually at one point dates Leo D'Amato, one of the nicer sheriff's deputies, even though she generally thinks the whole group of them are idiots. The group may have a general inclination, but there will, and should, always be shades of gray within any group. This adds depth to the theme and worldbuilding. And no, worldbuilding is not just for fantasy and science fiction. We'll get to that on a later day. Prompts. Question number 1: When you group different worldviews together, what cohorts do you get? Try to organize your worldviews by similarity. Ideally, your different worldviews congregate around the protagonist and antagonist. This makes it easy to come up with secondary characters that these two characters can become allies with. Question 2: How do you want to name each cohort? Think about how you want to name various cohorts in your book, and, if possible, try to come up with clever names. For example, in the Harry Potter series, the name Slytherin plays on slithering like a snake, while Ravenclaw plays on sharp, a synonym for intelligent. In Veronica Mars, the "O'Niners" is a reference to the zip code the rich kids live in. Question 3: What are the downsides of each group's worldviews? What are the weaknesses for each group? For example, in The Hunger Games, District 2 was known for its wealth among the non-Capital districts and its ability to turn out warrior tributes, but it also sided with the Capitol during the war and saw the majority of its people wiped out. By aligning with the Capitol, the rest of the districts felt distrust and disloyalty, even though all 12 districts were in the same predicament. It's important to know the downsides for each group, as that can spur lots opportunities to win, and lots of conflict and loss for various characters in that group throughout the book. Feeling stuck? What works for your novel? The Harry Potter series has 4 houses that each represent different traits one might have, while not encompassing all traits. Gryffindor: bravery. Slytherin: self-preservation. Ravenclaw: intelligence. Hufflepuff: kindness. Within each house, there are variations among the characters. Though all Gryffindors tend to exhibit bravery, all Slytherins tend to exhibit self-preservation, and so on. For the most part, however, the groups are somewhat homogeneous, while still maintaining a variety of characters in each. You, as the reader, are meant to root for Gryffindor and dislike Slytherin. In A Song of Ice and Fire, the main characters are separated into 7 kingdoms, and numerous houses or allegiances to houses. In this series, each character is distinct and unpredictable in terms of what he or she will do for his house or against his house. Alliances shift, good and evil is a gray area, and relationships and loyalty are complicated. Because all the characters operate in shades of gray, you are not meant to root for any specific house, and no house could be attributed to simplistic terms like "good" or "evil." You can create groups with lots of shading, or groups that are more firm in their stance on life. Finally, keep in mind that if you are writing a simpler story, like The Fault in Our Stars, you may not need groups at all and may want to just stick to characters. 26 days to go. Day 5: Characters. Today, we're taking the groups we've just created and putting more characters in them. You may have already started doing this in previous days. If not, now is your chance. A group may have a general view, but that doesn't mean the characters within the group are homogenous in their views and beliefs. Like a political party, there are factions within the group, often with their own leaders. There are people who do what they're told, even if it's questionable, and there are people who stand up for what they believe in. There are people who are in between, who will mostly do what they're told, but will switch sides when asked to do something that they feel crosses the line. You want to have different shades of characters in each group to represent a solid range of the spectrum of whatever your issue might be. From there, it's your choice on how you resolve the conflict, and in many ways, your groups and characters become a symbol for the meaning of your story. For example, in the Harry Potter series, I don't think this is a spoiler to say that Harry Potter ultimately defeats the bad guy, after tons of trials and tribulations. The series is thus saying that good will trump evil, and love will trump fear. This is not a huge surprise, as most children's books would want to teach kids what society considers good traits and behaviors. You can use characters to show a choice that the protagonist must make. This is a common trope in young adult fiction. Because these stories are typically coming of age, this often presents as a girl choosing between two suitors that each represent different life path choices for her. That's why every young adult novel has the love triangle. The most prominent example of this is in the Twilight Saga, where Bella must choose between a life with the vampires or a life with the werewolves, technically shapeshifters. These two groups are represented more specifically as a choice between Edward or Jacob. These groups hate each other, and each represents something different to Bella Swan. Vampires: dangerous to humans, killers, but can be redeemed if they go vegetarian. Shapeshifters, defenders of humans, willing to go to war if necessary, no tolerance for bloodshed of any kind. Bella could have either of these lives, but she chooses Edward, who in my opinion represents redemption. Why is the third love interest, Michael, in the mix? Bella has this third suitor because her love choices are an extended metaphor, and Michael represents her human life. Which she thoroughly rejects very early on in the books. She does not want to live the ordinary life. It's clear to the reader that her real choice is between vampires and shapeshifters, each of which Bella acknowledges has its positives, whereas her human life does not interest her much. In The Hunger Games, Katniss must choose between Peeta and Gale. Gale is the fighter and Peeta is the lover; they are essentially foils of each other., and the question posed is does Katniss need a fighter or a lover? She ultimately chooses Peeta because she doesn't want to be a part of war. Peeta softens her, reminds her of her humanity, and what it means to live a life instead of fight for a cause. Katniss never fully embraces her place in the war, so this choice is no real surprise. Gale has a fire in him and will always fight for the cause. Prompts. Question number 1: What characters do you need to represent each of your groups and worldviews within each group? Start to think about who these characters actually are, and if you are ready, start writing down things like gender, hair color, name, and more. Question number 2: Who is the leader of each of your groups? Is there a leader? Is the group associated with the government or another larger body? What roles within the associated structure, e.g., government, should you include in your group? Are there various factions within your groups, each with their own leader? Question number 3: What functions does each group fulfill within your story, and who leads each of the functions? For example, do the groups recruit throughout the series, and who handles that? Who do they recruit? How do they recruit? Does your protagonist get recruited? Question number 4: What other roles are needed within your group, and who fulfills those? In the Harry Potter series, Gryffindor also had a guard at the entrance, the Fat Lady, Prefects, which included Percy Weasley, a Head Boy and Head Girl, a Quidditch Captain, and a Teacher Head of House, Professor McGonagall. While you don't need to name someone to every function, it's likely that your protagonist knows and interacts with the various roles within their group, if they have one. Question 5: What characters does your protagonist need to help them choose a worldview? If you are using characters to help represent a choice between two lifestyles or worldviews, you can name them here. Often, these characters are presented as a love triangle, but it doesn't have to be so. In