Creative Writing: How to Plan a Novel in 3 Days

1. Introduction to How to Plan a Novel in 3 Days!: You like every router, one to write a great book. You want to avoid the same mistakes that many beginners make. You want to avoid the traps of bad writing and post structure. You want to enjoy the process and create a piece that others won't enjoy and learn from. Planning or novel is an important step towards writing a great book that will help you avoid future dead ends and structure the content you have in mind. Clearly, it will help a lot less pressure on your mind when thinking and writing. As you will always have a direction to work towards it. The biggest problem first-time writer faces is that they fall victim to poor planning. The outline Data Bars leads them astray. They lose inspiration. They feel they have done more to damage their rotting and improvement. In short, the planning not only took so much of their term, but it failed in doing its job properly. That is a harsh irony that can leave a better taste in any routers mouth. Leaving them with a grueling editing process or worse, having to start over from scratch. Here's some good news. This is a common problem, easily solved. Many routers experienced this, not just beginnings. Veteran writers who have written many books have hit these statins felt the same rotting blocks and have fallen victim to some of their own truly awful rotting. I'm sure if you have read many books from the same author, you have seen some Porat inform them, leaving you surprised and disappointed. It stems from poor planning and little inspiration. Of course, I have gone through this as well. My name is Matthew doing, and I am a published author, having written several books, both fiction and non-fiction. I went on to teach thousands of students on how to write their books from beginning to end, helping them beat some tough obstacles and achieve their goal of finishing a book that can be proud of. Now many a time, I have scrapped a novel idea, finding that I lack the ability to express it properly. All these words at my disposal made useless as our current found the right combination. It is three study in practice that are figured out my mistakes. I learned the hard way. Now I'm going to help you learn the easy way with a short handy cause. By the end of this course, I guarantee you'll be able to plan a novel from beginning to end in three days. I'll help you avoid the traps of over planning and minimal planning. By the end, your plan will help you not early finishing a book. But I'm sure that it's a read to be part of. I will show you exactly what to plan each day and half the planet, along with some exercises to test you to. What makes this course even more enjoyable, is that you'll be joined by thousands of eager writers. Sharing your progress, ideas and practices with this community can lead to some wonderful results. I and many other writers happily provide admiration. And if you wish, constructive criticism for your creativity, not to mention help if you ask for it. If you're having any troubles like the ones that I mentioned earlier, then this is the course for you and provide you with not only the knowledge to create a plan for your novel, but also professional help and outside opinions should you need them? And look forward to seeing you in the very first lesson. Bye for now. 2. Planning the Story | How to Plan a Novel in 3 Days!: Hello routers, and welcome to the first day of your novel planning course. Now, the first step is often the most important. You'll find that finding the energy, the inspiration to begin a project as large as writing a book, is Re, you have to have some emotional push that your man synchronizes well suddenly or your bean is involved and you need to take advantage of that opportunity. For the super humans, you have the willpower to simply sit themselves down and write novels. This isn't such a big deal. But they too feel the same amazing burst of inspiration, which only makes the process more enjoyable. It is now the first day of your planning process. Your device in the story for your book, you have been given an idea or simply constructing a story around a small idea. No matter what puts you in this position, you need now to our plan and structure story that is logical in its own way. Three things we'll be doing for the first day. First, we'll deal with the story. Second, the protagonist and the antagonist. If you focus on these three, giving them some decent attention, you can finish your first day in three hours, spending an hour on each task. And yes, I do recommend that you try to speed the process up. Go with your gut, use your instinct to help develop the story. Your imagination will take you that far. But if you dwell too much on smaller details, you'll find it much more difficult to construct a story that is enjoyable, even if it is logical. We said, said, there is no harm in taking even more time to properly put your best ideas on paper. You can read through what you write, you can addressed whatever you wish to just brain stress too much on this. Now, it's best to align your instincts for the first two days, at least putting the first things that come to mind on paper, and then using a birthday to refine and improve your plan. Now for this video, we are going to be tackling the first task of the first day. The story. What I want you to do is break it down to its simplest concept. I want you to establish in a single paragraph exactly what is in your book. I don't want you to bog yourself down with intricate relations when it comes to subplots. So even the main characters, if possible, you need to only mention your main protagonist or don't directly mentioned any characters at all. It's this technique that helps me routers cut themselves from the book for a moment and look at it with outsiders, ours, if you are like any writer describing your book to someone else, turns out to be a one-sided conversation. You go on to explain every detail, but the person you are talking to does not see what you are seeing because you have not set the scene for them. Telling them about complex twisting stories and engaging characters. Not to mention wonderful monsters and creatures that Dr. journey want to place them in the world. For that person, they are still setting and AHA across from you, surrounded by magic and monsters. But black, any attachment to them? Somewhat up in one paragraph, four to five sentences. If you want to break it down even further, let's say you use the place and time for the first sentence. So for example, here's a first sentence, four paragraph. In a vibrant kingdom far away, and a time of chivalry and adventure. Our journey begins. In that one sentence, the reader can already start placing themselves in the world without specifics. They can see this world so easily with the castles, the green grass, the kings and queens and every other cliche. We even have a good idea of what the story might be. A traditional adventure. Here's another, a city of steel and neon governed by technology and cybernetics, the criminal underworld grows. In this example, we can picture brides city, perhaps avocados, perhaps even robots and holograms. We have a great idea of Tom being in the distant future. We know already it's science fiction. We can place ourselves in the streets between colossal metal buildings, while the city Hume's with energy. That's the first sentence. Now the second, let's make it about character and motivation. In search of treasure, our young not sets out on his first adventure. Character motivation is established. We know