Four days into Nano and 7018 words into the project, I see how helpful a chapter breakdown can be. When I attended the Story 101 workshop a week ago, one of the three presenters gave us a handy tool for planning a writing project.
At first I was like: this is cool, maybe I'll use it one day. And then I was like: this is COOL! I'm going to try to use it for Nano. And I have been. And let me tell you, it's making the project stay on task and helps me know where the story is supposed to go.
Of course, being a pantser at heart, when I looked at the chapter breakdown, I had to logically think about what would happen to someone after they attempted suicide. Obviously there would be a hospital involved, and then treatment afterwards. I've done a fair amount of research on how people who have attempted suicide feel when they find out they were unsuccessful, so including this into Natalie's character has been an interesting challenge.
My original chapter breakdown had 24 chapters listed, but I'm guessing there will be handful more than that when it's all said and done as chapters 2&3 have both ended up being 2 chapters each. But, I'm still on track with the basic outline. Yay!
So far, Nano has been fun and challenging and I'm proud of myself for meeting or exceeding the daily word count goal.
Did you get any info from Psychology experts? And congrats on your word counts!
ReplyDeleteNo promising responses from Psychologists yet. I've had a few tell me suicide is not their area of expertise, so I will keep searching!
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