Story Development Part One

August 4th, 2020, I decided that a standalone novel within the same fantasy world I have been creating over the last two years would be an ideal debut title for my first try at publishing. Using the wealth of information on YouTube I’ve expanded my knowledge of story structure, character arcs and point of view. Brandon Sanderson’s college lectures were a jumping point into widening my horizon.

I started by Identifying the story arc, umbrella arc and the main characters arc and how they complement themselves. The story will be character driven with a subplot that involves the forces of good and evil battling each other, and the MC gets dragged into the conflict without understanding the truth.

Between the MC’s flaws and the trauma from the inciting incident, the character follows a negative arc which those around the MC take advantage of. To show a contrast to the MC, I developed a foil partner with their own POV with a similar past but handle the aftermath differently. After I decided on an antagonist, it became clear to me that the story would improve if I gave them their own POV. Settled on three POV characters, I made the choice to go with 3rd person limited.

For this story, I wanted to use the seven-point story arc: hook, plot turn 1, pinch 1, midpoint, pinch 2, plot turn 2, resolution. I ran all three POV’s, along with the villain, through the seven-point plot structure before outlining the events to assist in hitting all the major milestones for each character. I took advantage of the Likeability, competence, and proactivity slider from Brandon Anderson to gauge if my POVs were complex and showing growth.

The story arc for the antagonist was the hardest to get right. The first version made them out to be a unrelatable person. The improved second version features doubt that they struggle with the entire plot line. They do horrible things for stupid reasons and must face those consequences in the end.

I have read/listened to a plethora of books with multiple POV in third person, but I have never written one myself. My process so far has been writing out a preliminary scene structure and decide which POV is best for that scene following the four different seven-point character arcs (the 3 POV plus the villain). The current version lists 37 chapters worth of content, but my two years of writing the first drafts of books 1 and 2 of my series taught me that once I write, anything goes. Today I listened to the author interview with Joe Abercrombie on Daniel Green’s YouTube channel where they discussed that same point.

Side note: I enjoy listening to booktubers on YouTube that do reviews and discuss books from readers POV. Daniel Greene and Merphy Napier are the two I listen to the most, but I am always looking for something new. For the more author basic technical side of YouTube, I am a fan of iWriterly, Hello Future Me, and BookEnds Literary Agency.

One step I still need to take is work out how each character speaks and how their voice will influence the narration when I am in their POV. I have a page devoted to brainstorming the characteristics, but no practice scenes yet to test them out. I think a great practice would be to put all three in one scene and tell it from each POV and see the changes.

The one technique I have developed and used the most is imagining everything in my head over and over, discovering unknown elements each time and when I get home from work, write them down in my notepad. There is an app on my phone full of notes if I need to write it down.

My current project goal is to write the practice scene with each POV and use that to identify what makes each character unique.