the movie Batman Forever, the Riddler tries to force Batman into choosing between saving Robin or his girlfriend. He asks, "Can Bruce Wayne and Batman ever truly coexist?" Batman ends up saving both. You see, I'm both Bruce Wayne and Batman, not because I have to be, now because I choose to be. Feeling stuck? It can be a lot of work to create characters for each group within your story. If you have the framework, you can always add characters later, or even purposely leave characters out of groups to be either loners on the fringes or still deciding. You can also create characters who seem to be part of one group but are truly double agents. Think of this effort as a loose container within which you can drop characters as needed. We have 25 more days to go. Day 6: Character Relationships. Another thing to think about as you are creating different characters in your groups is what your protagonist needs. We'll get into this in more detail when we discuss character arcs, But for now, you'll want to remember these to create a few characters to serve in these relationships with your protagonist. Mentors or Allies. There are characters who help your protagonist face obstacles and overcome false beliefs. Not every protagonist needs a mentor or partner, but unless your character is James Bond and magically has every skill set he'll ever need, you probably want to create a few characters that make up for your protagonist deficiencies. Sidekicks: These characters don't necessarily provide skill sets to your protagonist, though they could. Instead, they provide emotional support. They are your protagonist's friends. You can certainly overlap this category with mentors, but it's also okay to have characters who just serve as friends in your story. Love interests. Few stories these days have zero romance, so don't forget to add a dash. Also, if you want to tie the romance to the theme, create a few love interests that each represent different choices for the protagonist. Love interests also serve as fantastic catalysts for a character to take action, particularly for men. Family. Similar to love interests, Family can be a great catalyst or opposing force for a protagonist. Everyone has at least a mother and a father, so make sure you give your protagonist one of each. Siblings are important too. Unless your character must be an only child as a plot point or background story, I recommend providing a sibling or two. Once you've defined these relationships for your protagonist, I recommend also defining them for your antagonist. Even if we don't spend as much time with every single character you end up creating, you can use these categories that mirror the above. Evil mentors, sometimes called antagonists. They contaminate the protagonist's mind and mess with his worldview. A great example of this is Barty Crouch Jr. as Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter series. These evil mentors are extensions of the antagonist, but hurt the protagonist. Henchmen: Sidekicks for antagonists. Tempter/Temptress: The equivalent of a love interest for the antagonist, who tempts the protagonist toward the dark side. In Homeland, for example, this would be the war hero/terrorist that CIA agent Carrie Mathison is both sleeping with and investigating at the same time. Prompts: Question 1: What characters have you already created that fit into these categories? Can a current group member, potentially in the antagonist's group even, become your protagonist's mentor, sidekick, or love interest? How can this cause conflict or drive the story forward? Try to match each of your different worldview characters to the role they play for the protagonist. Do you have characters that can serve your story in multiple ways? Question 2: What gaps do you see in these categories? The more characters you add, even by name, the more you shape your protagonist, and the more believable your story becomes. You can also more easily come up with backstories, plot points, interactions, situations, problems, and solutions for your protagonist. Question 3: If you've created any new characters, what groups do they belong to? You can also answer questions about their worldviews, beliefs in relationship to the theme, relationships with each other and the protagonist, and more. Question 4: What is the order and timing around introducing these characters to the narrative? You may not know the answer to this for many characters yet, but for some you will. You can make some notes of when each character first appears and how each is introduced. This will allow you to space characters appropriately and also help you come up with scenes as you move along. Feeling stuck? There's a lot to balance in your story at this point, specifically with regard to characters. Assuming you've finished up the lessons so far, you should have many, many characters populating your story now. This alone will give your story and characters more depth and conflict, simply because the real world is also made up of many, many people. Your story world is likely starting to feel more realistic at this point. If you are struggling to come up with characters, or it doesn't make sense to create this many characters in your story, don't fret. You don't need to introduce all these characters at once, and it most likely wouldn't serve your narrative, or your reader, to do so anyway. Keep this framework in mind and continue to add characters as needed. If you are feeling overwhelmed, you can come back to this lesson later and add more to it. You can also keep going and let the plot bring forward more characters. On to day 7 to 24 more days. Day 7. Character Fatal Flaws. As most storytellers know, main characters, specifically the protagonist, must move, grow, and change within a story. Similar to how we might define plot arcs, we call this growth throughout the story a character arc. Your protagonist and any other point-of-view (POV) character needs a character arc for every book in your series. Every character you expect to go through a transformation, or to have a character arc, needs to start with a fatal flaw. This fatal flaw is a way of looking at the world, could even be a worldview, that will change or get resolved by the end of the story. Here are several fatal flaws from popular modern stories: Harry is afraid that he can't beat Voldemort. His fatal flaw is lack of confidence (Harry Potter). Tyrion Lannister has been shunned by his family his entire life. His fatal flaw is he is desperate for love and approval from his father and sister. A Song of Ice and Fire. Katniss Everdeen doesn't want to bring children into this world because it's so terrible. Her fatal flaw is she has no hope for the future. The Hunger Games. These fatal flaws are the basis of the character arc. From the fatal flaw, you must now determine the transformation, if any, you want the character to go through. Here's what this potentially looks like for each of the fatal flaws above. The Harry Potter series. Fatal flaw: Harry is afraid that he can't beat Voldemort. His fatal flaw is lack of confidence. Transformation: Harry recognizes his strengths where Voldemort is weak and uses those to his advantage to beat him. A Song of Ice and Fire. Fatal flaw: Tyrion Lannister has been shunned by his family his entire life. His fatal flaw is he is desperate for love and approval from his father and sister. Transformation: Tyrion finds love and approval somewhere else, perhaps within himself, and is satisfied with it. The Hunger Games. Fatal flaw: Katniss Everdeen doesn't want to bring children into this world because it's so terrible. Her fatal flaw is she has no hope for the future. Transformation: Katniss learns that although there are terrible people and happenings in the world, there is plenty that is worth fighting for. As you can see from the examples, the fatal flaw is the thing that's going to ruin everything for the protagonist if he or she doesn't get it in check. Harry Potter needs to boost his confidence that he can beat Voldemort, or else he's going to die at his hand. Tyrion Lannister does everything he can to win his father's approval, and to a lesser extent, his sisters', and they consistently stab him in the back or