what character tap the book is focused around. We know what drives them treasure and, and adventure. We had some inklings of their personality. We know that they are curious, brave, and inexperienced. In short, we know there'll be trials and moments of wondrous discovery. That's the second sentence stamp. Now, let's use the third sentence to establish something else about the story. The obstacles. Owl hero must persevere to reach their goal as a cruel not hunts them across the lands. We now have a good idea of the pieces involved in the story. We need only wrap it up in the final sentence or two with the message of feeling a writer wants to give. A journey filled with frameshift, betrayal and bravery, a testament to the strength of an honorable not spurred when put to the test. Have a reader read this paragraph, they would have an excellent idea of what is involved. Of all. What we have done is written a simple blurb. Blurb being a promotional piece written on a back of a book to interest readers in the book. Yet it is this paragraph that will help you take the chaos of your ideas and refine it into a simple plot summary. It is easy to lose yourself to the wave of ideas. It's easy to be carried away in the current of excitement, yet it takes a good measure of professional planning to turn that wild energy into useful power, I recommend as your first exercise that you write down this blurb, take an idea that you have for your current book or simply make up another and bring it down to its simple concept and be sure to share it in the discussions below. You can also have a look at other routers work and perhaps get inspiration. Now we've done that. Let's move on to step two, which is establishing the beginning and end of your story. Beginning should be easy enough, as most writers tend to think in the beginning more than the end. Beginning you establish your protagonists and antagonists and the inciting incident that starts the story. For now, they are merely Vega deals no more than placeholders for what is to come. He had what many writers don't consider is the ending. I'm here to tell you that this is not always a bad thing, but if you want to have a good handle on how your story flows from beginning to end. You need to establish the ending with the beginning as well. You need to have a good idea of the final destination, so to speak. If you have a protagonist in the beginning lacking something, be it something physical, mental, or emotional. They need to have what they desire by the end. Let's take the previous example, the NOT and the Medieval world. Let's suppose that this treasure is what they sought and this is what they will get in the end. It, in addition to the goal they had from the start, they now have experience and friendships. They didn't realize they wanted more. That's a small communist idea and most fantasy stories. But you see what I mean? In the beginning, you established character motivation. In the end, the character succeeds or fails. It all depends on the story you are trying to tell. Taking a step away from fantasy and science fiction, we can apply the same concept to romance or general fiction as a whole. A rookie lawyer becomes successful lawyer, winning a crucial case, such as defending an innocent person or saving an important landmark from being demolished. Or perhaps a broken hearted person learns to love again. What comes to peace of their loss? We need to get a hold of their life. The sequence of events may be different. The motivations may be different. But every story has a beginning and an end to establish what will happen in the beginning and an end will make the final step in Atlanta in a story much easier. Before I discussed that step, I would like to touch upon a point made earlier. There are some writers who choose to write without any clue of how the story will end, relying on pure instinct and creative freedom. They won't know how the story ends until the chapter before the last. While. This method may work for some writers in an extraordinary way. For most writers, it is far too messy. These routers hit too many did, is forcing his story constantly in the right direction. And it doesn't end well. But more than likely it won't end at all. Most of these writers will never finish the books. Instead choosing to start over with more planning done, or simply scrapping the whole idea together. Of course, that is your own decision to make. If you want to go down this route. On a personal note, I recommend doing this if you are simply writing for the fun of it. And don't really mind if you finish a book or not. However, if you want to make a real go of a book, a book you can professionally be proud of and publish, then some planning is definitely in order. And that is after all, why you are watching this course. Finally, let's outline the story in its entirety. Don't stress yourself with this outline. Simply work with the numbers first and then make short summaries for each chapter. Let's say your novel is 20 chapters. You have already established beginning and end. What should be the first and last two chapters? If you were concise with your start and end of course. So that's four chapters then that's done. But we still have 16 that needs to be outlined. I recommend grabbing a piece of paper or setting up a list or table in a Word document. Write out these 20 chapter headings. And with each chapter, write a sentence or two on what happens. Be short, be vague, and adjust, change or omit whatever is necessary to give you a good idea of how this works. I'm gonna give you five chapters for this, not poker mentioned. These are just off the top of my head, but that's how you should plan. Start simple, extrapolate later. Chapter one. Then artisan training, laugh and personalities established conflicts with other naughts, townspeople and talks of dreams. So that gives me enough of what should be happening. In the first chapter. I conflation out there with interactions and dialogue and descriptions and so on. Next is chapter two. The narrative encounters a strange old man in town, an artist given a riddle, a treasure map, and a strange stone. So chapter two now is really the inciting incident that gets the story going. And we have chapter three up to being pushed too far and training the NAT sets out in search of treasure that not leaves the town in the nod and is attacked by a monster in a forest. So chapter three, we already getting into the action wherever monster, which leads to cliffhanger. And we want to read it out to be interested in what happens in Chapter four. And again, these ideas are just off the top of my head. And yet this is something that we can work with and I'm going to plot chapter for the night is saved from the monster by an elf. And I had asks for the elves help. The elf decides to help them out to take in a nod to meet the other else the two are underway and even artists into the forest and the heroes trail. So I've introduced some secondary character. Abbess bought up the main antagonist. So chapter four is now really just gathering everything in place. All the pieces are being put on the board, so to speak. Chapter five, knot and leave the forest with supplies traversing treacherous mountains, learning about each other. Meanwhile, the evil not threatens the other l's for information on tracking the young Nat. And this is really just a building block. Nothing really amazing is happening in this chapter. This chapter is really just a step towards the end. But now those are five chapters that I've summarized in two to three sentences. Again, our recommend you