I’d promised myself that I’d blog regularly. When I say regularly, my plan was to post every 2 weeks rather than twice a week which would be ideal, but not realistic for me right now. But I missed a week and felt really guilty. Posts every 2 weeks is hardly going to raise the roof, but still it was a commitment on my part.  What’s a commitment you’ve made to yourself on this writing journey?

Writers guilt

Guilt is an interesting thing because the reason I missed it, is because I’d had a very stressful few weeks in my 9-5 job, leaving me no time to work on the proposal or to even go to the gym. This stressed me out even more. I, then had an action-packed weekend working for a charity one day, and then going on a voice-activation workshop the next. Both things I’d actively volunteered for and wanted to do but as the weekend was approaching, felt increasingly resentful that I had to do it in the first place. Another thing to add to my list of more things to do. Go figure!

Chapter Outlines

Meanwhile, I’ve finally gotten to the exciting part (for me) of the redrafting process, of reviewing, restructuring and rewriting all my chapter outlines, following the brilliant direction from my developmental editorial feedback. Each chapter outline should be around 200 words and should follow the narrative arc of your story. In the last few months, I’ve had a deep dive lesson into how a story is constructed and the 5 global commandments, which form the backbone of a story. These are the five key plot points, which if missing or not fully shown, means the reader won’t be able to experience the full impact of the narrative arc, and therefore won’t be engaged with your story through to the end. In a previous post Creative conundrum pt 1   I talked in brief about what a narrative arc is and the 5 global commandments.   These 5 commandments also need to occur at a local level within every scene and quadrant, in order to maintain the pace and most importantly, the interest of the reader.

What is a scene?

A scene takes place in a specific time and place, with dialogue and action and reveals a characters’ choices, reactions, emotions, decisions and dilemmas. While the 5 global commandments are the spine of the whole story, this can also be applied on a granular level to a scene which should have a beginning, middle and end.

What is a quadrant?

There are four quadrants in a story, the beginning, middle (in 2 parts) and the end. Each quadrant should be around a quarter of the word count. When this isn’t the case, readers tend to feel that the story begins to drag or starts to feel rushed.

• Global inciting incident : Beginning

• Global turning point : Middle (leading to the crisis point)

• Global crisis : Middle (the crescendo of the middle quadrant, descending to the climax)

• Global climax : Middle

• Global resolution : End

Each quadrant should be built on the 5 commandment structure, in order to reach its full potential, and for your story to be the best it can be.

That’s my brief overview, which I hope has been helpful for you. If you are struggling with your proposal, I’m certainly not an expert but would be more than happy to connect and help in anyway I can, even if it’s just as a listening ear. See you next week, because my writer’s guilt means I need to play catch-up…haha!

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