It’s been long enough since we created your first outline that I think it’s worth revisiting it now. That first burst of outlining creativity might have produced something a little messy. (Or maybe you’re perfectly happy with with it and that’s all right too! In that case, you can treat yourself to a reward today and skip this prep day!)
The goal today is to try to figure out the first quarter to first third of your novel. If you come up with more, that’s great! But no pressure. We want to come up with a road map that will help launch you with confidence on November 1.
So look at what you wrote last week. I had this:
Okay, how does this start? I like the idea of having her stealing the airship. That’s probably the first big action she takes. But why does she want to run away from home? Maybe she’s unhappy. (why?) Maybe she wants to look for something — yes! That fits her emotional arc better. She’s not an unhappy kid. So what is she looking for? Maybe a person. Her father? Her mother? No, I want her parents to try to stop her. Her sister! Okay, so what makes her leave home *now*? Maybe she finds a clue about where her sister is! And she tries to talk to her parents about it, but they are resistant, and tell her to forget about it. So she hatches a plan to steal the airship and go to find her sister herself.
Now what I’m going to do is try to set that up into scenes. I like to do this in a notebook with a pen, but you can do it however you feel comfortable.
What would the opening scene look like? I want something that has her in action, because this is a YA action-adventure. I want to show, rather than tell you, her state of mind. So what’s the opening scene that can deliver that?
Maybe the clue she finds about her sister is a letter, with a postmark and hints about where her sister is. I’ll figure out the backstory of why her sister is gone later… right now, I’m trying to nail down the details. I want her to be actively *doing* something when she comes across the letter. Something that illustrates her character. Maybe she is working on something mechanical — I want her to be an engineer, a maker-type person — a bicycle that broke, and she’s fixing it. She overhears her mother and father arguing about her sister. There’s a reference to a letter. She knows her parents won’t tell her about it, so she sneaks into their room later and looks for the letter. The letter is evidence that her sister is alive — maybe her sister needs help!
Then the next scene will be, she confronts her parents about it. This is where hopefully I’ll figure out more details about why her sister is gone and why they are okay with it — i.e., not looking for her themselves. I want my MC to suggest a plan of action to them, and they shoot her down with *perfectly reasonable* counter-arguments.
Scene three: she feels she has no other choice. She plans to steal her parents’ airship and go tot he City and look for her sister herself. This will be a fun “getting ready” scene where I can show her competent areas and maybe also explore her flaws. She’s very smart about some things but should have blind spots about other things. Maybe she prepares the airship engine, fuel, maps and navigation charts, and totally forgets about packing enough food or something?
Scene four is the theft itself — I’d like her to feel a little internally conflicted here, guilty about what she’s doing, and also a little scared. She’s never flown an airship by herself before. She tells herself it’s for her sister, and does it. Big fun visual of airship lifting off! The adventure begins!
The way that I write, that’s probably about 5-8000 words for these four scenes. I feel like that’s enough for today — it’s been 15 minutes! We’ll revisit this exercise later.
See you tomorrow!
<3