This is it! We are on the LAST planning phase of NaNoWriMo!
Once you complete this phase, you have enough plot information to accurately complete your plot.
Some writers (and yes, you’re a writer) love to do a final step after this and write character bios – this is the only phase where I admit I’m a complete pants’er, and I’ll explain that tomorrow. Your mileage may vary, and ultimately you may have to decide whether you are the same with characters, or whether you prefer to interview your characters and create complicated 100 question bio’s.
The Last Step
We did our Logline, our Save The Cat, our 21 point phase, and now the last step remaining is the 60 point sheet. The 60 point sheet literally covers almost every scene in your book (28 chapters, 3 scenes per = 84 scenes).
I personally find that by the time I’ve written the 60 scenes with plot points, I’ve pretty much written the entire book. Most of those 24 extra scenes usually get deleted. Last year’s NaNo novel “Blazing Glory” had 74 scenes, and about nine of them were added during the embellishment edit, where I first had to try to bring the novel up to Genre standard word count (it’s still not – 55,199 words at a genre count of 75,000). Fixing this novel may be a priority in December.
Setting up your 60 point sheet
- Here’s the hard and fast rules. Do these before the others.
- Break into 2 must fall at point #21.
- Break into 3 Must fall at point #41
- Midpoint MUST be at point 30
- Opening image through Inciting incident remain exactly the same on all three sheets
- Finale must fall within 4 scenes of ending
- Final image must be the last one
Once you set all that up, things get a lot easier. You have a total of seven plot points on your 21 point sheet that must go between points 1 and 20. That’s an average of three items. Where you see a 60, these are your new points to fill in. Looks like a lot, doesn’t it? That’s why we had the 21 point sheet step!
- Opening image
- Setup – the current perfect world of your protagonist
- Theme stated – something said to your protagonist that forms the theme of your novel
- 60 point Sheet Item
- Inciting incident – the one incident that drives EVERYTHING in the novel after it
- 60 point Sheet Item
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 21 point sheet item
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- Debate – this can be internal, or by two persons about the protagonist – should he do it? Can he do it? Can he risk it? Etc.
- 21 point sheet item (you can switch this one for 14 if needed)
- 60
- 60
- 60
- Break into 2 – this is usually the action that occurs at the beginning of act II.
- 60
- B story – usually a relationship, or something else that runs concurrent to the rest of the novel.
- Fun and games – Blake describes this as “This is the part you came here to see”. A pursuit, the training montage, etc.
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- The midpoint – the action that occurs dead set in the middle of the novel. Notice all the turns are ACTIONS.
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- Bad guys close in – from this point until the end, things begin to go wrong for your protagonist.
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- 60
- All is lost – your protagonist can’t win!
- Dark night of the soul – this is the scene in “Elf” where Buddy stands on the bridge, thinking of killing himself. He is saved by Break Into Three, when he sees Santa’s sleigh malfunction.
- Break into three – the Action that kicks off act 3 and all its madness. In “Lord of the rings”, this is the drums in Moria that herald the battle!
- 21 point sheet item
- 60
- 60
- 21 point sheet item
- 60
- 21 point sheet item
- 60
- 60
- Finale – the climax of your novel. Your protagonist must be losing until the last four pages of the novel. Then it’s “Leroy! You all warmed up yet?”, followed by “who’s the Master?” “I am.” If you know what movie I’m talking about, this moment should encapsulate the feelings you had the first time you saw the movie!
- 21 point sheet item
- Closing image – this scene is the very last scene in your novel – it either echoes or mirrors the first scene. If first was a sunrise, this is a sunset. If someone arriving, it’s someone leaving. It can be the same object or place, shown in perspective of the change wrought by the novel. It’s artsy – you’ll love it.
Filling It Out
Any of the 21 point sheet items and the 60 sheet items are COMPLETELY interchangeable. Only the Save The Cat ones should not be moved. Notice my warnings at the beginning of this article – I discussed the required location of almost every one of the Save The Cat points.
When I diagrammed my current novel, I swapped out some of the 21 points and the blank points. Finale must come within 4 points of the ending, because HERE is where you build up! I’ll spoil things for you and tell you I wrote these out of sequence last year, and the finale was written on Nov. 20th – then I went back and filled in the missing “canyon” gunfight scenes, leading to the Abigail shooting scene and the “dynamite. I need all you have” Then I went back, filled in the general store scene, and finished up on the last scene on Nov. 24. 51,000 words or so. All my scenes were in this general format – only the sequence of when I wrote them changed. I don’t usually write sequentially.
Yes, there is a LOT of empty in there. Think of these as opportunities to write your novel. If you REALLY want to be creative, reverse the order and write a Effect=Cause book, where the ending happens before the beginning!
Oh, why do I always THINK of these things???
Guide or rigid rules?
Do not feel constrained by the location of any points except the Save The Cat ones. I know, tell a writer they cannot change something and they FESTER to change it. Don’t do it. It’s the difference between “Pass” and “Accept” on your manuscript. Go ask an agent at a writers’ conference, “If I write a book that violates the three act standard, what are the chances of me getting signed?” The answer will be, “It had better be VERY good and VERY original. Otherwise, no.”
Conclusion
Ultimately, it is your novel. You can do what you want, write what you want. Plug your dramatic elements in as described, and you’ll be amazed how good your book will be. Use this format, and you’ll be more than ready to tackle NaNoWriMo – no stress, no pressure, just fun as you surpass your word count every day!
