Welcome to day 28 of PREPTOBER! This is a series of daily questions and prompts to help you prepare for this year’s upcoming NaNoWriMo!
Subscribe for more daily prompts!
Today’s question is:
Does your character succeed or do they fail?
Feel free to share your answer in the comments! I would love to hear your response!
Not every story has a happy ending. But a satisfying ending always comes with growth, realization, or transformation.
In Little Miss Sunshine, Olive doesn’t win Little Miss Sunshine, but she still learns a lesson about family.
In Silver Linings Playbook, Pat and Tiffany don’t win the dance, but they still learned how to be brave, fall in love, and win the bet.
Alternatively, your ending could just be an affirmation of your character’s choice. In the Hunger Games, Katniss has won the battle in book one, she found a third way.
This third way is often the winning scenario?
Do your character’s Dreams and nightmares commingle in a way that your MC hasn’t previously thought of before. Like Luke in Star Wars: a New Hope, he wants to be a pilot, wants to be a hero, he is afraid of the force and doesn’t understand it. In the climactic moment he combines both his skill at piloting and his acceptance of his fear, the force, allows him to accurately disable the Death Star and win the day.
In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo thinks that he must destroy the Ring by himself. This is the transformation he experienced from originally thinking that he couldn’t with out a team behind him. In the finale there is a third way, where Frodo gets to win the day. A compromise. He’s not going by himself, he’s not going with a big group, he’s going with Sam.
If your character learns the lesson of the narrative, this choice will be the thing that ultimate showcases that journey. What is the quintessential moment that shows your character understands the assignment.
This last moment is a test to see if your character learned the lesson. Win or lose, they still need to experience some sort of small transformation.
Does your character succeed or do they fail?
Bonus: How does it relate to your villain’s motivations?
Share this post with a friend so that we can all write together!