throw him under the bus, often in attempts to get him killed. Katniss Everdeen becomes a symbol of freedom and justice against her will, putting a huge target on her back. She will die if she doesn't fight. The fatal flaw and the transformation serve as endpoints for the character arc. The fatal flaw belongs at the beginning of the book, while the transformation belongs at the end. Once you have figured out your character's fatal flaw and transformation, we can construct the full character arc, using the concept of false beliefs. Prompts. Question number 1: Which characters will have a full character arc in your book? I recommend giving your protagonist and any other point-of-view characters—as long as those point-of-view characters will be present throughout the text—a full character arc. You may also want to know the antagonist's character arc, even if it happens off-screen or in backstory. At the least, you may want to know the antagonist's fatal flaw. Question 2: For each character with a full character arc, what is their fatal flaw? If you are struggling to come up with a fatal flaw, consider a simple question: What is most important to your character? For example, for Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Her sister Primrose Everdeen is the most important thing in her life. We learn this throughout the first chapter as she saves her sister from starving, multiple times, and then sacrifices herself in her sister's place in the Hunger Games. Then ask yourself, what does this thing actually represent? For Katniss, Primrose represents childhood innocence. Katniss believes in protecting children from the harsh conditions of the world she lives in. In the games, this same childhood innocence is represented by another tribute named Rue, who is also only 12 years old, just like Katniss's sister. You could extend this even further by looking at Katniss's backstory, which is that her own childhood ended at 11 years old when her father died, her mother checked out of life, and she became the sole provider for her family. Seeing the pattern yet? Katniss's fatal flaw is her deep desire for a world where children remain innocent, and her deep hopelessness over ever being able to create or even imagine that world. In fact, she says herself in the first chapter that she could never bring her own children into the world as a result of what she sees around her. So what is most important to your character? And what does that thing represent? Question number 3: What are some more ways you can represent your character's fatal flaw? Harry Potter has a scar on his forehead, a symbol of his weakness to Voldemort. Katniss immediately meets and attracts Rue, who reminds her of her sister Primrose, once she enters the Games. Bella receives a crescent-shaped scar on her hand as a reminder that Edward was able to battle his desire for her blood before he killed her. His love was stronger than his primal instincts, and she remained safe with him. The scar went on to be the center of the struggle through the rest of the series, where he wanted to protect her soul by keeping her a mortal human. Question 4: How is the fatal flaw going to ruin everything for the character if he or she doesn't get it under control? It is not easy for a character, or anyone, to overcome a fatal flaw, as a fatal flaw is always built on a cluster of false beliefs. This means that the character is going to resist the change he or she must make throughout the book. It will take a lot, usually a life-or-death situation, to push the character to change his or her beliefs. What does that look like for your character? Question 5: How does the character conquer the fatal flaw by the end of the story? By the end of The Hunger Games trilogy, the war is over, and Katniss has children of her own. She has overcome her false beliefs around hope for the future, and the children, and the rest of her choices in the epilogue, represent that. While you don't need to know the endgame for your character just yet, it could be helpful. Your book's ending will be most satisfying when it shows that your character has conquered his or her fatal flaw. Pay close attention to the 3 examples in this section. Each of these series were massively popular, and a big part of that was owing to having the fatal flaw spelled out at the beginning of the series, reiterated throughout the series, and resolved by the end of the series. This doesn't just happen. It happens when the author thinks it through at the structural level. How will you see the fatal flaw through? Feeling stuck? There are lots of characters who don't reach the transformation of their character arc. These unresolved character arcs are perfectly fine in genres like thriller or mystery or comedy, so don't worry if your character has no transformation at the moment. If you are writing a standalone novel, in most cases, you may as well give your protagonist some sort of transformation, even if it's small. You aren't planning on using the character again, so why not? If you are writing a series, you can bring the character forward through a transformation, then in the next book bring them back to their original false belief, making it true for them again. This keeps the character at a baseline, never changing much in personality, beliefs, or status—married, single, rich, poor, etc. Dan Brown's Robert Langdon series, best known for its second book "The Da Vinci Code," is a great example of this. Langdon rarely changes book to book, and tends to wear roughly the same outfits, date roughly the same type of woman—usually someone intelligent that he meets on the case—and have roughly the same interests, art, architecture, puzzles, and symbolism. In this example, Langdon still has a fatal flaw— claustrophobia— which serves as more of a Chekhov's gun throughout the series. He never gets over his fatal flaw book to book, and he almost always ends up in a situation that forces him to reconcile with his fears around tight spaces. For Langdon, the fatal flaw is present, and the end transformation is present, He usually solves the case, ends up with the woman, and writes another book or two about it, but they don't coincide. This may fit your situation for your book, in which case you can model your fatal flaw and transformation off of this example. That said, it will depend on genre for what is the right solution for you. 23 more days. Let's do this. Day 8: Character False Beliefs. False beliefs are permutations of the fatal flaw. If the fatal flaw is the big thing your protagonist has wrong about his or her life, the false beliefs are the small truths that your protagonist holds dear. These small truths are holding your protagonist back from breaking through the fatal flaw. Harry Potter's False Beliefs. Harry's fatal flaw through the entire series is that he lacks confidence in his abilities to defeat Voldemort. It is expressed in his false beliefs, which he speaks and thinks frequently. He's not actually special or the chosen one. He was unluckily chosen at birth. He is like Voldemort (Tom Riddle). They are both orphans, they both speak Parseltongue, etc. He only survives with the help of others. He often survives due to lucky circumstances, like being wand twins with Voldemort. He's destined to die at Voldemort's hand. These are just a few I came up with off the top of my head, but you see them over and over again throughout that series. Many of these come out in the 5th book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, while he is explaining to Dumbledore's Army why they shouldn't admire his past encounters with Voldemort. Here's a rough breakdown of how they show up in the books, over and over again. Book 1: Harry fears that Voldemort is coming back for him. He's haunted by the confrontation between them when he was a baby, and the burden of being the Chosen One. All he wants is be normal and have his parents back, as seen in the Mirror of Erised. Book 2: Harry fears that he will be like Tom Riddle, Voldemort. He sees a lot of similarities as he battles the heir of Slytherin. It scares him. Book 3: Harry fears Sirius Black, the man who gave his parents up to Voldemort. This goes back to the same false belief from Book 1, that