What’s Working: Beat It

 

Beat cards based on Romancing the Beat. Image copyright Lori Gravley.

Okay, so I’m back to working on my original NaNo project.  I like the characters, I love their voices, and I’m interested in seeing where they’ll take me. My Wild Things revision will have to wait until December or at least until I've replaced the ceiling in the kitchen. 

The thing is, I did not plan this novel out and pantsing doesn’t work for me.  When I write by the seat of my pants, the novel seems too much of a mess to even consider revising.  

But even though I still don’t have a plan, I’m not really pantsing.  For revisions, I’ve created several decks of index cards to help guide me through character arcs and beats. Using the work of a number of authors who discuss beats, I’ve got cards that I link to my plot points.  I have another set of cards that look at character arc. 

For this novel, so far, I’ve been working through my romance beats. Using my beat cards to hit the main plot beats.  I write a beat and then I let it take me along for a few thousand words, and then I look at the next beat card.  

It’s working so far.  If you’ve never heard of beats, you might check out the screenwriting book, Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. It’s one of the first books where a screenwriter shared tips for creating scripts that hit all the high points of movie making. Writers like C.S. Lakin (12 Key Pillars) and Jessica Brody (Save the Cat Writes a Novel) have taken the screenwriting beats and adapted them to fiction.  Gwen Hayes (Romancing the Beat) has taken the basic beats and applied them to romance.  

If you are a pantser and want to bring a little bit of structure to your writing or if you're a pantser and you're feeling stuck, you might check out beats.  You'll find a simplified discussion over at Storyfix.com.

Today, I start on my Young Adult Romance Beat #4, No Way #1.  My notes about this beat say

• ·     H1 (the female main character) explains out loud or internally why she will not fall in love, not now, not ever but especially with H2 (the love interest).
• ·     They both protest too much.  

So, H1’s POV scene has her committing to her current path that doesn’t include love.  Often the love interest POV scene (if you have dual POVs) will include a recognition that H1is the girl (or guy) for him (or her).  But it will also show the reader how this character’s wounds and H1s wounds are going to cause problems for their relationship as it progresses. 

If you don’t know what I mean by wounds, stay tuned. I’ll talk about wounds a little later. 

I hope your words are flowing whether they are flowing from you like a river or being directed by you in some way by your planning. The joy of writing, especially at this point in your story, is often discovering things about your character you didn’t really expect.  

Have fun. Take joy. Write when you can. Progress, not perfection.