should write short summaries like this for every chapter in your book. Adding stuff yen they or taken away, what is it necessary? Picture these scenes and their length if possible. See if there is enough or too much or single chapter adjusting accordingly. What you are trying to do with this outline is illegal characters from the beginning to the end. You are watching them grow and develop as the story progresses. Teach them these lessons with conflict, be it in conversations amongst each other or during specific events. The conversation between the nod and L, for example, is character development. We're learning more about one character and more bad than that as well as he has another character to converse with about their desires and so on. What may seem like a small thing, a conversation, but that is going to be an important part in the chapter. So that's worthy of mentioning. Again, is also worthy of mentioning that the Ivana threatens our, the elves for information on the Anat. Perhaps you'll learn a bit more about the evil not in that scene. Perhaps even why they are hunting the young to begin with, small things like that. But overall, there can be summarized into sentences. Once you have reached the ending of your novel, you can take a step back and look at the outline you have written. You have completed your first task for the day. You have established an outline for your story from beginning to end and outline which you can follow much like a storyboard for film. The summaries are vague enough to allow for some creative freedom when writing them, but also open to additions and in-depth descriptions. It is our plans like this, that structure, but not restrict the creative flow of a writer. Yet it is only the beginning. Many of you might find this the hardest step. It takes more time than the other tasks. But once it is done, you have something to work with and guide you and recommend saving this document to you have written this novel plan as you referred to it a lot, adding to it as you write your novel until it becomes a handy reference for your personal project. Now you don't need a submit any heartlands pillar. Still do recommend that you summarize your story into a blurb and shared in the discussions and an active instructors. So if you want, in your view, criticism, I'm happy to give it that if not, you can simply read any of the other writers who have submitted their own blurbs and what are the things I often recommend to my students? And this is more personal opinion than a professional one, is that my students try to have fun with this project, uses exercise to create some ridiculous ideas and stretch the imagination if you want. And are recommenders to beginner and experienced writers. For beginner writers, it'll give you a chance to express some creativity. And for experience routers, it is more of a reminder of why you started writing in the first place. It is silly creativity that brought up our imagination. And it is a project like this that'll help you reinforce that imagination is something that can be so easily lost if you're not careful, sudden try to be too professional in writing in your blurb. Just try to have fun with it. And once you have done that, I'll see you in the next video where we will tackle the second task of the day. The protagonist. I'll see you then. Bye for now. 3. The Protagonist | How to Plan a Novel in 3 Days!: Hello everyone and welcome back to your course. We have completed the first task. On our first day, we have tackled a story. It's quiet deals and Atlanta plot chapter by chapter. For many, this is the most difficult part of planning a novel, which only serves to make the next task much easier. The protagonist. The protagonist for many novels, is merely a semi interesting vessel for the reader. It is the avatar. There are fictional self experiencing the plot firsthand. That is generally the primary role of most protagonists at least. And that's how most professional writers see it. For those who still have a grip on their childish imagination, the protagonist is more than that. The protagonist is much like a star in the movie, one who shares the spotlight equally with antagonist. The protagonist is the troubled soul, the broken spurred, the one with many faults, but many qualities. Often debated that the protagonist should fit the story and not story fit the protagonist. I firmly stand by the former as the story is what you're trying to tell. To achieve greatness in both the story and a protagonist. You need to start with the story. You mold your character to fit the story, developing them as they progress. That's character development. Something loved our readers. Yet a story that shifts with the characters, moods, and actions is weak and often predictable. That is why the first task on the first day is to create a story, not a character. That part comes. And when creating your protagonist, you'll need to refer to your story constantly. One small, I'll break this task down into three core elements that need to be addressed. You need to first address the role of the protagonist. Every character has a part to play. Every character is important for some reason. Why is your protagonist important? In most fantasy, the router tends to use the chosen one, trump a prophesized hero who will step forward in trying times and save the innocent from terrible evil. In other words, the protagonist is the protagonist because the story needs a protagonist. These stories often are tailored to the protagonist as everything involves them. To some extent. It is their destiny as the chosen one after all. Yet, let's go beyond the idea of fantasy and talk about general fiction. If the story is about a protagonist finding treasure or battling a foe, or opening a bakery, or finding true love. Then the protagonist's role in each is simple. The protagonist is a treasure hunter. Or they are forceful, good, or they are Baker, or they are single and search of love. These are characters who do not perform a role as expected. But because they want to perform that role, often a chosen one is unhappy to have the role thrust upon them. But a treasure hunter who simply wants to find treasure funds themselves. 15, the role of protagonist without even knowing it to these characters they are simply living, experiencing the story as it plays out. That is their role, their purpose to have the same meaning in the novel as other characters that have the most attention because the story is interesting about them. Or at the very least, because a plot, once you establish this, then you should have most of the character traits easily established. You know what the story is about. Therefore, you know, the kind of character that is needed to play the protagonist. That is merely the role of the protagonist. The first step in a creation, The second step is developing their personality and other traits. Now this process you should already be familiar with as it's simply caused upon your imagination to picture the character, how they talk, how they act within the confines of their role in the story, the signing, what they look like as easy enough, you can write down a few basic descriptions of 0s. What gender is the protagonist? They're here, they're, as they close. Personally, I only ever referred to look, if it's absolutely necessary. As with most fiction, is the personality that is most important. That brings us to answer the questions regarding their personality. Optimist and pessimist, friendly or Tough. How did they treat the frames? How did they treat their enemies? Are they sarcastic or penny? Are