Good morning everyone I hope you had a fabulous weekend. We are at a really fun point in our daily tasks for our 2026 Novel Writing Challenge. We took our idea and we spent a little bit more time thinking about it. We in fact spent all last week walking ourselves slowly through our story idea.
And yes, it is still an idea at this point.
There are plot elements, there are story elements, but mostly what we did last week was really think through the idea and how we wanted to tell it. Which was a lot. And it needed to be done. One of the main reasons a lot of manuscripts never make it from baseline ‘I have an idea for a book’ to an actual manuscript is because the idea wasn’t thought all the way through before starting.
Which makes it very easy to write yourself in corner so you can’t figure out how to write your way to the conclusion. It can be very frustrating and often leads to abandoning the project.
So we spent all last week expanding and thinking through our ideas. Now we can begin our plotting.
Mwahahahahaha.
And everything we did last week is really going to help, even if it sometimes feels like repetition. Trust me, it is useful.
Which brings us to today’s task. It comes in two parts. Some of you will have already done part one as you went through previous tasks, others will not have. So we are going to use this task to make sure everyone is on the same page.
Task #8: Part 1: Put all the bullet points you created into one master list. If yours is already in one place, you are golden and can move on to part 2 of this task. If you did not put them in one long list, this is the time to make the master list to rule them all.
Part 2: Once your bullet point list is together, go through and either highlight or underline the plot elements. Plot elements are the physical things that happen. The framework of your manuscript. Story is the emotional journey your character takes.
If you look at your bullet points, you are going to see there is a mix of both. All good books are a mix of both. If it is all emotional story it can feel like you are sitting in on someone’s therapy session and not really getting anywhere and if it is all plot the tale will be flat and won’t draw you in.
Now that we have thought our ideas through all the way, we will be working with our plot first, getting that physical framework into place before we shuffle in the emotions. So, get to highlighting (or underlining or whatever you need) to mark out the plot elements in your idea.
Just remember, all of this is the information YOU need to know as the writer at this point. Some of it may have occurred before your story starts and won’t make it into your actual manuscript or only be something mentioned in a conversation rather than shown as the tale develops. Other details will need expansion and focus. That’s fine, those are decisions made later, for now, just highlight all the plot elements you added to your idea both large and small.
As you go through, thee will be some things mentioned several times possibly in slightly different ways. All we are doing is separating actions from emotion so go ahead and mark them all out. I went with red as it worked better on the screen.
Example
The Idea of Bob:
This is a story about Bob who hates working for his father in law, then gets fired and has to look for a new job before finally leaving it all behind to buy a boat and sail off into the sunset.
Five Sentences (as they are at the end)
1-This is a story about Bob.
2-Bob hates working for his father-in-law.
3- His father-in-law fires him.
4- Bob gets divorced.
5- Before finally leaving it all behind to buy a boat and sail off into the sunset.
Break out Points
1-Bob is an average looking guy in his late- thirties, maybe even early forties (clarify as timeline develops if necessary). Everything about him is average and forgettable. He is the invisible cog in the machine of his life.
2-Bob married Sarah right out of college and despite his degree in Marine Biology, he went to work for his father in law at his lumber yard because Henry (the father in law) had a heart attack three days after the wedding and needed help.
3-Bob works hard and is conscientious. He doesn’t point out his hard work and he is now just expected to do the job. Others in the family (his wife’s brothers and cousins) take credit and because it is a ‘Family Company’ and he just married in, he is considered by them to be an employee and replaceable despite doing most of the work.
4-Even though he works hard the regular hours give him steady nonwork hours which he has used to keep his certifications up and to do work in his field. He has turned his man cave into a sort of lab and has been quietly building a reputation and using his vacation and leave to do work since Sarah prefers trips with her friends.
5-Bob’s parents are gone but he has one brother who lives far away.
1-Bob knew his father in law didn’t like him and so he tried to be nice to him in order to maintain the family peace.
2-When Henry (father-in-law) has his heart attack Bob had graduated but not yet accepted a position so agreed to help out temporarily because no one else was available.
3- Bob realized the business was in a much worse state than anyone let on and thought if it went down while he was there he would be blamed, permanently being the hated one so he worked to get them back to a stable point.
4-After the heart attack Henry could only come in part time, so Bob did the bulk of the work and thought if he left it would send Henry back to the hospital.
5-His wife’s younger brothers and cousins start working for the business and Henry fully retires but the others don’t want to do the work to run it. He is hoping to train one of them so he can step away permanently.
1-Bob starts passing duties over to some of the family members who are willing to take them. Not all want the responsibilities but more than one wants to ‘be in charge’. They start to resent that he is seen to have more power, i.e. doling out responsibilities.
2- Bob discovers his wife is having an affair.
3- Bob finds out someone is embezzling from the company funds.
4-Henry (FiL) likes the person Sarah is having an affair with better than Bob and wanted hem to marry so thinks that if he fires Bob they have a better chance of getting divorced leaving the way clear for the man he likes.
5- To save the company after Henry’s heart attack Bob had to implement some changes to keep them financially stable. While he explained them, now that the crisis has passed Henry doesn’t like them, partially because they aren’t the way things were always done (tradition) but mostly because they weren’t Henry’s ideas and that Bob put them in makes Henry realize that he should have thought of them but didn’t, and now he thinks Bob thinks he is smarter than he is and since he already didn’t like Bob this is intolerable.
1-Bob sends out an e-mail letting everyone (suppliers, employees, etc) know that Chuck is now going to be running things and that he is leaving. It is a nice e-mail expressing how much he enjoyed working with all of them and so on. He is trying to leave in a professional way. He gathers up all of his things and hands over the office keys to Chuck.
2-Bob feels depressed about being told he was essentially worthless and that nothing he did for the company had any value. Sarah, his wife, tells him that he should have expected it since he wasn’t family and just doing the day to day ‘chores’ until her brother could properly take over.
3-Bob begins to get mad about how much work he put in and how everyone things he was just turning on the lights and refilling orders. He realizes how much effort he put in and how little anyone appreciated any of it.
4-Sarah makes comments about how the company will really thrive under Chuck now that it is back in the family and as Bob is now in the angry stage, he snaps at her, they fight and his knowledge about her affair comes to light. Ugly things are said and Sarah storms out.
5-Bob realizes he not only no longer loves Sarah but he doesn’t even like her any more. While he was working to save her family business, she became someone he doesn’t want to spend any time with and he decides it is best to end things. So he gets the divorce paperwork together and presented it to her.
1-Bob moves into a small apartment, taking his belongings with him.
2-The assets are split and the paperwork is done.
3-Bob gets a call from his brother about a job near him using his Marine Biology degree and Bob realizes there is no need to stay in the area anymore,
4-Bob applies for the job and gets it. Realizes there is little from his past here that he wants to take with him so he sells or donates all but he few personal items and buys a boat.
5-Bob lets go of the temporary apartment, boards the boat and sails off to the port town where his brother lives and his new job awaits.
Ten til Midnight 