{"id":1313,"date":"2023-10-29T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-29T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/?p=1313"},"modified":"2023-10-27T15:12:27","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T15:12:27","slug":"nanowrimo-the-planning-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/29\/nanowrimo-the-planning-2\/","title":{"rendered":"NANOWRIMO &#8211; the planning (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>At the end of the last post, I detailed the story beats thus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Act 1<\/strong> &#8211; opening before investigation, setup, initial enquiries, decision to progress<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Act 2A<\/strong> &#8211; maybe side story (love interest?), detailed investigation, first obstacle,\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Act 2B<\/strong> &#8211; the investigation gets more difficult, MC suffers biggest obstacle, things look bad, oh &#8211; hang on&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Act 3<\/strong> &#8211; new impetus, new ideas, closing in on the culprit, knocking red herrings aside, final disclosure, rounding up, return to normality<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At this point, I&#8217;m eyeing up one of my favourite processes, which is 100% the key to all of my novel writing in the past five years &#8211; maybe longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>And this is Save The Cat, a strangely-named process created by screenwriter Blake Snyder (RIP):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-save-the-cat wp-block-embed-save-the-cat\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"tofY7Bkahq\"><a href=\"https:\/\/savethecat.com\/\">Blake Snyder&#8217;s Save the Cat!\u00ae &#8211; The Language of Storytelling<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Blake Snyder&#8217;s Save the Cat!\u00ae &#8211; The Language of Storytelling&#8221; &#8212; Save the Cat!\u00ae\" src=\"https:\/\/savethecat.com\/embed#?secret=R7n0Z7OVcM#?secret=tofY7Bkahq\" data-secret=\"tofY7Bkahq\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I won&#8217;t go into too much detail here, but suffice it to say that Snyder broke up many screenplays into fifteen story &#8220;beats&#8221; &#8211; points which every story must touch on the journey from the opening image to final image. Fortunately, they also drop nicely into my four act story structure:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Act 1<\/strong>: Opening Image, Setup, Theme Stated, Catalyst, Debate, Break Into Two<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Act 2A<\/strong>: B Story, Promise of the Premise, Midpoint<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Act 2B<\/strong>: Bad Guys Close In, All Is Lost, Dark Night of the Soul<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Act 3<\/strong>: Finale, Final Image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each beat performs a different function, and may have 1 scene to tell it, or up to 8 scenes. Not all beats are created equal! The number of scenes I allocate are defined by the number of script pages Snyder calculated in his initial studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, not every story fits into this exact structure, and many stories are told of The Hero&#8217;s Journey, which is totally different (e.g. Star Wars). But I find Save The Cat works great for my mystery stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I aim for roughly 40 scenes to tell my story, and for 60,000 words minimum. Which means each scene should have a minimum of 1,500 words on average. These are my guidelines. In my genre, readers prefer smaller chapters (generally speaking, each chapter is a scene; each scene, a chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For my last manuscript, the first in my Witford Market series, I ended up with 42 scenes, 70,088 words for an average of 1,669 words per scene in the first draft. This is just a guide, obviously &#8211; the scene needs as few or as many words as it needs. Sometimes my scenes end up at 600 words, sometimes 2,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Bitter-End-word-count-sheet.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"404\" src=\"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Bitter-End-word-count-sheet-1024x404.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1316\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Bitter-End-word-count-sheet-1024x404.png 1024w, https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Bitter-End-word-count-sheet-300x119.png 300w, https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Bitter-End-word-count-sheet-768x303.png 768w, https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Bitter-End-word-count-sheet.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Similarly, although each beat has a nominal &#8216;size&#8217;, they can vary. A lot of the beats are contained within a single scene, but certain beats, such as <em>Debate<\/em> starts off with 6, and <em>Finale<\/em> 8. Again, this is just a guideline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Single scenes I can plan easily. The opening image is just that &#8211; the picture I see in my head before all the fun and games start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The beats with multiple scenes take a little more effort. In my works, I need to get across multiple suspects, tell their stories, plant red herrings, create evidence and alibis, some of which stand up and some which don&#8217;t. But I need to do this in an entertaining way, which doesn&#8217;t look like a &#8216;paint by numbers&#8217; crime story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One thing I&#8217;ve found useful this year is to create a planning sheet for each multi-scene major beat: Debate, Promise of the Premise, Bad Guys Close In, and Finale. On this sheet, I print the &#8216;definition&#8217; of the beat, what it is supposed to do for the story. I then have a box in which I write the Story Purpose &#8211; how this beat fits into MY story. I get this from an expanded form of the beats I created earlier. I also have &#8220;Coming In&#8221; and &#8220;Going Out&#8221; boxes, which describe the scenes immediately before and after this beat. And then there are a column of boxes, into which I can write a summary of the scenes which reside within this beat.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/filled-in-major-beats-sheet.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/filled-in-major-beats-sheet-1024x750.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1315\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/filled-in-major-beats-sheet-1024x750.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/filled-in-major-beats-sheet-300x220.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/filled-in-major-beats-sheet-768x563.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/filled-in-major-beats-sheet.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It sounds more complicated than it is!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that is as much as I do before NaNoWriMo begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the next post, I describe how I actually write my NaNo manuscript. It&#8217;s not just a case of writing what I&#8217;ve summarised!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in discovering many of my hints and tips on preparing for, and actually doing, the NaNoWriMo challenge, please check out my book:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"598\" src=\"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Ebook-cover-400W.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1306 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Ebook-cover-400W.jpeg 400w, https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Ebook-cover-400W-201x300.jpeg 201w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-large-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/nanowrimo-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>LINK TO BOOK PAGE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the end of the last post, I detailed the story beats thus: Act 1 &#8211; opening before investigation, setup, initial enquiries, decision to progress Act 2A &#8211; maybe side story (love interest?), detailed investigation, first obstacle,\u00a0 Act 2B &#8211; the investigation gets more difficult, MC suffers biggest obstacle, things look bad, oh &#8211; hang [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,9,16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-efficient-novelist","category-nanowrimo","category-writing","category-writing-on-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5y3CH-lb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1319,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions\/1319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}