Sunday, July 18, 2010

Day Two: evil plan guide

In university, a friend and I wasted a lot of time writing stories for each other. These stories were usually ridiculous, hilarious adventure stories with superheroes and kidnapping. While I know this is not the kind of story to get published, I find it the most fun to write, and it requires a high volume of creativity. So this is what I am going to be working on.

A while ago I came across a website that offered to concoct an evil plan guide for me, which I thought was awesome, and I am going to use that as a framework for my story. (At this point I would like to note that while my evil plan includes a plot to steal the moon, which is exactly what happens in the movie Despicable Me, this website plotted my evil plan before I saw the movie. And it will probably be better done in the movie. But I'm not copying.) I'm combining this with a step-by-step plan to plot and write a novel, and will hopefully come up with something fun in the process.

I completed the first two steps today, with okay results. It definitely was more difficult than I thought, especially since the evil plan guide spelled it out for me - the difficulty came in changing the plan to make it suit my style, and also to make a bit more sense. Here is my bit of creativity for today, completely opposite to my bit of creativity from yesterday.

1. Write a one sentence summary of the story. This requires novelists to distill a possibly rambling story into a single statement. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

On a misguided quest for love, our heroine embarks on a journey in three stages: kidnapping, theft, and a really big weather machine.

2. Expand that summary sentence into a paragraph describing the basic plotline, each major conflict, and the final resolution.

Once upon a time, there lived a young lady with a simple wish: requited love. Sick and tired of numerous embarrassing, failed attempts, she concocts extreme solution that begins with kidnapping and ends with exerting control over what has been heretofore deemed uncontrollable (the weather). Naturally, nothing goes according to plan. Her intended love interest is unexpectedly encased in a block of ice; she discovers ghosts in her evil headquarters; the moon is more difficult to capture than one would think; and something strange is happening in her hometown.

Since that is more of what would be on the back of the novel, instead of the actual plot that describes the final resolution as I am instructed to do, I alternately wrote this:

She wants love, but nobody is interested, because she is not that noticeable. In order to become more noticeable, she concocts a plan to attract world-attention by stealing the moon and controlling the weather. She can’t steal the moon; she can control the weather. This garners her world-attention, which she finds very uncomfortable, and the attention of her love-interest, which she finds disappointing and fake.

There. See? I know how it will begin and I know how it will end. This paragraph was hard for me, and I can see trouble ahead as I have to plan out why she can't steal the moon, and how she can control the weather. I do already know what is wrong with her hometown, and I am excited about it! I think this will be fun.

Day Two Highlights: creating an evil guide plan, hilarious adventure stories, working the plot into something that makes sense, Despicable Me.

Day Two Lowlights: similarities to major motion pictures, planning intricacies of moon-stealing and weather-controlling.

Tomorrow: paper boxes!

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