they ridiculous or serious? Their personality plays a big part in getting the reader on the side. And unlikeable protagonist versus a likable antagonist will have the reader rooting for the bad guy, even if they are bad. I recommend never leaning too much toward one trait as well. There needs to be some depth to this character. Lean too much towards one trait. It could accidentally gave them another. For example, if your characters mostly sarcastic, it'll make the character look pessimistic when compared to other characters. If they're too friendly, they might look naive when compared to other characters. If they look too tough and closed-off, they'll seem less interesting compared to more open characters. If you think this looks like a complex balancing act, then you would be right, sparse up their personality with contrasting elements which breakthrough during key scenes. So we have a tough character, but one would the current hot that shows in particular scenes. And you can have a sarcastic character who often raises the moral of the group rather than brings it down. You can have a confident athlete, but a terrible coward when in danger, and so on. I won't stress too much on all these tabs. You no doubt have a few ideas in mind. With that said, we need now address the final task in writing our protagonist, I like to call this the change. All protagonists go through some change as the story progresses. Their character development takes them from being one type of character into being a much better version of themselves. It can be small, it can be major. But no matter what the effects the plot in some way, it's not only fascinating to watch a character grow and develop. It is accurate to how characters should act in a novel. They learn, faults and fears a character may have are usually overcome through will and wisdom. Less knowledge is attained through the story. Be it in key scenes of conflict, or simply following someone else's advance. After all, the protagonist can't lead the way all the time. And an outside influence would certainly help keep the story interesting. Beer to vast given to them from a frame. Or perhaps seen someone overcome a similar challenge. That is, the change. It usually fully occurs at the end of the second act or the start of the third act. Protagonist has failed amazingly or realises before they even try that there haven't fault of their own to overcome. It could be as simple fault, such as lack of hope of bravery, or simply learning that they have all that they need to begin with. O could be overcoming a deep fear. Perhaps they are afraid of the ocean and they need to swim in it. And the final act of perhaps they're afraid of the loss and we come to protective of their friends, which would bring them down in the final act unless they go through a change. Some trials will be harsher than others, but the premise is always the same. A mental, physical, or emotional barrier is broken or simply accepted, and the protagonist faces their final trial. The painting on the ending, the protagonist succeeds or fails, but it has grown into a smarter, stronger, or wiser character in the end. To sum up, you need to plan the following. One. Define the role of the protagonist, or protagonists, defined a personality or personalities. And finally, how do they change? Who did they become in the end, practice the step-by-step. And you'll find it incredibly helpful in writing your protagonist in scenes. Once you've done that, you have only one more task to tackle for the first day. The antagonist. For many rioters, they might not have an antagonist in the conventional sense. There might not be an opposing force in the form of a person. Will some evil entity and short apart not be a physical antagonist? These stories have more emotional things. Be it in a struggle with a health issues such as a fatal disease or perhaps a mental, emotional issue that comes through some trauma. If this is the case for you, then you don't need to worry about the next task for today. You can start with the second days first task in the following video or simply take the rest of the day off. However, for those who do have the traditional antagonist, I'll see you in the next video. Feel free to share any ideas or ask for criticism and help on your Artin. I am an active instructor and I'm more than happy to provide my professional opinion and help. With that. I'll see you in the next video. Bye for now. 4. The Antagonist | How to Plan a Novel in 3 Days!: And everyone, and welcome back to your novel planning quote. We are nearing the end of our first day with one famil task to cover. Once more, this is an important task that requires as much attention as the protagonist. I found that a great antagonist always holds a special place in the reader's hot. A story is only truly interesting if the protagonist has some overpowering obstacle to overcome. Was that among the antagonist is essential for your novel as much as the protagonist is. But that's it. And now it comes down to the construction of antagonist. First, we needed Assad who or what the antagonist will be. There's only so much you can do when talking about an emotional, physical, mental problem rather than some person or entity opposing the protagonist. Was that said, if you plan on writing a fiction that involves a problem such as this, you're planning is fairly minimal. That's not to say it won't be an incredible antagonist. No obstacles greater than a mental obstacle that forms because it's something as horrible as a disease or some traumatic past. These obstacles often made the most powerful stories as it stems from very real problems that many people encounter. You will in essence be putting your character at their lowest. And their reaction of behavior can decide how they overcome this obstacle. But from here on, I'll be talking about a physical person or perhaps a creature into t If you want to create an antagonist with that label. In this case, the antagonist has maltose personality, skills, faults, and a role that places them firmly in the way of the protagonist or the protagonist in their way. There are three points that will require your attention when writing antagonist, relation, personality, and downfall. I'll go through these three points with you and the rest is pretty much just up to you. You decide how they look in everything. But for now at least three core pieces need to be addressed. So let's start with relation. Your protagonist needs to have some tied to the antagonist, even if it isn't a direct relation. Now this relation can be anything from the antagonist being a family member to a stranger with desires that class the protagonists designs. For example, they could be as close as an evil twin, two as far away as a stranger on the other side of the world that hurt the protagonist in some way. That's right. The protagonist needs some sort of motive to help talented antagonist as well as real relation, the real tab between these two characters. If there is no familiarity between the characters, you can create conflict through pain and suffering in some way. Antagonist could harm someone close to the protagonist, threatened the protagonist or someone close to them. We could simply be in competition with the protagonist. That conflict would justify antagonist as well as your protagonist with a conflict and manned the steps that both parties take will now make sense. They will have reason back in a motive. I recommend taking a moment in your construction of the antagonist to decide what is the relation. What puts these two main characters in conflict with