 Hello and welcome back to my channel. If you are new here, my name is Jackie and I'm an aspiring writer who's currently working on a project for Camp Nanarimo, which is to revise my Nanarimo 2019 draft Powerless. So last week I looked at my characters, so the motivations that each character has, how their relationships worked, and the antagonist-protagonist dynamic. And one of the things that I struggle with is that when I look at characters and do character profiles and so on, it feels very separate to the main story. I think there's a bus going past. Side note, if you've watched my videos before, you'll notice that this is a slightly different setup. My husband and I are actually down in Ota Pa for a holiday for a week. It's currently mid-summer's or yannipive in Estonia and they have two public holidays for it because it is a big deal here. I mean this is basically a Nordic country and if I look at my phone, the days are very long. So today sunrise was at 410 and sunset won't be until 1022. So days are long. These are longest days of the year so they have two days off. There's people at festivals and have bonfires and things and we get time off work. So I'm taking this time while he's still in bed to do my work. Problem is this apartment is very warm. There's a lot of sun coming in so I've got like the door wide open to let some air in and that means we can hear trucks and cars and things as they pass. Hopefully it won't be too bad once they do some editing though. Anyway what I was struggling with with characters is that the exercises about doing character profiles and so on feel very separate to the book itself and once I start moving on to writing a book or figuring out a plot all of that just disappears and I feel like maybe I just haven't seen these resources but I feel there aren't a lot of resources into how to bring all of that knowledge into the book. It's sort of like you just do that character work and assume that okay now I've done it. It's somewhere in the back of my head and it will naturally come out as I start to write. So now that I've done the character work today I want to look at plot and to do that I'm going to be using the Story Clock workbook, Story Engineering and the Story Grid blog. So the Story Clock workbook is a workbook where you map out your book in the shape of a clock. This is really good for seeing how things are paced. You can also find symmetry between different plot points. So I've already looked at this and written down the major scenes or moments from the existing draft and the blank one I want to basically use to outline an ideal plot. So something where everything is in the right place and the pace is good and so on. And I'm hoping that by doing this exercise I can work in some of those character elements and then when I sit down to revise it'll all be in my outline. The Story Clock is how I'm going to visually lay things out. To do that though I'm also going to look at Story Engineering. So Story Engineering is a book by Larry Brooks and this is actually the first like real plot and structure book I ever read and I love his approach to structure. So there are two key principles that I need to work with. One is that books are in four parts. So the first 20 to 25 percent, second 25 percent, third 25 percent and the final 20 to 25. Each of these parts has quite a different tone and purpose. So part one is the setup. So that's when we're getting to know the world, the characters and so on. But the story itself hasn't actually started yet. Then part two is the response. So that's responding to whatever the event was that set the plot in motion. In this 25 percent of the book the protagonist is very reactive. They're responding to whatever the book has thrown at them. Part three is the attack. So this is when the protagonist stops reacting and moves to the offense. They start becoming more active and going after the villain or the goal or whatever it is they want to achieve in that book. And then part four is the resolution. So that's where everything wraps up. Now in a well-structured story each of these parts should be fairly equal. What I've noticed though in mapping out the existing story clock is that they are not. So my first 25 percent is a little bit light and I always knew it would be light. I really struggled to think of what to include in a book before the plot starts and having read this and the theory I understand that you need to like care about characters and care about the world. My husband's snoring I don't know if you can hear that. Anyway I know you need to care about characters and the world in order to be engaged in the story for the plot to matter. However I don't know what to put there without it just feeling like filler content. So that 25 percent is not currently 25 percent in the book. I wasn't doing this based on word count because I was using a printed out document based on the number of scenes. We're looking at maybe 15 percent so there needs to be a bit more there which I already knew. Then the second 25 percent is actually way too long. There's a whole lot happening where I quite like the second 25 percent. I think it's more that I need to bulk up the other parts rather than trim this down but it's very reactive. I think the tone and the focus is right. It's sort of something happens and she's thrown out into the world and then just more and more things happen to her. It's like she gets caught. She runs into these people and gets caught by this person, gets tortured by this person, gets taken along on a mission by this but it's all very like she's just getting dragged through the story. But it is too long. Part three then is when things become more active. There is an event which means they decide to go after the main antagonist. This again