Welcome to day 15 of PREPTOBER! This is a series of daily questions and prompts to help you prepare for this year’s upcoming NaNoWriMo!
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Today’s question is:
What’s the problem your main character faces?
Feel free to share your answer in the comments! I would love to hear your response!
Here it is folks, the moment you have been waiting for! Today marks the first day that we are going to dive into everyone’s favorite writing aspect: PLOT.
You may already have a good idea of your plot, but my guess is, there are a few bald spots that you are choosing to ignore. They will come to you in time, you tell yourself. It will work itself out in the drafting process, you say.
Don’t worry, I know this because I too have turned a blind eye to my own plot holes. But with the next few posts we are going to hopefully clear up some of the confusion you might have about what the heck happens next in your novel.
Shall we begin?
One of the most basic elements of story is a problem.
Lizzy Bennett lives in a world where marriage of convenience is expected (Universal Conflict). But what if the most eligible bachelor is rude and prejudiced and all together stuck up? Well then, that’s a problem.
Harry Potter is being hunted down by the most powerful wizard alive (External Conflict), but he just found out that he’s a wizard, has no magical knowledge to speak of and has no friends or allies. That’s a problem.
Katniss Everdeen’s one mission in life is to protect and fend for her sister (Greatest Fear), but her sister’s name is pulled to participate in the Hunger Games. Problem.
Do you see where I am going here? Each of these moments kick off the rest of the story. If you hadn’t ever read these books, you might even guess what happens next. Lizzy, through a series of events, falls in love with Mr. Darcy, whom she swore to hate forever (internal conflict). Harry learns how to master magic and gains friends and allies (Greatest Dream). Katniss sacrifices herself to protect her sister (Greatest Fear).
This “problem” we are referring to is the call to action, the inciting incident, or the catalyst. It is a situation that is indicative of the rest of the story.
Our characters are smart, capable people, and so they do everything they can to solve this initial problem with the resources that they have available to them.
Lizzy, though disgusted by Mr. Darcy, continues to see him regularly so that her sister may get closer to his friend.
Harry hops on a train to Hogwarts to start class.
Katniss volunteers for Prim’s place in the Hunger Games.
Each character chooses to put themselves in an unfamiliar situation in order to solve the original problem.
Each problem has something to do with their dreams/nightmares or with one of the three levels of conflict we have already established.
So that begs the question:
What is the problem your main character faces?
Share this post with a friend so that we can all write together!