Tag: table of contents

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On Scene Lists: What Your Story Needs

***This post is one of several in our prewriting series. To read the first post, click here.***

Only a few days left until June! Are you ready? Here’s Aaron Pogue’s last post in the prewriting series. Complete all the steps and you’ll be set to have a great JuNoWriMo writing experience. Good luck!

Aaron Pogue

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We’ve been talking about long synopses and scene lists this week. Yesterday I went into some detail on what scene lists are for.

Today I want to tell you how to write one. It shouldn’t be hard, but it’s definitely going to take some time and thought. So let’s get started!

Meat on the Bones

By this point in your prewriting process, you have everything you need to make a story. You’ve got a beginning and an end. You’ve got characters, you’ve got conflict, you’ve got an overview of the plot. Making the novel requires you to flesh out that skeleton, though. Continue reading “On Scene Lists: What Your Story Needs”

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On Scene Lists: Building a Novel

***This post is one of several in our prewriting series. To read the first post, click here.***

Hopefully you’ve been making great progress on your prewriting and are almost all ready for June. If you’ve been following the steps in this series by Aaron Pogue, you will go into JuNoWriMo prepared. It’s the best way to start!

Today Aaron talks about writing a long synopsis, the biggest weapon in your prewriting arsenal.

Aaron Pogue

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This week, your big JuNoWriMo prewriting assignment is to develop a long synopsis, or scene list.  Here is a brief description of a scene list:

A scene list is primarily useful as a prewriting or editing tool. It forces you to map out the actual structure of your story, down to the very building blocks, and then gives you an easy place to spot errors or weak points, to tinker and rearrange.

To make a scene list, you start at the very beginning of your story, and write one to two paragraphs describing what happens in every scene. When you’re finished, you’ll have your entire plot down on paper — every twist and every turn — without all that messy set design, characterization, and description.

That’s certainly how we’re using it this week. Today I want to go into a little more detail than those two short paragraphs give. Continue reading “On Scene Lists: Building a Novel”

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On Narrative Structure: The Mock Table of Contents

***This post is one of several in our prewriting series. To read the first post, click here.***

Ready for more prewriting tips? Here’s Aaron Pogue with the next installment in the series designed to streamline your JuNoWriMo experience.

Aaron Pogue

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Okay, May is already washing out from under us like sand in the surf, right? Next thing we know, we’re going to be caught in an undercurrent and sweeping toward June without a lifeguard in sight.

(I may have gotten lost in my metaphor there.)

That’s okay. Most of the prewriting steps don’t take more than a day or two.

Today we’re going to start with the quickest and the easiest: the mock Table of Contents. All you need to write that one is a vague idea what happens in your story. Continue reading “On Narrative Structure: The Mock Table of Contents”

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On Narrative Structure: Outlines

***This post is one of several in our prewriting series. To read the first post, click here.***

Want to make your JuNoWriMo experience go as smoothly as possible? That’s what we’re here for. Today Aaron Pogue delivers part 3 of his prewriting series.

Aaron Pogue

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The whole fabric of your story — no matter the genre — depends on the things that happen, and what order those things happen in. So at the very least, you should give the order of events some thought. My first JuNoWriMo prewriting step is designed to make you do just that, so let’s consider what kind of preparation needs to go into a mock Table of Contents. Continue reading “On Narrative Structure: Outlines”

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Prewriting: The Steps

***This post is one of several in our prewriting series. To read the first post, click here.***

Welcome back! This is the second post in the prewriting series by Aaron Pogue. In this series, we hope to  empower you to succeed at JuNoWriMo. It’s great if you’ve never participated in a month long challenge, but even if you’re a pro, I encourage you to try it. Having a prewriting plan has immensely helped me with my own novels and Aaron has a great strategy.

Enjoy! Continue reading “Prewriting: The Steps”

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Prewriting for JuNoWriMo

May is halfway over—can you believe it? June will be here before you know it, so now’s the time to get ready. For the next two weeks we’ll have a series of posts to help guide you through the prewriting process. Prewriting is not required to participate in JuNoWriMo, but we highly recommend being as prepared as possible before taking the leap into June (and 50,000 words). If you follow our prewriting advice, it will help set you up to succeed from day one.

We’ve brought in a special guest just for this purpose. Aaron Pogue is the bestselling author of the fantasy novel Taming Fire. He has published six books and a handful of short stories. He’s the President of The Consortium, a non-profit organization that strives to support artists and make quality books more accessible to the public. He’s also won NaNoWriMo  four years in a row, so he’s got some experience in knowing how to prepare for such a high-intensity writing adventure.

Now here’s Aaron. Continue reading “Prewriting for JuNoWriMo”