works well but it's too short compared to the previous part and it's interesting because there are so many events in part two that I don't know how it can be shorter whereas part three is really they've decided to do this one mission and it's just preparing for said mission and then going on said mission. So there aren't a lot of separate events. I've got to think about yeah I need to think about how to bring those two into balance and then part four is you know you've had the climax, villain defeated, everyone moves on. There's really nothing here. So I have we've got our climactic scene and then the like little ending wrap-up scene. Now this might not be so much of a problem because the climactic scene sort of happens at exactly or should happen around 75-80 percent so that can form part of the resolution and if I take that into consideration yes it does increase the bulk of that section but like the first 25 percent it's also shorter than it should be. I think I could take more time wrapping things up at the end. So in terms of the four parts of the book I already know that I have a balance problem. Part two is way too long, the others are too short especially part one and part four. The second part of story engineering that I'm looking at is the key milestones you need to hit throughout the book and these happen at certain percentage points throughout the book so at 25 percent you have your first plot point. This is the event or decision or conversation that sets the plot in motion. It decides the direction of the story. This is also the event that moves you from part one to part two. At 50 percent of the book you have the midpoint so this is when you make the shift from part two the response to part three the attack. This is when the character like gets information or something that makes them more active in their quest. Now they can pursue whatever it is they're pursuing. 75 percent is the climax or the second plot point so that's whatever the climax of your story is. In my case it's an action book so it's the final battle. Then there are some smaller points within those and these are pinch points which happen in part two and part three. So part two at 37.5 percent so the middle of part two there's a pinch point. A pinch point is when the villain or the antagonist appears again so they either directly attack the protagonist, they raise the stakes, they appear in some way that you know moves the story forward. It also keeps it on focus. The same thing happens in part three halfway through at 62.5 percent there's another pinch point where the antagonist appears. Now because these words are quite similar like first plot point, second plot point, first pinch point, second pinch point like there are a lot of p words. I'm going to use my own terminology so first plot point that sets the plot emotion, turning point, second plot point is the climax and I think that means we can leave pinch points as they are so or maybe the antagonist strikes. So when it comes to the major milestones so the turning point, the midpoint and the climax all of those are there so that's great. We have our event that sets the plot emotion, we have our moment when Hannah the protagonist decides to actively go against the antagonist and then we have the climax which is the final battle so those are good. In terms of the pinch points or when the antagonist strikes there is nothing in part two so that needs to be addressed and I'm not sure how big a flaw this is with the story because as I mentioned earlier she is reacting through that part of the book but she is reacting to a lot of stuff that doesn't involve the antagonist at all. She's basically been, actually I haven't explained what the story is about so if you're new Powerless is about a girl called Hannah who's the only non superhero in a family of superheroes and she is kicked out of home and told to not bother coming back until she has powers so she gets kicked out of home and there's sort of this decision point where she needs to decide well am I gonna go out into the world and try to make my own way or am I gonna try and figure out how to get powers so I can go back and she decides to figure out how to get powers so that decision is the turning point that sets the plot in motion so that turning point I think works. The problem is then in part two because she's been thrown out into the world she decides she needs to get superpowers she knows that adrenaline can help trigger them so she goes looking for trouble and she runs into the Russian mafia as you do so part two is really just she's ended up in way over her head and she's basically dealing with the mafia like she's with the goons to begin with and she has taken to the boss then she ends up going to this lab where she's examined to see she's really a super or not then she gets taken in by the boss's granddaughter so it's it is good in terms of it is this reactive state she's just getting dragged along but the antagonist doesn't really appear anywhere so the antagonist in this story is Hannah's father so I need to think about how he can show up at some point I don't know if it makes sense for him to like actively reach out to Hannah yet but like there could be so he and the mafia don't like each other so there could be something around that I know I do already have him appearing in a couple of like TV broadcasts but I don't know if they're in the right spots I also don't think they're very strong so that's something that's missing so the midpoint the 50 percent mark or what should be the 50 percent mark is when she gets more information about her father she realizes this guy is totally evil not good and there's no point in trying to get back into his good graces she needs to bring him down so the part three is figuring out