each other? And is it a powerful enough conflict to justify the actions that take place throughout the novel? That brings us to a fun exercise to help you develop conflict and relation between the protagonist and antagonist. I want you to rot to conflicts. One should be a conflict with Grounds to it leave ability, such as the antagonist being simple criminal fueled by greed and a protagonist, a part of the law enforcement looking to bring in the antagonist to justice. The second conflict I want you to grade should be unusual, even amusing, but entirely unbelievable. Just to make the fun story. For example, an evil scientist antagonist drops. They asked him decides to build a doomsday robot and destroy or ice cream parlors in the world. Meanwhile, the protagonist is a retired ice-cream scooper. You decides to come out of retirement to save ice cream for humanity. At Sounds like a fun story, but obviously absolutely ridiculous. But it's these two contrasts that will help you develop a good sense of what makes for logical conflict and what makes for interesting conflict and help you find a little in-between for your story. If you are looking to make one just like before, you can create this simply paragraph one and a paragraph or another and share them in the discussions binom, look forward to seeing many of you creative ideas. Was that our first is covered on the antagonist. We've done relation. Now let's deal with personality. When it comes to personality, a greater antagonist is often admired. It seems funny to say, but when you consider some of the greatest novels with the clear antagonist, the antagonist is memorable. Antagonists can have an amusing personality trait, terrifying personality trait, or mysterious one. Characters such as these capture the reader's intention more than any humdrum personality. Luckily, it isn't too difficult to find a tap of personality. It's developing at that becomes a real challenge. Like with any other character. The events of your novel will affect the antagonist in both good ways and bad ways. They're often great stories of antagonists being turned good if that's one path you are considering. Yet a traditional antagonist early learns from mistakes, which leads them to make different courses of action. Of course, it is futile on the end. And they realized that as it becomes a fat, not necessarily physical between the protagonist and antagonist. And the final confrontation, the antagonist is given them great moment to show their personality, to show all the greatest traits and show their worst. Essentially the spotlight is on them in the final act. To show all the greatest traits and their worst. More importantly, show the fault that led them to that point. It can be anything from over-confidence To a poor sense of what is right and what is wrong. On a personal note, I can only recommend you have fun with the antagonist. Write them as if they were your favorite character. You don't have to make them likable to be interesting, makes them special. And once you've done that, you have nailed the personality. So that is the personality of the antagonist. You take the same thing as you did with the protagonist and you add this played to them, that makes them who they are. Now lets discuss the last point which is the downfall. The antagonist and protagonist eventually confront each other. The confrontation can happen in different ways. Be it a physical combat, mental debate to an emotional outpouring. All the events of the novel lead up to this moment and the story will reach its conclusion shortly after. And that node, it comes down to you to decide the ending. Right now we need to decide how the protagonist reaches this conclusion in the first place. What was the antagonists downfall? How does this affect their actions? They would allow me to give you an example of a downfall. The antagonist clashes with the protagonist several times throughout the story. In the beginning, the antagonist was winning through great effort, the jaggedness to finally beat the antagonist. After losing, the antagonists desire to be superior pushes them down a darker path. These bad decisions lead to the edge the antagonist needs and a triumph over the protagonist again, doing more harm than ever before. It's at this point that the antagonist reaches the peak. Yet the protagonist persist, takes a better path and is ready to clash with the antagonist. One last town. The antagonist nurses this, yet rebels in a supreme power, becoming overconfident. With this overconfidence, the antagonist does not prepare completely and estimating the firm. The result is the antagonist been bested due to the fatal flaw? There, ego. It is this ego that makes the antagonist go down a dark or pass. It is this ego that makes them over confident. This is an example that has been used countless times. It's a classic good versus bad scenario. The two clash protagonist is victorious and Ellison is learned. While this isn't predictable example, it often makes more enjoyable read. Writers always add their own twist to this example. Different characters and traits and Tom's and universities use the fatal flaw to devise this downfall. I recommend keeping it short. Like the example I just read to you. Of course, you can share your ideas in the discussions below. Homo is happy to give you an outsider perspective and dn and help you develop your idea further. In addition, if you're not sure how to develop your downfall, I can help you set as well. On that note, our first day is complete. We have finished the final task. You can now take a break, rest assured that you've done pretty much the hardest part of your planning process all in one day. You have a handy reference, a skeleton of a plot that's waiting for you to write the meat and short you have taken the first and hardest step. Tomorrow, we'll trace two more tasks. The first one will be sad characters and subplots, and the second will be paced, length and style for your story. These are smaller, but also a very important aspect to address in your novel. And I'll be showing you just how to do that in the next video. I'll see you then. Bye for now. 5. Side Characters | How to Plan a Novel in 3 Days!: Hello routers and welcome to the second day of your planning. For this day, we have two more tasks to tackle. In this first lesson, we'll be talking about the planning for SAT characters. Who they are, their connections to the plot, their stories, and how they influence other characters. First, let me address the difference between sod characters and main characters. Main characters are the focus of the story. They are what it's all about. The main character often encounters many characters throughout a story, affecting them in small ways, but most of the Talmud playing a key role in the main plot. These are known as minor characters. Sad characters are in-between mana and main characters. These are minor characters which appear frequently enough that they have a role in the story effecting a main characters decisions in some way. For example, Lord of the Rings follows non characters and they journeyed through three books. These characters meet many people and creatures. You dramatically help or hinder them along the way are sad characters. With that explained, let's talk about the connection Assad character has to your plot. Side. Characters have to have some tar to the main plot. For example, the sad character can be a sibling of the protagonist, a comrade in battle, or simply a friend that is enough of a connection to a story to make them appear, but they need more if they're going