Sirius is coming after Harry, the chosen one, to finish off what he started. Book 4: Harry fears that he's not smart enough or good enough to compete against the older students and win the Triwizard Tournament. This mirrors how he feels he's not smart enough or good enough to beat Voldemort. Book 5: Harry fears death, thanks to Cedric Diggory, represented symbolically with the introduction of the Thestrals. He is the reluctant leader of Dumbledore's Army, even though he doesn't see himself as a hero. He is running toward the prophecy, toward death at Voldemort's hand. Book 6: Harry fears his own judgment after the fiasco at the Ministry of Magic that got Spoiler killed for no reason. Book 7: Harry fears that Dumbledore was wrong. Wrong to trust Snape, wrong to send Harry after the Horcruxes instead of the Hallows. Harry is afraid that Dumbledore's plan sucks, and doubts whether he should follow it. This has nothing to do with Dumbledore; it's Harry's own judgment that he questions. All of these fears, which he conquers one by one, are just permutations of the fatal flaw: that he lacks confidence to destroy Voldemort. They are the fatal flaw manifesting in different ways, different forms, —not unlike they do in real life. Just as he conquers one of those fears, another one pops up in a slightly different permutation—just like in real life. Have you heard the phrase "new level, new devil" before? Your protagonist has a fatal flaw. But this fatal flaw lurks below the surface. It's not stated explicitly in the text, and the character isn't necessarily even aware of it. Your job is to represent it over and over again in the form of false beliefs, so that your characters can chip away at these throughout the story. Prompts. Question 1: Look at your character's fatal flaw. What are some false beliefs that led him or her to believe or behave that way? Make a list of whatever comes to mind. It doesn't have to be a perfect list, or a complete list. What are some of the reasons your character believes what he or she believes? Question 2: What false beliefs come from your character's backstory? Look at the pivotal events in your character's childhood. Most of our wounding as humans comes from events that happened at a young age. Give your character a backstory that explains where he or she developed some of the false beliefs he or she currently carries. Question 3: What false beliefs come from your character's environment? Look at the place your character grew up in. Look at the people your character grew up around. Look at the family, teachers, and people of authority who might have influenced your character. How did your character come to believe the things he or she believes? What shaped their worldview? Question number 4: What false beliefs come from events that might happen in the story? You may not yet know exactly what's going to happen in your story, and that's okay. If you have any scenes already playing out in your mind, you can add them here and identify the false belief at the core of them. For example, One of Bella's and Edward's false beliefs in Twilight is that she is safe once Edward proves he isn't going to kill her. Then, a vampire outside of Edward's family discovers her and desires to drain her blood. This event shatters her false belief and by the end makes her want to become a vampire even more. If you've come up with any of these scenes or scenarios already, jot them down now. Your effort will come in handy down the line. Question 5: What is the truth behind each false belief? False beliefs are not necessarily false, but rather unbalanced beliefs. For example, Harry is not wrong to believe he can't defeat Voldemort. In fact, he has lots of evidence that he can't, including multiple battles that he loses, multiple times that he is outsmarted, and multiple ways in which he is not willing to cross the lines that Voldemort has crossed to gather power. At the same time, it's probably not a spoiler to say that he eventually does defeat Voldemort, without compromising his values or being the stronger wizard. Every trait you can think of comes with strengths and weaknesses. Hufflepuffs are nice, but can easily be taken advantage of, due to their willingness to give others the benefit of the doubt. Slytherins are self-preserving, but can also be ambitious, shrewd, brilliant, and protective of the people they love. In Harry's case, his humility is a strength. Voldemort underestimates him time and time again, and this is eventually his downfall. Harry's loyalty and unwillingness to fight fire with fire is also strength. He rallies a large number of people to fight, and sometimes die, against Voldemort for him. His love is a strength. He believes in people, forgives people, and saves people, even his longtime nemesis Draco Malfoy. What is the strength behind the fatal flaw and false beliefs? How does each false belief protect the character and work for them? And where do they need more discernment and balance? Feeling stuck? Since false beliefs tend to be under the surface, subconscious, and hard for us or our characters to see, it may help to look at more examples. Look at books in your genre, or simply think of a few of your favorite books, and break down some of the false beliefs of the protagonist. Try to tie each false belief to a larger fatal flaw for that character. If you are struggling to find the false beliefs around your character's fatal flaw, you can also simply skip this section and save it for later. We will have many more opportunities to look at false beliefs. It may be easier to start with plot, the external arc, and work your way backwards to identify the false belief, the internal arc, in each plot point. Then you can check to see that it aligns back to the fatal flaw. 22 days left. Day 9: Character Motivations and the Fatal Flaw. Every protagonist has an internal and external conflict that must be overcome before reaching the transformation. These conflicts are expressed early on in the book through two devices: the motivation and the fatal flaw. The motivation and fatal flaw are the external and internal conflicts respectively. They are two acknowledgments of the same problem. The external plot arc kicked off by the motivation is symbolic of the internal character arc kicked off by the fatal flaw, and vice versa. The Fault in Our Stars. Character: Hazel Grace Lancaster. Fatal flaw: Wants her loved ones to move on unharmed after her death. False beliefs: She believes that her mother will no longer be a mother when Hazel dies, a comment she overheard accidentally at the hospital. She is obsessed with a book called An Imperial Affliction that ends mid-sentence and longs to know what happens to the other characters. She doesn't want to start a relationship with Augustus Waters because she doesn't want to be like his last girlfriend, who died of cancer. She believes that she is a grenade and seeks to minimize the damage to those around her by not getting close to anyone. Transformation: She realizes that her death may hurt others, but she can still have a full life, even if it's a short one. She learns that her parents' lives will go on after her death. She learns that her mother will always be a mother. She tells Augustus that some infinities are bigger than other infinities, and that she's happy for the small infinity he has given her—their romance. You can imagine that her fatal flaw is first revealed at the beginning of the novel, she breaks through her false beliefs in the middle of the novel, and she experiences a transformation at the end of the novel. But how do we create an actual plot from that? We do this by defining her motivation from the fatal flaw and matching up the external and internal journeys. Remember, the fatal flaw and motivation are two sides of the same coin. In The Fault in Our Stars, Hazel's flaw is that she sees herself as a grenade. Augustus challenges this right away, getting closer to her as they exchange messages and read each other's favorite books. Hazel discloses that she wants to know the ending to An Imperial Affliction, a book that ends mid-sentence when the protagonist dies. Augustus contacts the author, who says he will tell her in person if she comes to Amsterdam. From