how to bring him down there's like a heist where they're going to break into his place to steal some documentation of weapons and so on I'm just realizing we're getting into spoiler territory hopefully by the time this book comes out you will have forgotten all of this or it will have been edited and changed so this is not a problem anymore they decide they want to break in and then they get caught by him in the middle of the break in so I think that's probably the second pinch point I just again need to make sure it's in the right position and you know cut back or flesh things out to ensure that the key points for when they need to so in terms of story engineering like with the exception that first pinch point everything's actually there it's just about making sure it's in the right spot and that's how I'm going to start with mapping out the new story clock is making sure each of those points are in the right spot and then the other things work around them I've now added my key milestones to the blank story clock and I still have a blank spot for that first pinch point but I think I need to re-examine what's already in that part of the book to see what would logically fit in there because like I said earlier even though part two doesn't really involve the antagonist at all I do think it works I think it follows on well as a reaction to the turning point event it is purely reactive which is what you want the part to so it's appropriate so if we're going to make him show up in some way it needs to work with what's already there so I'm going to leave that one as a question mark until I revisit the existing points now the next thing I want to look at is story grid so not a fan of the story grid book but the story grid blog has some really good posts and the one I'm looking at for this book is the secrets of the action genre because this is a superhero meets the russian mafia book action is the best genre in the story grid universe also if you're unfamiliar with these methods so story grid story clock and story engineering I do have a plotting playlist I have used all of these to try outlining books in the past so I will link that in a card and in the description so you can check that out if you want more information on these methods anyway if I look at the secrets of the action genre blog post it covers basically everything you need to know if you're writing an action book so at the sections I'm looking at are the conventions of the action genre and the obligatory scenes so the conventions are the protagonists victims and antagonist roles must all be clearly stated and defined I don't really have a victim in this story it's not a you know villain steals damsel and hero needs to save her type of book there is an argument for being a save the world type of story to an extent because if the villain gets his way there will be ramifications for the world but ultimately it's a hero meets villain clash as opposed to hero needs to save the victim type of thing so protagonist role as hero needs to be clearly defined throughout the story I think this works this it's a little bit confusing the way it talks about it they are setting out on a journey or must face a challenge created by the villain the hero is also much less powerful than the villain so this is a little confusing because on one hand it says the role as the hero must be clearly established but then it says there are exceptions so the protagonist can also play the role of the victim or the hero can turn out to have been the villain all along so I'm not too worried about these role definitions because it does appear that there are some exceptions I also don't like the words hero and villain so much because they're very black and white so I'm fairly comfortable with how the roles are established we have a clear protagonist we have a clear antagonist and we're on the protagonist side after the roles though this is where it gets interesting so what they say is there needs to be a speech in praise of the villain so this is a speech where a character needs to say how the antagonist appears to be unbeatable I don't actually think I have this but the good news is that I know where it can fit in the existing plot next the plot is fast paced I think part two definitely part three slows down and I'm not sure how to tackle this because and this is one of the concerns I had before I reread the draft was that that would feel like two different books because you've got one where it's just like bang bang bang event event and then in part two and then part three you've got goal and let's prepare for the goal when I read through it though it didn't feel like that much of a problem it did feel like the same book so it's going to be interesting to see what happens when I work with an editor and get some external feedback to see whether they agree or whether I'm just so in the world that I think it works so we'll see but the plot is fast paced yes and there is a clock which establishes a limited time and yes in part three when they move on to the attack there is actually a time limit by which they need to stop the antagonist and that's when the final battle takes place so this is already working quite well which is a good sign I think the only thing I need to add is the speech and praise of the villain then we get into our obligatory scenes which are going to be helpful with the story clock I think the inciting incident is a life-threatening attack by the antagonist or environment and this is when okay this is when you get into the challenge of trying to combine different plotting and outlining methods because story engineering says that there's a difference between the inciting incident and the turning point the inciting incident is an incident that incites something I think Larry