The Part Of Plotting I Hate The Most – The Climb #613

Tuesday 27^th October 2020

This is the part of plotting that I hate.

I have a protagonist, I have their first chapter. I have a secondary character and an antagonist. I even have the last, possibly last 2, chapters.

You’d think, at this stage, I’d be diving into my scenes and fleshing them out, trying to take the story from the start to the end.

But there’s another stage before that happens.

In the book I’m reading, this is referred to as SPOOC (Situation, Protagonist, Objective, Opponent, Climax) but I’ve encountered this before and knows it works. This is the one line summary format that I used in my original query letter on Black As Knight that got me my agent.

I’ve typically used it at the end of a project rather than the start, but I’ve enough familiarity with the concept to know the benefit.

It essentially boils your plot down to a one line sentence. Not only does it makes for a great hook but it can highlight possible issues with plot. It’s like you condense the plot down so much, the cracks become easier to see.

Now, as I have to remind myself, I’m trying to plot this novel in about 5 days starting with little more than a single idea. Ordinarily, I’d leave this to percolate in my back brain and come back to it in a book or two. But I don’t have that luxury.

So I’m hating on writing in that way you also do when you are 2/3rds into a first draft and everything seems terrible.

It seems such a simple little thing, but once this works, then I’m pretty sure everything will start to fall together.

So today has resulted in a lot of thinking and mentally banging my head against the wall. I think I might have a theme, but what I don’t have is:

*sigh*

Currently the protagonist is thrown into a situation reluctantly. Lots of exciting things happen in lots of different places. They step up when needed, they pull the big dramatic twist on the villain at the end. Yippe-Ki-Yay-Muthafucka. The End.

Except: What does the protagonist want? I mean, really? They’ve got into this situation reluctantly, but they still decided to do so. As a scene conflict, that totally works, but as a character arc, it’s weak.

I also think this protagonist has a number of levels, in that what they say they want isn’t what they really want. But that means I have to build the conflict and character arc around what they really want rather than what they say.

Argh!

I feel like I have the jigsaw pieces, I just don’t know how to put them together.

Did I mention I hate writing right now?

Working out the protagonist want will allow me to complete the SPOOC. It will allow me to decide the direction of the narrative. It will allow me to build the scenes, and have the outline ready for NaNoWriMos start on the 1^st. Except, they’re not bloody telling me.

I know how this works as well. I’ll be in the shop, or taking a shower and it will suddenly pop into my head. I’ll think to myself how obvious it has been. I’ll wonder why it was so difficult.

But until that happens… I continue to bang my head on the desk, waiting for that moment of inspiration.