to appear more often. Sad characters can takes, adds. Some are good and some are bad. I like to call these tabs aside characters, sidekicks and henchmen. In a story of heroes and villains, they're heroes have people supporting him, sometimes even flattened by the sad. By the same token, the Villanova have their evil assistance. They dastardly helpers, they're henchmen. Now, sad characters must do more than be there in the spotlight with the main characters. You need to justify why they are worthy of having such a prevalent role and your story. For example, you can write about a sarcastic framed because you like to have that kind of character that they sarcasm won't justify their role in new story. What will justify it is their influence on the main plot. For example, the protagonist is arrested while tempt you to stop the antagonist. The sarcastic frame fails them out with a smile and a joke about prison, allowing the protagonists to continue with the main plot. Actions like that justify the framed as a sad character. You don't need much more than that in a simple story. Now if you were to take your sad character further, you need to give this story some attention. You know the drill home, address, the backstory, their motivation, and their Indie. Construct their own sequence of events that crosses over into the main stories events here and they. Let's take the sarcastic framed of the vigilante protagonist for another spin. Sarcastic framed tells their vigilante frame that they can't help the vigilante one not as sarcastic frame, has a prior engagement with a love interest. Perhaps the vigilante sets out on their own following a lead, which helps them find a henchmen. Vigilante pursues the henchmen, and as luck would have it, the vigilante pursued the hinge, went straight through the restaurant, the sarcastic framed and a love interest. We're eating. Sarcastic friends steps in to help the vigilante or help others who are panicking. Or they can finish their meal watching the fire transpire, rooting for the vigilante a DNA and assure, in other words, you will find that this is a fantastic way to use your sad character. Following a single character for longest story can sometimes get boring no matter what is going on. So shifting a spotlight to Assad character for a page or two can help loving things up. Even if the scene you change to a sarcastic framed floating with a love interest seconds before the vigilante flask window. Finally, let us talk about the number one reason to include sad characters in your novel. Character development often talk about how conflict is the foundation of character development. A clash of ideas leads to growth, progress, no matter the result of the conflict. Of course, that is not the only way to progress a novel, but it is certainly the best way to develop character. You can't have conflict with that interaction between characters, making your side characters and incredibly useful tool to grow and develop your protagonist and antagonist. Sad characters won't develop as much as the antagonist, oh, protagonist, as they serve as a measure of how much the main characters have changed. The main character might adopt similar actions or sayings to that over the sod character. Learning from the example. For perhaps the main character might grow to oppose the ideas of side characters, the spot initially siding with them. Let us create an example to explain this point. The main character, a young teenager, sad characters, the teenagers mother and a friend had school. The teenager brings monitor the mother's homemade mini cupcakes to school and is looking forward to lunch break so they can have it. Yet at lunch break, the framed teases the teenager who lacking mini cupcakes, finding them too childish. Affected by this encounter, the teenager returns home with a new mentality. When the mother offers their child another mini cupcakes, a teenager cause them childish and refuses, similar to the frame they admire. We have here is simple peer pressure effecting an impressionable teenager. Yet from a writer's perspective, we see character development. Conflict is created, decisions are made and a character changes in a small way. Sad characters makes this process so much easier to write. Cutting interactions out of your novel makes it more difficult to develop and Rod characters without serious exposition through narration, magic. If there were no sod characters in a novel, simply a protagonist and antagonist. It's challenging, but still possible to write interesting book. Now remove the antagonist. You have only a single character. Much more difficult, but you can still work in the first-person and has the character talked himself to create interactions? Now let's take that away. The character is mute and you're writing a book in the third person. Or development comes from your narration and style. But I bet within a chapter you are wishing to have a sad character to help you. Sad characters on amazing acid. For this reason, it should be the primary role in your novel to help progress the main characters as well as the story. For this lesson's exercise, I want you to run an example of Assad character influencing a main character, such as the one I created earlier with teenagers and many cupcakes. It can be any type of main characters, sad character, theme and interaction. Or you need to do is sum up, an interaction is simply as you can, how it changes your character and develops them and a future decisions. It's an exercise that when practiced enough, will help you better construct dialogue and develop logical decisions for your characters based on their personality. To conclude this point, take all this advice and information and use it to help you create and develop some sad characters for your novel. Much like writing a protagonist or antagonists. List them out. Explain the connections and the influences they will have on your story. What you should have is a comprehensive listing of your sad characters and how to write them in each scene. I always encourage having fun with your writings. So anything ridiculous can also make for good practice as well as a good laugh. I look forward to seeing what you have to write in the discussions beloved. On that note. See you in the next video where we find our page length and style story. I'll see you then. Bye for now. 6. Pace and Length | How to Plan a Novel in 3 Days!: And at Rogers and welcome back to novel planning course. In this video, I'll help you decide the length pays for your novel. These are often overlooked questions and sometimes rightfully so. Having a good feel for your story makes writing a lot easier. So the answers to these questions come naturally. Yet these are important points to consider. The scene refers to the length of your scenes. A faster pace novel provide a few unnecessary details to allow for faster pace. Story scenes more read faster and sooner, faster paced novels can suit any genre. It just depends on how you want a book to read. Slow paced novels or the reverse. More details and exchanges are made during a scene. More time is spent setting the scene, describing character's actions and so on. There's also more dialogue that isn't necessarily sensitive and is more for world-building and character development. Last slower pace novels read slower, last longer. On small, slow paced novel canceled any genre if done well. With that said, what does piece matter? Any pace or work for your book? Well, several reasons. Some genres are better suited for different patients. A slow paced action novel doesn't really sound right. A fast-paced