this point on, Hazel makes a decision. She is going to learn the ending to An Imperial Affliction, no matter what it takes. This is her motivation for the rest of the book. On the outset, the fatal flaw and motivation don't look like they go together, but for anyone who has read the book, we know that they do. Learning the ending to an imperial affliction is Hazel's way of reconciling her own death and belief that she is a grenade. She longs to know that her parents will be okay after she's gone. She want to know that they have a future, and she attempts to reconcile that by learning the futures of the other characters in an Imperial Affliction. To be clear, an Imperial Affliction is a representation or symbol of Hazel's fatal flaw. But why do we need the symbol? Because a book does not move forward based on a fatal flaw. As stated before, the fatal flaw is usually subconscious to the character. The character has no idea they are operating under a fatal flaw. Hazel cannot say to herself, "I really need to get past my fear of what happens to my loved ones after I die." She cannot set out on that journey. She's just not that self-aware. And if she was, well, there wouldn't be much of a story. If she knew that was her problem, she would then just go to her parents and ask them, What's your plan for when I die? They would tell her, and that would be the end of the book as her transformation would be complete. The motivation is critical. It is the rocket fuel behind entire book and the thing that launches your protagonist on his or her quest. Prompts. Question number 1: What is the protagonist's quest? If he or she doesn't have a quest just yet, what is a physical representation or symbol of the character's fatal flaw? Question 2: How does the quest tie to the motivation? How can you create a motivation that will launch the protagonist on a quest? In some cases, like in The Fault in Our Stars, the motivation is a metaphor. It doesn't have to be, though. In the Harry Potter series, the motivation is survival and peace, as most believe that Voldemort is still alive in some form and will come back for Harry. In the first book, this is represented by protecting the Philosopher's Stone, which is thought to have the power to bring Voldemort back into a human body. In the Twilight Saga, the motivation is love and romance, as Bella and Edward fall in love. In the first book, this is represented by their burgeoning relationship and her desire to join the vampire world, despite what it means for her humanity and despite the dangers it holds. She's willing to do whatever it takes to be with Edward long-term, even if she has to die. Question number 3: How does the motivation reflect the fatal flaw? For Harry Potter, much of the first book is spent building his confidence, which is his fatal flaw. He is trying to protect the Philosopher's Stone, which will prevent Voldemort from coming back for the time being. Throughout the book, he goes through obstacle after obstacle, saving his friends and breaking through every challenge that the professors of Hogwarts use to protect the stone. By the end of the book, he learns a valuable lesson. While he isn't nearly as strong or as skilled at magic as Voldemort, he has strengths that may help him defeat Voldemort in the future. The motivation to protect the Philosopher's Stone challenges his false beliefs and fatal flaw over and over again. For Bella Swan in the Twilight Saga, Bella believes the love between Edward and her is worth every sacrifice. She sacrifices her friends, her family, her safety, and eventually her humanity to be with him eternally. Her initial motivation to be with Edward and join the vampire world goes straight back to her fatal flaw, which is that she's human, physically weak, and fairly helpless and in need of protection. Feeling Stuck. Remember that the fatal flaw and motivation are a mirrored pair, internal and external respectively. If you have one, you can figure out the other. If you're feeling stuck, can you decide on one or the other? This will move you forward. And what if you have a fairly static character with a static fatal flaw? Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code is afraid of tight spaces, but he is also so fascinated with mysteries and his area of expertise around symbolism that he is willing to put his life in danger to chase down ancient secrets and puzzles. The motivation is truth, and it ties directly to the fatal flaw, because the truth is going to challenge his greatest fear directly every time. Additionally, his search for truth always sends him on a quest, which, as a fairly mild-mannered professor, he is not always ideally equipped for. We have 21 days left to go, which means we are almost a third done. Press on, igniter. Day 10: Character Goals and the False Beliefs. Just as the fatal flaw and motivation are twin concepts, two expressions of the same problem, the false beliefs and goals are also twin concepts, two expressions of the same solution. The goal is just the external expression of the false belief. And the false belief is just the internal expression of the goal. Each is a solution or coping mechanism for the fatal flaw motivation. When a false belief is challenged, the protagonist either reaffirms the belief or breaks through the belief. Similarly, when a goal is challenged, the protagonist either succeeds at the goal or fails at it. Whereas the fatal flaw and motivation stay the same throughout the story and are only broken through at the end, the false beliefs and goals change and are broken through as we go along, primarily in the middle section of the story. The Fault in Our Stars. Character: Hazel Grace Lancaster. Fatal flaw: Wants her loved ones to move on unharmed after her death. Motivation: Learn the ending to the other characters' futures in An Imperial Affliction. False beliefs: She believes that her mother will no longer be a mother when Hazel dies, a comment she overheard accidentally at the hospital. She is obsessed with a book called An Imperial Affliction that ends mid-sentence and longs to know what happens to the other characters. She doesn't want to start a relationship with Augustus Waters because she doesn't want to be like his last girlfriend, who died of cancer. She believes that she is a grenade and seeks to minimize the damage to those around her by not getting close to anyone. Transformation: She realizes that her death may hurt others, but she can still have a full life, even if it's a short one. She learns that her parents' lives will go on after her death. She learns that her mother will always be a mother. She tells Augustus that some infinities are bigger than other infinities, and that she's happy for the small infinity he has given her—their romance. From this, we can map out goals that will directly help Hazel break through her false beliefs. False belief: She believes that her mother will no longer be a mother when Hazel dies, —a comment she overheard accidentally at the hospital. Goal: She wants to see her mother to have a life outside of her. False belief: She is obsessed with a book called "An Imperial Affliction" that ends mid-sentence and longs to know what happens to the other characters. Goal: She wants to get the ending from the author directly, which requires her to go to Amsterdam. False belief: She doesn't want to start a relationship with Augustus Waters because she doesn't want to be like his last girlfriend, who died of cancer. Goal: She pushes him away for as long as she can, keeping him firmly in the crush category. False belief: She believes that she is a grenade, and seeks to minimize the damage to those around her by not getting close to anyone. Goal: She closes herself off to anyone new so that she doesn't break their hearts. This list of goals is helpful, but in order to create a real plot that we can start writing, we need to put them in some sort of order. There's a ton of wiggle room here, because you can break through these beliefs in any order. That said, it may be helpful to move from least offensive false belief to most offensive false belief in your story, because the harder it is to overcome a false belief, the larger and more challenging the external