Brooks says it's something that prompts more action it prompts a decision it encourages the next thing to happen but it doesn't set the plot in motion the turning point is the event that sets the plot in motion so the example he gives in the book is in Felmer and Louise so when Gina Davis shoots the guy who's been assaulting her that is not the turning point because it doesn't actually set the course of action that is an inciting incident and the reason for that is because at that point the plot could go in any number of ways they could call the police and turn themselves in they could run I'm not sure what else there are a few different ways it could go from here the turning point is when they go back to the bar and they have a discussion and they decide that they're going to run the decision to run is what sets the plot in motion as opposed to where she shoots the guy so in my book the inciting incident is that well there are a few inciting incidents but basically the father are them is a leading geneticist one of the leading people in the world who researches the super human gene which is what's responsible for making some people have superpowers in this world it appears that his research has been hacked and he blames Hannah his daughter who has the most access to all of the research because she's also a budding geneticist so she gets kicked out of home this is sort of a final straw type thing though because she should have powers she has the gene to have powers but she doesn't and she's 16 and they should have emerged by now generally they come out in your early teens so the reason for kicking her out is a combination of we think you're guilty of the hack but this is really just an excuse because you're a drain on resources and a waste of time and you know if you're not going to have and if you don't have powers there's no point in having you here so inciting incident she gets kicked out she is fighting ensues she's pursued by the siblings and needs to evade them then she's wandering through the old town and trying to figure out what to do next and she realizes or at least believes that her best course of action is to actually go back home because she is completely unprepared to live out in the real world i mean when she she falls out a window which is how she gets out of the house and she isn't even wearing shoes so she really was not prepared to enter the real world so she decides that going back home is her best option and in order to do that she needs to get powers and as i mentioned earlier she knows that powers are prompted by adrenaline so she goes looking for trouble so she can get herself in a dangerous situation which will hopefully trigger her powers to emerge so it's that decision that leads to the rest of the plot not getting kicked out of home because getting kicked out of home could have led to a couple of different options she could have gone okay i'm free this is the life i'm going to leave now she could have gone my father's an asshole let's kill him like which doesn't really happen until later in the book but instead the decision is i want to go home i need to get powers let's make that happen so i hope that distinction's clear now the reason i bring that up is because in the obligatory scenes for the action genre on the story grid website what um rachel ramirez the author says is the inciting incident is life threatening attack by the antagonist or environment so here they use the term inciting incident as well and because i have this distinction in my head between an inciting incident and a plot point i'm not sure if they're defining the inciting incident as the one that gets the plot going or whether it's just an incident that prompts action in that scene or that part of the book now because i have read the story grid book the way shon coin the author of that book so there are a couple of different people who create story grid content for context shon coin is the creator of the system i don't think much of him um but here's the one who wrote the book whereas on the blog there are story grid qualified editors who tend to write the blog posts and rachel ramirez is one of them and her posts she does all of the secrets of the x genre posts and they are excellent the book not so much but in the book when he talks about overall book structure he basically says you have a beginning middle and end and each of those parts of the book should have several points it needs to address so one of them's an inciting incident so i'm assuming the inciting incident they're referring to here is something that prompts the action for the next scene or the next part so in this case i think the inciting incident of the action genre would be the getting kicked out of home and getting like attacked and pursued by her superhero siblings there is a life-threatening attack which is not directly from the antagonist but by the antagonist's minions if you like so inciting incident check following the inciting attack the protagonist avoids the responsibility to take action against the antagonist so this is like joseph cambels the hero refusing the call i see i'm trying to figure out whether i'm cheating by trying to twist what i already have so it works here so then i don't need to do as much work or whether i need to do more work so i'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this do you think i'm trying to twist what i already have to make it fit these things that i need to do or do you think the references are making to the book given the limited context you have for the book actually work please let me know in the comments because i'm curious to see how this all sounds from an outsider's perspective anyway um protagonist avoids the responsibility to take action i mean if we compare this to story engineering