Week Two: Plot? What Plot?

I think it's safe to say that National Novel Writing month has claimed our lives. But the idea of having a completed novel at the end of month, however rough and messy it is, is incredibly attractive.

I've also noticed how each pep talk sent out each week by a different author is incredibly inspiring and encouraging to read. I'm getting more good advice and confidence from this one month of writing than I ever did in any college course.

Week two is much harder to plough through than week one. Week one, I was simply following my every whim and throwing in whatever I thought was exciting and interesting. The writing was incredibly easy because I was enjoying the feeling of being a 'reader' along with my writing. I was basically writing the story as I 'read' a book-- not knowing where the story was taking me.

I added in magic wherever possible, I added in Penguins, I threw in snow and a snow queen. ( You can see how much, when reading this story, I sort of ache for snow! And when I had snow I hated it. It just goes to show you can't please everybody, least wise yourself.)

Now in week two, I have realized that I need stop adding and start pulling. I need to start making my story make sense or else I will rapidly begin to lose interest and so will my future readers, if any exist!

I have also realized, that the impending deadline does not allow for much think time. In sum, I am struggling against two needs-- the need to make the story a story and the need to finish the story in a short amount of time with very little time now at my disposal.

And so, I have become creative. I created a list of quesitons abotu the plot and priortized important elements that need to be explained. Then, instead of answering the quesitons for myself, I have the characters ask the questions and within the story, answer the question in a creative way.

For example, on thing I struggle with in my story is particularly how the magic happens in a way that makes sense. I mean, it's magic, so it doesn't have to make sense, per se, but within the rules of the world it has to have some sort of explaination. You can't just have a bunny pop out of nowhere and say that it's because it's magic. You either have to establish that it is a magic bunny and part of the magic is that it can pop in and out of various rooms. You also have to set limits on the magic. If it was unlimited magic bunny, well then you've created a nice deus ex machina in case you get into trouble. But Deus Ex Machina's sometimes come off as too easy. The bunny needs an achilles heel in the magic. For example, the bunny can pop in and out of any room in the world, but every time he uses the magic, he gets older. This makes the story more interesting and poses more questions for the author to answer.