drama doesn't allow much Tom for emotional impact to sit in before the next scene is up. You can create a fast-paced thrillers, but more emphasis on a beam which will Tom. But a slower pace thriller allows the writer to add to the horror of a darker scene. In addition to the pacing suttee in some genres better, Keeping the Pace in, in mind. We're also help for consistency in your novel. Breaking your pacing in certain scenes, or make some scenes stand out on a lot more, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. For example, your rights in a fast pace romance, which is all well and good until you reach and emotionally crucial scene. And if that scene is too fast, it doesn't give so much attention. Yet. You'll find that your pacing shifts with scenes. Yo so have difficulty writing. You could be writing a fast-paced novel, but when you hit a scene where words don't come so easily, suddenly you seen slows way down and you notice it doesn't feel right. That is because the pacing doesn't match the rest of your book and it stands out. It can work the other way as well. You're right in a slow pace novel but then are, are just seeing that just flashes barn, which would make for an odd read. To end this point on pacing, you can easily find the pacing that best suits you novel by considering the scenes and beams involved. Just remember, a slowest seen allows for more emotional impact, which can be a horror scene or scene. But if you slow the pace inputs such as seeing the emotion you're trying to convey payable impact more before the scene ends. Personally, I would recommend looking at your favorite author who really inspired your stamp. Study the amount of detail they include in each scene similar to yours. I often look at how Lovecraft ROTC stories to help me find a decent pace for my own. As they are of a similar nature. And that brings us to the exercise I have for you this lesson. I've given such an exercise too much students perform, challenged them to write a scene in a fast pace and one that is slugged paste. Here to write a scene, it can be anything with two different paintings. I'd recommend that beginners start by writing a slow pace seen including Interesting but unnecessary details to set the scene includes similar dialogue or actions and you own flavour through narration to lend to the slow pay some sort of charm. Then when you write the fast-paced version of the scene, strip away all this. And Raj, only what is absolutely necessary for the reader to understand the scene and characters. Now that's pacing. Let us talk about length. I've helped other writers Fonda deal length many terms, having found the perfect formula for beginner and advanced write-ins for writers who are writing as a hobby to Rogers wanted to sell the books. The tricky part in finding that deal length is matching it to the pacing you have chosen. If there's anything I recommend changing, if your pacing and length clash, It's length. The pacing of your novel is far more important as this decides how well your story reads at how long length can only ever really affect the experience in a small way. Whereas pacing can decide the delivery of every senior erupt. As for length, specifically, the average reader today enjoys short novels ranging from 60 thousand words to 75 thousand. And the grand scheme goes onto many words. A typical weekend read for the avid reader. But when you consider the responsibilities of an average reader, but when you consider the responsibilities than an average reader has to deal with on a day-to-day basis that can stretch to week. I recommend that beginner authors aim to write a 60 thousand word book any shorter than that, and your novel would be considered a novella. Any good novella can become a novel. So 60 thousand words is a decent goal to have. Of course, for the more advanced writers, I would suggest 75 thousand as your word goal or higher. Now let's consider what kind of rotting you are. For hobby routers are personally recommend writing until stories done. You have no specific target market. You are simply writing to write a story. And in which case the length of your novel shouldn't matter. If you really want to set a goal for yourself. I would consider how you would write your patients and dedication. If you were to finish your novel soon, I would recommend the 60 thousand word goal. If you are writing early now and then I would suggest you forget about length than any such goals entirely. Many Jew interest rather than writing, Find the time to work on it. Your challenge in writing when the mood strikes is simply to finish the novel. As with Tom, the desire to write a novel will fade either due to losing interest or better idea hits you and you are eager to work on that instead. Let's talk about the chapters themselves. Chapter length varies from 2500 to 4 thousand words. Generally speaking, a chapter less than 1000 words is too short and 5 thousand or more is too much. The sweet spot that is often used is between 2.54 thousand. Where's total wordcount and chapter length in mind, you can take the chapter story structure you created on the first day and Assad word counts that are suitable. These word counts Amelie guidelines for your chapters. So don't feel stressed if you write a few, 100 more or less than you expect, USE that number that you allocate per chapter to decide if you've seen spacing is too slow or too fast. What do you have now is a balancing act between managing your pacing, your length, and your story. Yet you should find it very easy to pinpoint the problem should you ever encountered? If you ever do struggle, you can always leave a question in the discussions below, or perhaps a metal segment of your work for review. And we're always happy to help you with your writing and provide a fish prospective and constructive criticism should you need it. On that note, this lesson and the second day of your novel planning has come to an end. Thank you for joining me and I hope you found all the information helpful. And remember, you can submit your exercise on PC in the discussions below, I am an active instructor and look forward to seeing your work. You can even read some other writers and they work to campaign and perhaps be inspired by that. I'll see you tomorrow for the next lesson on planning your novel. 7. Final Review | How to Plan a Novel in 3 Days!: Hello routers and welcome to your third and final day of novel planning. In two days, you have to fill up a batch of characters, protagonists and antagonists, pushed your imagination to answer the questions that are so important in building a story and the story you have structured, planned chapter by chapter until the point where you had the skeleton of the story ready. Yet there is most likely one more problem you have encountered. There are parts of your story and all characters that you aren't really happy with having put a plan together in such a short space of time. You have no doubt come across a few gaps or areas in need of improvement. It goes without saying that these areas don't do your conference in a story in, in good. What we are going to do with your final day is fixed those problems as best we can. I will ask you questions that challenges story and characters, pushing you to improve your answer or perhaps develop another. Today, we will review, restructure and possibly rewrite our novel plan. Please note that if you feel confident enough in your planning, then you will simply breeze through this lesson. Sometimes a story just comes together in a way that makes you happy. You are excited to write the characters