The return of the weekly plot help thread!

[alison-sky.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know you've all been waiting in eager anticipation for this thread to start up, and now you don't have to wait any longer!

So, for the new kids in the community, here's the basic gist:

This post goes up once a week. In here, you can ask for help on your plots. Each week I start a new post. You can keep asking for help each week, but try to ask for something new each time.

Also, if you want to get help, you also have to give it. Which means that you take time when you can to go through the help "requests" and see if there if anything that jumps out at you that you want to toss a suggestion at.

One of the beauties this community has is the willingness to help each other along in our 50k goal. And here is the place to do it.

And of course, that said, here's the BOO part.

With the thread means that these types of posts are no longer allowed to be individual posts in the community. So if you see one go up, feel free to leave them a comment and point them to the current week's help thread and the rules. I'll catch up with them eventually, but that kind of help (which alot of people are already doing for intro posts) is really appreciated!

So that's it. Feel free to start getting plot brainstorming down before NaNo, and help one another out. :)

Comments

[foxtrot-sierra.livejournal.com]

At the risk of annoying everyone else in this thread, YOUR plot sounds the most promising. Why? Because it's a BUNCH OF NEW STUFF happening, each thing leading to the next. Most everyone else so far has implied that the bulk of their novel will be a single activity repeated over and over again. It doesn't matter if someone finds 3 pieces of Excalibur or 3000; it doesn't matter if the seamstress is attacked once on her crosscountry journey or a thousand times; no new dramatic information is being introduced in either case.

Why did The Ex run away? Stick with what you know. He left because he's always wanted to be a professional writer / artist / filmmaker but he's never had the guts to try. Then along comes The Opportunity -- he goes to LA to peddle his screenplay, he goes to New York to be near the agents and the scene -- and he has to seize it. But a year later he's broke, disillusioned, and come back to the middleclass life. He tried his hardest but his stuff wasn't good enough.

By that same token the woman's job could be the blandest, most mundane, cubicle-drone thing you can think of. In fact, you could just have her work in "an office," without it ever being clear what they produce. She could waste time on the internet, roam around with a folder under her arm pretending to do work, call IT to fix stuff, check her email 25 times a day, debate where to go for lunch, avoid the creepy guy, have superiors always nagging her for "that report that's due," etc. A bland existence in need of excitement could throw those spots of color -- wedding, Mr. 1942, The Ex's literary ambitions, the dashing New Guy -- into sharper relief.

[tauriosiris.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for the compliment, but I'm not sure I'd agree. I think I just posted my plot with more annoying detail than everyone else lol Writing (ironically) isn't what I know (I'm just a dabbler) so not sure whether I'll use that, but I do know about mundane office work! You pretty much described my day (except we actually are the IT department lol). It sounds right though, giving her something pretty boring that she wants to escape from. I think she should be happy in her work though, so content to stay in that job. Perhaps it's not glamorous but if there's pretty reasonable pay and she's not really looking for much more. I don't want her to seem like she's waiting for The Ex to make her life complete or "better" in some way, you know?