Welcome to day 22 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 most devastating set back that happens to your character?
Feel free to share your answer in the comments! I would love to hear your response!
Around the 75% mark, something terrible happens to your character.
In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf dies.
In The Hunger Games, Rue dies.
In The Empire Strikes Back, Han gets frozen in carbonate.**
In Pride and Prejudice, Lizzy learns that her sister has eloped with Mr. Wickham which will ruin their family forever.
In Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack and Elizabeth walk the plank and are marooned.
All of these events are the worst case scenario for your MC and this scene plays directly into your Main Character’s Fears.
Katniss looks at Rue as if she were her sister. They are the same age, and Katniss takes it upon herself to protect Rue. So when she dies, it’s like Prim died, and Katniss fails to protect her. (Make sure to watch this video from The Hunger Games as we will be talking more about it tomorrow!)
How does your main character’s deepest fears play out on the page? What would completely stop them in their tracks and make them want to give up?
Remember, your character has chosen to be on this journey time and time again, this event will cause them to second guess themself and regret going in the first place.
What’s the most devastating setback that happens to your character?
Share this post with a friend so that we can all write together!
**I was going to say that Luke learning that Darth Vader is his father is the devastating setback of the movie, but then I realized that it’s the Climax of the Empire Strikes Back and the devastating setback of the Star Wars trilogy as a whole. If you want to learn more about how to apply this plot format to a series of books, comment below!