and explore the depths of the world in your imagination. I congratulate to you, but I still recommend watching this video with an open mind. Perhaps they'll bossa offer can help you improve on an area you didn't know it needed improvement. First, let's address the story. But most likely develops from dividing the scenes into chapters are gaps. Gaps are created when you have a certain number of chapters, but not enough scenes to allocate to each chapter. As a result, some chapters have a few scenes to work with, while others have too many, and some might not have any scenes at all. What this means is your story includes vital scenes which should be read together in a single chapter. Which leads to these clusters of scenes which in the end make up a long chapter. This isn't necessarily bad, but at the same time, you might notice that the flow of your story is broken. The chapters with a few scenes are also central, but there isn't much going on that really makes the chapters interesting as the clusters, it all comes down to proper division. Dividing the scenes when something important happens, usually when there is some new development and new characters introduced, a new conclusion made new fat begins. Take a look at this sequence. Main character introduced a new development secondary character about to be introduced. In Chapter. Secondary characters introduced, conversation or next step, decision is made. In your chapter. Decision is put into action for a step taken. Obstacle is hinted at in the chapter character development, obstacle introduced cliffhanger, end chapter. Resolution, next steps, another cliffhanger and in chapter. But you no doubt noticed reading each sequence in something new about being introduced, PhD new character and you obstacle and you Conclusion and new development in any shape and form. I could create an entire sequence of chapters based on this formula and it will flow with each state. To explain this, I want you to think of chapters much like cycles. The story's developed with each cycle or each chapter. Yet if you write a chapter with only half a circle, it doesn't read well, the same applies if it includes a full cycle and half the next. With an unmanned, it is better to include whole cycles in your chapter if you need to include more than one. If you need to follow a scene with another, but have really completed cycle of new developments in explanations, then simply include the next cycle. And in the chapter after that cycle has finished, I want you to imagine your favorite book or TV show. Imagine of that book or a TV show with divided straight through the middle and the next book or episode continues to finish it. Yet you'll find that the ending to the first book is absurd as the beginning to the next. That is simply what breaking this cycle looks like. Rapidly dividing a story into these cycles should help you cut any gaps out. Short chapters and overly long chapters as well. In addition, it doesn't matter if your book has a rounded number of chapters or not. To conclude this point, it doesn't matter if your book has a rounded number of chapters or not. It may seem nasty, have 20 chapters instead of 17. But you know that the book or read better with 17 chapters, then it would reach 20. A very small price to pay, in my opinion. Next, let's address what you like and dislike about your plan. When structuring your story, we're developing your characters. You might have found yourself including details, descriptions that were not expected. As a result you upon some aspects of your story better than what you had amount or lacking in some areas, us arrived to have ideas and dreams for your story, which leads to expectations of what will be involved in your story. As a result, you'll soon find out that your story wouldn't work out unless you had some aspects you never considered. It's much like planning a holiday in choosing a destination, but then discovering there's so many parts about going on holiday that you forgot about. For example, you might find that the trip there is worst than you expected. Or you live behind something that you knew you needed. Or perhaps you left behind something that you didn't know you need it. If some aspects of your story were better than expected, then all well and good. But if some more into what you were hoping for, then I can also provide a solution. There are three things you need to consider in this case. What is needed for your story, what you want for your story, and what makes for good writing. Of these three things, you need to decide what parts of your book fulfill. Two of them, and one of them is very necessary. What makes for good writing? What does means is it's better to include something that you want. And makes for good writing and something you need, but doesn't make for good writing. By the same token, you might have to choose what is needed and makes for good writing than what you want. It is these compromises that need to be made to ensure that your novel finish. Well. Finally, let's talk about restructuring and rerouting. When you mention the word rewrite around errata, you'll get an interesting reaction. First, they might firmly denounced that a book should be rewritten or they will firmly encourage it. Almost likely, the general pain is that while many don't rewrite the book, they certainly agree that it would do the book good yet, I don't want to scare you with the idea of rewriting or novel once it is complete, Amelie talk about re-planning and novel having gone through the process. Let's say your idea for your story has adjusted throughout this process. You have made changes, adjustments, and now feel something entirely different about your story. It could be a new perspective of a story and wanting to do something different or take it in another direction. And which case I would recommend rewriting your planning. Keep up your lack and take out what you don't like if you can, and try to maintain a good story. Throughout this rewrite, you will save yourself the trouble of writing what you don't want to write an except what you need to write. The purpose of this planning process is to help you shape your story and provide a clear plan for what is to come. To make the novel much easier to write and keep track of details you might forget or contradict. In short, your novel plan is your god towards your desired destination. You don't want to vary enough fun, weird shortcuts. So taking lengthy, uninteresting roots. If there's anything I'd recommend for your third and final day of planning. If there's anything I would recommend for your third and final day of planning, it is to review what you have. One, small and slowly improve where you see it needs improvement. You have a wealth of inspiration in the books you have enjoyed reading to help your plan. And if you need an outside opinion or professional advice, you can ask questions and the discussions below, there is no exercise for this lesson. You need simply refine your plan if it requires it. Thank you for joining me in this course. I hope you found it helpful and enjoyable. I'm always eager to help my writing community with problems they might be having. So if you need any further assistance, please leave your questions in the discussions below as well. If you're interested in more of my courses on rotting, I have many for you to browse from writing fantasy to thriller. I recommend yours, so follow my profile as Ahmad crater short course that covers this subject you're having trouble with in the future. If I haven't already On that note, could they? Could not. And happy writing.