I’ve Got Characters, Now What?

NaNoWriMo Blog #2

National Novel Writing Month: write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Good morning!

I hear later today it’s supposed to get stormy, the perfect weather to hunker down and read!

So get yourself a nice cozy spot, a snack or drink, and let’s lose ourselves in story.

Okay so where we left off.

We have characters for our version of the Little Mermaid tale. If you haven’t read that blog yet, you can check it out here.

Today we will be tackling a few things, including outlining, but before we get to that, we should discuss The Villain.

(Cue dramatic music)

The Antagonist

I didn’t go into detail about the antagonist yet, though they are potentially the second most important character.

Unless I already have a distinct vision for the “bad guy”, it can be fun to come up with the villain’s motivations during the outlining stage, that way we can use their actions to drive the story’s events.

In the original The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, the Sea Witch is given only a small part. She is described in manner and appearance as being “ugly”, the personification of all the things society (or the author) despised at the time.

In the middle of this clearing was a house built of the bones of shipwrecked men, and there sat the sea witch, letting a toad eat out of her mouth just as we might feed sugar to a little canary bird. She called the ugly fat water snakes her little chickabiddies, and let them crawl and sprawl about on her spongy bosom.

Author Hans Christian Andersen
https://americanliterature.com/author/hans-christian-andersen/short-story/the-little-mermaid

So, how can we play with this character idea and make it fun?

If we changed the mermaid to a male Orcaman, maybe we should change the sea witch as well?

First, what sense should Orcaman lose?

I know technically talking isn’t one of the 5 senses lol bear with me here.

What if, instead of losing the ability to speak, what if he loses his sense of taste?

You have no idea how horribly inconvenient that can be… especially if your love interest opens her own cake shop!

Oooohh!!! Potential plot device!

Okay, back to the sea witch.

If we’re taking taste away, how about the sea witch is very jealous about Orcaman’s taste-testing skills?

Maybe Orcaman gave the sea witch a bad review on their special house brew?

Yeah, mermaid coffee, that’s right!

The sea witch is a barista who brews something special, so strong it turns orcas into men! :c)P

And we could go the stereotypical route with the witch, either original example, the Disney’s Ursula (probably most everyone’s experience).

Or “The Other” that people use when they’re scared and don’t understand.

How about we make this sea witch the personification of all the jerks out there, the guys who cut you off in traffic, the Mr. ItMustBeAboveYourPayGrade in the line, the guy who blows up at every small inconvenience, the manipulator.

And we’ll name him: DaveChad.

He’s The Ultimate Jerk!®

He uses the magic of The Bad Mean (the negative energy of the world, opposite of The Good Happy) to convert his angry outbursts into scathing rays of destruction and powerful mind-bending manipulations.

And unfortunately, he makes the best cup of coffee under the sea.

Oooh! Opportunity!! Cath the Single Mom makes the best coffee on land!!

Okay, so now that we have our antagonist or villain and his motivation, let’s get to outlining.

The purpose of outlining is to get your story arranged ahead of time so that you can keep your plot organized and know what’s happening next.

A lot of people outline, many famous authors have complicated diagrams, flowsheets, tables, storyboards, and anything you can imagine.

And that’s just it, it’s anything you can imagine.

There is no right or wrong way to plan out your story.

Sometimes, I just like to write a short story of the plot and see where it takes me.

I guess I’m more of a “By-The-Seat-Of-Your-Pants” kinda writer or “pantser”, rather than a “Planner”. That’s just how my brain works.

If you’re more of a “Planner”, that’s awesome! Everyone is different.

I’ll show you a couple different ways, including a fun one that could be turned into a game, if you so desire!

Traditional outlining.

The traditional outline method would be something like this:

So you could totally do that for every scene in your story.

Like I said, I’m more of a pantser and would be more drawn to just writing the thing out in story form.

You don’t have to be as detailed, either.

It could simply be:

There’s also the bubble diagram technique.

This works especially well in the brainstorming phase.

Very simple, just write the subject you’re planning and lines extending outward for each related thing.

Like this:

My typical writing technique is to just simply purge and go with it.

I like to explore as I go.

You can always edit later.

Correction: You WILL be editing later, and it’s always easier to remove words than add them.

If you just get everything down, you can rearrange them in a way that works best for the story’s sake.