goal would need to be. Here's the rough order in which Hazel pursues these goals. She believes that she is a grenade and seeks to minimize the damage to those around her by not getting close to anyone. So she closes herself off to anyone new so that she doesn't break their hearts. She is obsessed with a book called An Imperial Affliction that ends mid-sentence and longs to know what happens to the other characters. So she wants to get the ending from the author directly, which requires her to go to Amsterdam. She doesn't want to start a relationship with Augustus Waters because she doesn't want to be like his last girlfriend, who died of cancer. So she pushes him away for as long as she can, keeping him firmly in the crush category. She believes that her mother will no longer be a mother when Hazel dies, a comment she overheard accidentally at the hospital. So she wants to see her mother to have a life outside of her, and finally confronts her about it. Now we are starting to see a plot come together, which we will map out in order in a later lesson. For now, it's good to get a rough idea of how the character arc might play out, but there's still lots of room for rearrangement in the future. Next, let's talk about how to move your character through these external goals to overcome their false beliefs. Here's how that works: If the character succeeds in her goal, it confirms the false belief, which allows the character to continue believing it. If the character fails in her goal, it challenges the false belief, which allows the character to break through. Armed with that knowledge now, here's the rough order within which Hazel overcomes her false beliefs: She doesn't want to date Augustus at first, because he's already had one girlfriend die of cancer. She confronts him on this, telling him she's a grenade, to which he replies, "It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you." She's unable to scare him off (failure). They eventually do have a relationship. She attempts to get the ending for An Imperial Affliction, but the author insists that the characters simply cease to exist. Hazel is incredibly unsatisfied with this. She wants to imagine a future for the characters, who are a metaphor for her own parents, and all the people she will leave behind when she dies. She never does get her ending, failure, but she realizes that her true goal is securing her own loved ones' futures. She confronts her mother about the comment she overheard, that she won't be a mother after Hazel dies. Her mother then tells her that she is taking classes and earning a degree, and has plans for her life if and when Hazel passes away. This helps Hazel realize that even her death can't make her mother not a mother. Failure. She is able to accept her death with the peace of mind that her family will continue on. Hopefully by now you can see how you can plot out your entire story, figuring out each of your major moments by simply lining up the false beliefs and choosing goals to either break through a belief or confirm a belief. This is how the character moves along through the story and makes progress toward the transformation. Prompts. Question number 1: Look at your list of false beliefs. Can you list them in order from easiest to break through to hardest to break through? For this exercise, your ranking may feel arbitrary for now. That's because there is no right answer. Trust your intuition and put those false beliefs in whatever order feels right for the moment. You can definitely rearrange these false beliefs into a different order later, and we will be rearranging them as needed throughout the rest of this book. Question 2: Look at your list of false beliefs now organized. What are some external goals that could prompt success or failure at breaking through each false belief? You may not be sure of the answers to this, but again, That's because there are no right answers. Simply write down whatever comes to you through your intuition and your basic knowledge of your story. We are making it up as we go along on purpose, and we will be rearranging later anyway, so it doesn't completely matter what you have down in this section for the moment. Question number 3: Look at your external goals. How does each tie back to the initial motivation? For this question, your main goal is check in on alignment. As I've stated, alignment between all the elements of story is the key to a commercially successful story. Thus far, we've gone from fatal flaw to false beliefs to motivation to goals. Each derived from the previous, one after the other. Thus, each goal should lead all the way back to fatal flaw through the motivation. If you've done the lessons thus far, you should be able to answer this question easily for each goal. If you find yourself getting stuck, there's no need to worry just yet. It could be that you are still weaving the threads of your story. We have more questions down the line that will help you get these into deeper alignment as you go along. For the time being, if you see a misalignment between goals and the initial motivation, or the fatal flaw or the false beliefs, ask yourself, "What can I change to bring these elements into alignment?" It could be that you want to adjust or deepen the fatal flaw, or change the motivation. You may want to find more false beliefs or come up with new goals. See what you can do to get these into alignment sooner rather than later. Eventually, they will need to be in alignment. May as well bring them closer now. Question 4: Can you map out some key points on your protagonist's quest, using the motivation and goals? Here, we are getting closer to a loose outline of the plot of your story, based on the character's arc. Note that you are not fleshing out the whole plot in this section. You are merely mapping out the plot points that will move your character forward. Some plot points don't move the character forward, but instead move the plot forward. So your loose outline will still have a lot of gaps that we'll be filling in in later sections. Question 5: Can you map out some key points on your protagonist's character arc? Using the corresponding fatal flaw and false beliefs? If you can answer this question, you will have two things: your character arc or arcs, and the knowledge that your plot thus far is going to move your character through his or her respective arc. This is a big deal. In 10 days, you've gone from an idea to having a huge piece of your book, character journeys, loosely mapped out. Everything is in alignment, and you can breathe a sigh of relief that your book makes emotional sense thus far. Your most important characters are transforming throughout your book, which will please readers. Well done! Feeling stuck? What if you didn't do well when you hit Question 5 of this lesson? You still get to pat yourself on the back. Because even if you don't have full character arcs, you have the building blocks for them. And in the coming days, we will build out your character arcs from the external perspective through the lessons on plot. Right now, a plot is starting to thicken through the fatal flaw, false beliefs, motivation, and goals. You may be feeling overwhelmed at this point, or you may feel like you've done it all wrong, to which I would say slow down and stop worrying. We'll be revisiting the plot and these concepts a few more times throughout this book, so you don't need to have everything figured out at the moment. Write down what you know to the best of your ability, using the prompts you've learned thus far. You can't possibly miss anything, or leave anything out at this point. Your novel is only growing from here, this is novel prep time. I also want to assure you that if you are feeling confused, it's because we are currently accessing plot in a roundabout way that's not often taught. That's on purpose. We are looking at plot from its underlying emotional skeleton and getting those pieces into place as best as possible before we cover them up with the actual plot of the book. Think of it like building an actual human body. You aren't ever going to see your own skeleton, hopefully, but it's the reason that your body holds its form. With just a skeleton, you would look pretty unattractive and probably be dead. A skeleton is certainly not enough to be a body, and your current knowledge of your book is certainly not enough to be your novel. But without the skeleton, your body doesn't work.