Day 10
Word count: 18,450 words
Word count goal: 20,000 words
Mapping the Hero’s Journey: Crossing The Threshold
Save The Cat: Fun & Games

Last Swim of the Summer (2014) photograph by Maria L. Berg

Today’s focus is on fun! As you can see from the images I chose for inspiration, fun makes me think of childhood and being child-like.  Try doing something fun today-dressing your pterodactyl like a baby duck, for instance. Think about what your characters do for fun. Put a fun scene in your story. Have fun writing today.

#vss very short story

Herman thought Dee Dee would be less homesick if she had a baby duck around. He wrapped himself in yellow feathers and fashioned a bill out of cardboard and fabric. Dee Dee found it offensive.

Plotting with Tarot

Today, I’m doing something different. I’m going to read for my MC and do a Celtic Cross focused on what he does to have fun and how that will influence his story.

Following the instructions in Mark Teppo’s book Jumpstart Your Novel, this is how I read the cards:

1. Protagonist having fun: Temperance- finding the middle ground of two extremes
2. The opposing factor: Ten of Wands- over-burdened
3. The root cause: Wheel of Fortune- events out of one’s control
4. The past: Ace of Swords upside-down – a fresh idea, a new start, a break-through; reversed.
5. The alternate future (vision): The Fool – faith in its good and bad forms
6. The immediate future: The Lovers – the calling; allow something to be scary and overwhelming, follow it knowing it will change you.
7. The mirror (why I’m writing about my MC’s idea of fun): Two of Cups upside-down- an equal relationship that brings goodness to each party; reversed
8. The eye (how others see my MC when having fun): Ten of Cups-  a happy ending, a promise of prosperity to come. A loving family.
9. The guide (influences the outcome): Eight of Pentacles- diligence and craft, hard work
10. The outcome (the result of my MC having fun): Two of Wands upside-down- in a position of power and ready to expand your horizons; reversed.

My interpretation: I thought it was pretty funny to ask the cards about how my main character has fun and how that influences the story and draw Temperance. It’s so perfect for my character. He would think finding the middle of the road was fun. He would like taking extreme things and combining them to be less extreme. So my character normalizes his world for fun. The fun is opposed by the amount of work it takes becoming burdensome. The root cause for this being his form of fun is that he doesn’t like events to be out of his control. Perhaps he finds ridding himself of extremes fun because of habits created in his childhood. Strict structure and repeated expectation in his up-bringing. He imagines a world without extremes where he can adventure without fear. In the immediate future he is finding his calling fun. He is having fun following clues and drawn to the new purpose even though it may cause changes in his routine.

I think the mirror card is telling me that I want to have fun and write fun scenes to balance the relationship between work and play.

When other people observe my MC having fun, thy see someone who has it all: a loving family, a nice home and a prosperous life. They don’t see that for him it is constant work to maintain what he has. He feels like fun takes away from prosperity and future possibilities to expand one’s horizons.

Ask Your Character

• How would you describe yourself as a child?
• Do you have any siblings? What were they like growing up?
• Did you get into trouble? What was the worst thing you did?

Word Of The Day

elysian: adj. blissful, delightful

8 Action Verbs:

advised          changed           conveyed           encouraged

identified           mastered            publicized          solved

Poem prompt

Write an Ottava Rima about what your main character does for fun, or as your main character having fun.

What is fun?

Getting an engine to run
After it refuses to start
Now that’s what I call fun
Taking the pieces apart
Then the diagnosis is done
Which reveals the real art
The roar of success
Brings warm pride to my chest

Note: I ignored the syllable count, so the form ended up being an inspiration. Since I like the poem that came to me, a true Ottava Rima will need to be attempted another day.

Awesome Sentence Challenge

Free write for 5 minutes. Write anything that comes to mind. After 5 minutes, look over the sentences you wrote. Did you write a variety of different sentences; different lengths, different forms? Or were all of the sentences very similar: He did this. He did that. Try re-writing what you wrote with a focus on sentence variation.

Today’s Simple Task

Highlight a symbol, icon or image

Warm-up Exercise

Set your timer for 10 minutes. What is the rock and the hard place that your MC is wedged between? What funny thing can he do to get out of it.

Recommended Word Crawl

Since today is all about fun, I thought today would be a good day for The Princess Bride Word Crawl

Once you’ve reached your writing goal, you may want to celebrate by watching the movie The Princess Bride.

Though writing a novel is hard, writing is fun.

Let yourself have fun today.

Happy Reading and Writing!