Welcome to the Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition III!
Round SIX of this popular event is coming your way the entire month of August 2017 and it's going to be epic! The invites have started to roll out and everyone from your all time favorite Wa...
Once upon a time, there was this girl that lived on an orange site. She was rather happy while writing, though some obstacles formed on her way ... alright, let's scratch that as it isn't the intention to have a tail for my Wattpad block party. However, I like to come in with an extraordinary introduction and I hope it captured your attention. Now, we're going to have the real and boring introduction.
My name's Luna and I'm a young woman, aged somewhere in my twentieths. Hufflepuff is my second home, you're meeting a very proud one over here. As you probably were able to guess, I like to read and write. This is my first block party and I'm very excited!
Now, it's time to buckle up ...
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For this wattpad block party, I had plenty of ideas. Albeit, whenever I wrote something down I wasn't very satisfied with it and deleted every single word. That was until an idea literally just overwhelmed me when I was laying in bed. Before the idea took me all over, I googled how to plan out stories as I'm literally the worst at it yet I'm a person that needs planning otherwise my interest will vanish like frost under the morning sun.
After my google session, I stumbled onto a very great way of plotting a story and thus, I decided to write my wattpad block party about it. Perhaps, I can help other people who are struggling. During this post, I will use images as examples. The images are from my plan of plotting Loverboy. Although, I have blurred out things as I don't feel like spoiling my own story.
The method I'm using is called "The Lazy Author's 3-step-short-cut", although I don't really understand why it's called lazy. There's time needed for this way. Anyway, I have found this method in a free e-book (you can message me if you'd like to know which one it is). I probably have given you enough information now about how I came to the subject, now let's focus on the actual subject.
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The first step of this method is taking a paper and writing on the top of it your main idea. Hereafter, you will make a mind map. A mind map helped me to see the direction of the story and cared I've figured out some things I wouldn't think about before.
In the middle of the mind map, I wrote down the title of my book and then I had drawn a circle around it.
Next, I just noted everything that appeared in my brain. I did this for a solid twenty minutes. You shouldn't worry about the order of your ideas, it's important to do a brain dump. It's rather helpful to list everything that wanders in your mind. With some people, the mind map will be a messy thing but at the moment, it doesn't matter what it looks like. Just keep mind mapping until you run out of ideas.
When I finished writing down the words, I sought a connection between the different ones. As you can see, I marked some words in blue. These words are interconnected, as they are the plot of the first chapter. The other words are highlighted in different colors, depending on what chapter they belong to.
Conclusion: the first mind map gives an overall outline.
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The next step is actually the same as the previous one: mind mapping. However, this time there's a brainstorm for each chapter. Before I started I wrote down chapter one in the middle of the paper. Then I wrote the words in blue again around the middle circle. Hereafter, I began again with brainstorming, but related to the words that already were on the paper.
For this step, I set a timer as it made it possible to make "deeper" and "more relevant" connections. When the clock buzzed, I read the words at loud and that ensured I got a clearer picture of the chapter. Then I wrote down the plot (as you can see at the top). This plot is based on the words surrounding "chapter one". Most of the time, I plot out five chapters ahead before I start writing, making sure I know more clearly which direction I want to go.
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This method can be used to create characters, I will not explain this as it's rather clear now (I hope). It can also be used to develop a side plot, unless it's already done in your first steps. I hope this post has helped you or raised your interest. To finish, I wil promote my story without any shame.
Loverboy is a young adult novel and has the bad boy aspect in it. Nevertheless, in the first part, you won't notice much of it because I want to build the story and I don't want to rush it. However, in the second part the bad boy comes forward. I'd like to add this isn't a bad boy story like most I encounter here. He is the sort of bad boy that has never appeared before in wattpad stories (I think and hope). Although, you will notice that at the end of the story.
That was about it,
all the love,
Luna
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