— it falls apart. And without the answers to these first 10 days of prompts, your book doesn't work either. It falls apart too. This is because the emotional layer of your book, the characters' internal character arcs, is also the heartbeat of your book. The work you've done over the past 10 days is the stuff that will make readers fall in love with your work at the subconscious level. They will never see this work as they read the book, hopefully. You will cover up this layer and make all of it seem effortless and flowing. But you as the author need to see this layer and put it in place for the sake of your book. We do this first because so many authors leave it out, then wonder why their plot-driven book with static characters, no heartbeat, and lackluster emotion is not gripping readers. If you've gotten this far and stayed present with the first 10 lessons, you are well on your way to writing a great book. Ignore what's confusing for now. We are in the middle of tuning a piano. There are still lots of variables that will slowly fall into place as you keep going. So keep going. 20 more days left. Let's do this. Day 11: A Quick and Dirty Plot. Today, we make a slight shift in direction in terms of where we explore our novel next. We've spent the first 10 days building out the underlying emotional skeleton of the book. Now, we'll build the muscles, organs, and flesh that will make our book function smoothly. Eventually, we'll be using the 5 tentpole moments that are prevalent across most storytelling frameworks. You may have heard of them in some form or another before. These tentpole moments are: The Inciting Incident. The Decision, aka the first plot point. The Reversal, aka the midpoint. The Cards on the Table moment, aka the second plot point. The Transformation. I want to be clear that the tentpole moments are likely as old as the novel form itself. I didn't invent them or even observe them; they are simply the basis for storytelling architecture, and their individual elements can be spotted in both modern novels and the classics. As I said, we will be fleshing these out for your novel, Eventually. For now though, we are going to do a quick and dirty version of the tentpole moments, using a portion of a little tool I invented, and still use to this day, called the Ultimate Novel Plotter. Silly name, I know. But very effective in using what we already know, the character arc, and aligning it to our major plot points. The Ultimate Novel Plotter starts with 6 questions that you answer for each character that has a character arc. They are: What is his or her fatal flaw? What is his or her difficult decision? 25% mark. What is his or her figurative death? 50% mark. How does the figurative death spring him or her into action? How does he go from wanderer to warrior? What is the final battle? 75% mark. What is the transformation? We will go through each of these questions in a minute, but for now, I want to point out that you should already know the answer to the first and last questions. If not, now is your chance. Here's how to find the answers to these questions quickly. What is his or her fatal flaw? Learn about the fatal flaw in Day 7 Character Fatal Flaws. What is his or her difficult decision? 25% mark: The character has to choose between their ordinary world and their new quest or adventure. Ideally, neither of these choices is easy. Often, the protagonist is a reluctant hero. What is his or her figurative death? 50% mark: The protagonist's life is either directly threatened or their fatal flaw is directly threatened, or both. How does the figurative death spring him or her into action? How does he go from wanderer to warrior? For the first half of the book, the character is allowing things to happen to them. For the second half of the book, they will need to take action and make things happen themselves. What is the final battle? 75% mark: There's one last piece of information that launches us into the end of the book. If you know what this piece of information is, and you know what the battle is, put that here. What is the transformation? The character transforms because of the journey they've been on. What is the resolution to the story? Learn more about the transformation in Day 7: Character Fatal Flaws. Here are some examples of the answers to these 6 questions: The Harry Potter series. Fatal flaw: Harry Potter is afraid that he can't beat Voldemort. His fatal flaw is lack of confidence. Difficult decision: Harry has to choose between what he knows, living with the Dursleys, and entering the strange and magical new wizarding world. In this particular series, the decision is not hard for him because life with the Dursleys is so horrible. Figurative death: Harry is playing Quidditch and his life is literally threatened by someone in the stands. Hermione believes it to be Snape. Wanderer to warrior: Harry and his friends are determined to discover who is working with Voldemort as his ally to procure the Philosopher's Stone. Harry takes action by watching Snape's movements much more closely. Final Battle: Harry and his friends learn that a mysterious person learned how to get past Hagrid's challenge. Fluffy guards the door to the Philosopher's Stone, and Hagrid has given away the secret. The trio, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, go after Voldemort's servant, whom they believe to be Snape, and enter the final challenges that lead to the end battle with Voldemort. Transformation: Harry Potter recognizes his strengths where Voldemort is weak and uses those to his advantage to beat him. The Hunger Games. Fatal flaw: Katniss Everdeen doesn't want to bring children into this world because it's so terrible. Her fatal flaw is she has no hope for the future. Difficult decision: She must choose between whether she is going to fight in the Games so she can come home to her sister, mother, and Gale, or whether she is going to remain her surly, angry self in front of the cameras. Will she play the game that she morally opposes so deeply? Figurative death: Katniss nearly dies when she is forced to climb a tree to avoid battle with the Career tributes. She gets stung by tracker jackers and begins hallucinating. Peeta, whom she believes is working against her, saves her life, which shifts her character arc too. When he saves her, one of her false beliefs dies. Wanderer to Warrior: Katniss teams up with Rue to take down some Career tributes. Instead of avoiding the killings, she gets herself into the game and takes on a more active role. Her ideal outcome is to save Rue, who represents innocence and reminds us of Katniss's fatal flaw, her sister Primrose. Final Battle: Katniss learns of the deaths of the last few tributes, specifically Thrash and Foxface. She reflects on what a part of her always knew, that the last battle will be at the Cornucopia with Cato. The last piece of information falls into place as well as Katniss scoops up the poisonous berries that took out Foxface, and brings them with her to the final battle. Transformation: Katniss learns that although there are terrible people and happenings in the world, specifically at the Capitol, there is plenty that is worth fighting for, including her new friend Peeta and her safe return home. The Fault in Our Stars. Fatal flaw: Hazel wants her loved ones to move on unharmed after her death. She believes she is a grenade. Difficult decision: She decides not to fall in love with Augustus Waters, and to save him the pain when she dies. She does however start a friendship with him, and they become obsessed with the ending to An Imperial Affliction. Figurative death: She kisses Augustus at Anne Frank's house tour in Amsterdam. They sleep together. She is completely all in on their love, even though she still thinks of herself as a grenade. Wanderer to warrior, she learns that Augustus is going to die. Instead of backing away, she invests as much time as possible into his last days. Final battle, Augustus is gone and she's finished with