Here’s my version of discovering the story:

Orcaman, beloved undersea food critic, loves watching Cath as she sits in the mornings before work drinking her coffee as she wistfully stares off at the sea, and again in the evenings while she works the dining room.
He overhears her say she’s trying to start her own cake business on the side (along with being a single mom raising two kids). She laments on how she wishes she had more help, although she appreciates her father helping in the capacity he is able, with his leg and all.
In desperation, he turns to DaveChad, who gives him the legs he desires, but takes his taste and smell as payment. Orcaman somehow sustains a head injury while leaving, knocking him out.
Cath finds an unconscious Orcaman (now with Legs™!) on the beach. She helps him up and takes him to the Black Fish Motel where she dresses him in the lost and found.
He has amnesia. Or says he does? He’s really nice and sweet. Police don’t find any missing persons cases with his description, so they allow him to decide where he’d like to go, so he chooses to remain with Cath.
He has 1 month to make her fall in love with him. Through his attentions and assistance, she begins to.
Together, they get her cake shop closer to a reality. She is somewhat dismayed he can’t taste test her delights.
DaveChad sees what is happening and really wants a dishwasher. He’s tired of cleaning his own dishes, he already has a cook. He can’t let Orcaman win!
Meanwhile, Grandpa has his own backstory that now becomes relevant to this story. He has always told tales about his fishing days, of meeting a beautiful maiden of the sea, everyone had thought he was making the story up.
One day, Grandpa notices how Orcaman does something (eats shellfish whole? uses a fork to comb his hair?) that makes him suspicious. He begins telling Orcaman all about his onetime love.
This turns out to be DaveChad’s current cook, who is chained to the stove. Oooh and maybe she gave Orcaman something to take beforehand that allowed him to fight half the spell. He tells Grandpa his love still exists, she has been chained to her job all this time. Grandpa wishes he could free her, laments on how old he is and his bum knee sustained from the fishing accident that is somehow tied to the sea maiden.
He tells Grandpa about the spell and his need to marry his daughter within the next couple weeks.
Grandpa tells him that’s simply not possible, not because she would say no, but that she’s still waiting for her ex-husband to sign the divorce papers.
Distraught, he does not know what to do, only that the only way to free himself and the old maiden is to break DaveChad’s powers.
The villain had seen this coming and meanwhile had been writing letters “from Cath” to her ex, professing her returning love and wish for reconciliation. He shows up at her work (the opening of her cake shop) with flowers and a box of chocolates (the wrong kind, of course), and tells her his feelings are the same, he has returned to his family.
What they don’t know is the ACTUAL ex read the letters, didn’t care, and went on with his life. DaveChad was so angered by the ex not following his plan, he made himself look like the ex and is merely playing the part to manipulate Cath and Orcaman. Nobody knows it’s him.
Cath is angry that he showed up “out of nowhere”, but when he says, “it’s for the kids”, she softens, allowing his spells to work on her. She brings her ex into the house in a hypnotized state and explains he’s back in their lives. Orcaman is shocked and hurt, but then he sees the eyes of DaveChad staring back and knows it’s not Cath’s ex.
He tries to explain, but she gets angry and kicks him out.

Alright! We have a story!

But we’re not done.

Who shall narrate the story? Whose thoughts and actions should we follow?

We can ponder this a while.

Now that we have all the events laid out, we can try the game option I mentioned earlier!

This involves index cards or pieces of paper. It could even be all those junk mail envelopes you’ve been meaning to throw out. Just something you can tear into pieces and write on.

I’ve listed the events out below in simpler format for me to readily see.

• Orcaman watches Cath and falls in love
• Orcaman seeks out DaveChad for help, he has 1 month
• Cath finds unconscious Orcaman
• They begin to fall in love
• Grandpa’s Sea Maiden/Cook backstory
• DaveChad contacts Ex
• DaveChad disguises himself as the Ex
• “Ex” shows up and Orcaman is kicked out

Okay so I’ve written these on little slips of paper and I’m going to shuffle them.

You can do this with any story or even just write generalized events, basically Mad Lib your way through a story! Might be fun! (Especially on days like today where the power might go out!) You could retell a story from the event you draw from the stack, or tell how the story would be different if that event had not occurred.

The first piece I draw will be the first scene to start off the story.

Drum roll, please…

And survey says….

Oh interesting!

We will begin the story with the Grandfather telling his tales of the sea, and of how he got his injury and no longer sails.

Also, maybe we’ll make the perspective be of the old man watching his daughter struggle, wishing he could help more.

He was a single dad himself when he raised Cath.

He probably didn’t like the ex, but maybe he did? Maybe he wished she would stay with the ex and doesn’t like Orcaman?

Ohhhh, maybe he’s afraid Cath will have a difficult life alone like he did and he wants to save her from the pain.

When the ex comes back into the picture, he thinks “Stability!”, only thinking of his daughter’s and grandkids’ best interests.

What will he do when he finds out the ex is really DaveChad?

Despite his voice telling the story, the Grandfather won’t be the hero/protagonist (of this story!), it will be his daughter. (Just because it’s a retelling of The Little Mermaid, doesn’t mean it needs to be from the Mermaid’s perspective.)

She will be overcoming her past, she will need to see things as they really are, and she will have to trust again. She will make the choice her father should have (I’ll figure out what exactly that is as I go along).

Those will be her main driving motivations (beyond caring for her children, that is of course a given).

There’s a lot of potential here!

I don’t have the ending quite planned out, but that’s fine, I can discover it as I go!

So tune in next week to find out how I assemble these pieces together and actually weave the story!

I can’t wait to hear about yours!

Thanks for pretending with me! See you next time!

Take Care,

❤ K