his funeral. Pieter van Houten, the author of An Imperial Affliction, tells her that Augustus was writing her something just before death. He might not have finished it. This is the last piece of information needed before Hazel goes into the final battle, which is confronting her own death with the people she loves. Transformation. Hazel realizes that her death may hurt others, but she can still have a full life even if it's a short one. She learns that her parents' lives will go on after her death. She learns that her mother will always be a mother. She tells Augustus that some infinities are bigger than other infinities, and that she's happy for the small infinity he has given her—their romance. Prompts: Question 1: What is your character's fatal flaw? Learn about the fatal flaw in Day 7: Character Fatal Flaws. If you have multiple characters with character arcs, you'll need to answer this question for each character. Question 2: What is his or her difficult decision? The character has to choose between their ordinary world and their new quest or adventure. Ideally, neither of these choices is easy. Often, the protagonist is a reluctant hero, as in The Hunger Games, But sometimes, as in the Harry Potter series, the choice is more of a Cinderella moment. This moment typically happens at the 25% mark of the book. Question 3: What is his or her figurative death? The protagonist's life is either directly threatened, or their fatal flaw is directly threatened, or both. This moment typically happens at the 50% mark of the book. Question 4: How does the figurative death spring him or her into action? For the first half of the book, the character is allowing things to happen to them. For the second half of the book, they will need to take action and make things happen themselves. How does he or she go from wanderer to warrior? What changes? Question 5: What is the final battle? There's one last piece of information that launches us into the end of the book. If you know what this piece of information is, and you know what the battle is, put that here. This moment typically happens at the 75% mark of the book. Question 6: What is the transformation? The character transforms because of the journey they've been on. What is the resolution to the story? Learn more about the transformation in Day 7: Character Fatal Flaws. Feeling Stuck. If you are feeling stuck on any of these questions aside from the first and last, there's no reason to fear, as we'll be revisiting each one again over the coming days. If you are feeling stuck on the questions about the fatal flaw and the transformation, head on back to Day 7: Character Fatal Flaws. Day 12: The Setup. Part 1, often called Act 1 or the setup in other storytelling books, is roughly the first 10-25% of your story. It includes two important tentpole moments called the inciting incident and the decision,, which we'll get into later in this lesson. In general, it follows these rough beats: We introduce the reader to the protagonist's normal world, hopefully hooking them in the process. Next, we explain to them why today is different for the protagonist. This is often the first clue leading up to the inciting incident, or it could even be the inciting incident. The inciting incident happens, and everything changes for the character. This is a surprising turn of fate type of moment. The inciting incident poses a question, and the protagonist will need to come up with an answer. Because of the inciting incident, the protagonist is faced with a decision. The decision is the answer to the question. That decision is the end of Part 1. Every story opening follows this rough set of beats, no matter the genre. Let's do a few examples. The Harry Potter Series. Part 1 in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone happens in the first few chapters. While the very first chapter, not from Harry's point of view, sets the stage for the magic, Chapter 2 dives right into Harry and his ordinary world. Here, we learn about his ordinary life living in the space under the stairs, never getting anything his cousin Dudley has. Next, he goes to the zoo and speaks to snakes accidentally—oops! Here's the "extraordinary day in the ordinary world" beat that clues us in that something in Harry's world is about to change. Then, the inciting incident, when Harry receives his acceptance letter from Hogwarts—this is a long sequence that ends with Hagrid coming to collect him—presents Harry with a decision: become a part of the magical world and obey the rules, or stay with the Dursleys. Finally, Harry makes his decision. It's an easy one for him. He's headed to Hogwarts. Note: This takes him a few more chapters to fully decide he's going. When he gets on the train, he's finally reached the point of no return. The Hunger Games. Part 1 in The Hunger Games happens almost entirely in the first chapter. We meet Katniss in her ordinary world, a day of hunting in District 12. Then we learn that today is an extraordinary day for her. It's reaping day. When her sister Primrose's name is called, the inciting incident, Katniss is faced with her decision: let Prim go to the Games or volunteer in her place. Note: Again, there are a few chapters of tearful goodbyes and whatnot before Katniss gets on the train and reaches the true point of no return. The Martian. Part 1 in The Martian, the movie version, begins with an ordinary day on Mars. Tending soil samples. Mark Watney is annoying his crewmates when a deadly storm comes rolling through. The extraordinary day within the ordinary world. The team makes an emergency departure, but Mark gets hit with some debris and nearly dies. The crew can't find him, so they leave him and escape the storm. The inciting incident. When Mark wakes up, he barely survives getting back to their bunker. And has no way to contact NASA. He explains via a video diary that he has no food to survive for the 4 years it will take NASA to get to him. There are also a ton of other obstacles he faces. He's going to die on Mars. He wallows for a bit, then finds a few potatoes that were sealed for a Thanksgiving celebration. Since he's a botanist, this is a potential solution to one of the obstacles he faces. He makes a choice—he's not going to die on Mars. The decision. Tentpole moment number 1: The inciting incident. Let's discuss the inciting incident to clarify it, in case the examples aren't enough. The inciting incident is the thing that happens that forces your character to make a decision. It's the incident that shifts the story from passive to active. And it almost always pushes the protagonist to do something he or she wasn't expecting to have to do. Additionally, the inciting incident can be one scene or a sequence of scenes, and it is usually foreshadowed by the contrast of ordinary world and extraordinary day in ordinary world. The extraordinary day is often a hint at the inciting incident to come. This beat is a tentpole moment in your story. You have to have it, because it's the event that forces your character to make a decision, which pushes your story forward. Tentpole moment number 2: The Decision, aka the first plot point. The decision is another tentpole moment in your story. You have to have it, because it launches the meat of your story. Without it, your story fizzles out, and your character has no motivation to drive him forward. It is often called the first plot point, but I'm not fond of that terminology because it doesn't provide any information for what this beat looks like. To me, the decision is a major turning point for the character. They are presented with or forced into a situation. They do not get the choice to do nothing. There is no "hold on, let's think about that" option. They must pick. Now. And whatever they choose is usually life-changing, and dictates the rest of the story. If you want to turn up the heat on the decision, put your character in a no-win situation. For example, Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games is faced with two terrible choices. Let her sister go to the games and die. Go to the games herself, even though she desperately doesn't want to be a piece in them. Save her sister, but probably die herself. You don't have to do this.