this could actually be like spread out across parts two and three but i think this is more thinking of the hero's journey so you've got your call to adventure the refusal of the call and then acceptance of the call um which doesn't happen so much because the protagonist doesn't take action against the antagonist but that's because her goal shifts partway through the book which might be a no-no as well so what i'm going to do is go through the list of obligatory scenes i'm going to figure out what i already have that might work and i'm not going to like try lots of gymnastics to make things work i'm just going to see if i genuinely have something that i think applies and if not then it's a blank space and maybe once i get to the end of the list then i'll go back to the top and figure out if the way i've spoken about it works as well because one of the challenges of these obligatory scenes is that unlike story engineering where you have clear parts and where things are supposed to take place in the book this is just a list so it could be that the inciting incident takes place in the first 10 percent and then this protagonist avoiding a responsibility does that happen in the same area does it happen later so that causes confusion as well but anyway let's go through this list so inciting incident i have refusing to take or avoiding responsibility to take action yes because hannah isn't originally planning to take action against the antagonist like her father is the antagonist because he kicked her out um but she is more in the space if she wants to prove herself to him rather than fight him forced to take action yes that's what happens at the midpoint she realizes all of the crap that he's done and knows that she can't let him continue or she has any power to stop him it's her responsibility to stop him the protagonist discovers or gains an understanding of the antagonist want so yes this happens around the same time at the midpoint so we discover that artem has developed um these weapons that use superhuman dna and he basically wants to take them to auction um that's some various surface level want though so i don't know if the understanding is there like it isn't directly communicated in the book that like the level of power he wants how he wants rather than just being respected in academia he wants to partner with defense contractors and governments and so on he wants to be very powerful so that could be highlighted more having decided to act the protagonist initial strategy to overcome or defeat the antagonist fails yes though my concern is that this is all happening too late in the book because this is part three so the midpoint is where she decides to attack him they break into his home to get the weapons and the blueprints and he catches them the protagonist gains an unexpected ally now again we get into like the order of events because the next one after this list is the protagonist reaches an all-in-lost moment and realizes they must change their approach to overcoming or defeating antagonists there is an all is which moment is the all is lost moment what i was originally planning when i mapped out this book was the all is lost moment is after they fail to get the blueprints or the weapons and he captures and locks up Hannah and so she's locked in a cell with no light and no access to the outside world and that was going to be the all is lost moment however i don't think that is the moment when she realizes she must change her approach in order to defeat the antagonist that happens like in the final battle which i don't know is allowed because there's sort of another all is lost moment and oh how to do this without spoilers but there's an all is lost moment and um stuff happens i don't know what i can say anyway something happens in the battle and she discovers how to if not defeat him fight him and that isn't really a realizing she must change so this needs work i'm going to make a note then there's the protagonist gaining an unexpected ally so the reason i wanted to cover this after the all is lost moment is because all is lost she also feels like she's lost her friends in the russian mafia because they feel like she's betrayed them so the unexpected ally is they do actually come in and decide to help her again so if we can flip them then it works then the climactic and central event of the action story is when the protagonist is at the mercy of the antagonist and the protagonist must express their gift to save the victim and usually themselves as well so as i mentioned there's no real victim but they do need to save themselves and their friends i need to review the epic battle to see if there is a moment when Hannah is at the mercy of Arthem i think there might be that i just am not sure and then the ending payoff the protagonist is rewarded for their sacrifice the we have already established my ending needs work so my new story clock is now getting much more fleshed out i've added the story engineering plot points i've added the obligatory scenes and then i've filled in the gaps with what i already have in the book and anything that doesn't exist or needs to be addressed i've circled so what i still need is the pinch point in part two i did think of something that might have worked which is when she encounters the mafia and later they realize that she is a super so from that family but that happens way too early for that to be this point and i don't think i can push that moment back like if i tried to push it back i would be i feel like i'd be adding a lot of filler so i need something else there the midpoint there isn't a clear understanding of what the antagonist wants so i need to add that at the all is lost moment the realization that she needs to change her approach to win i don't think that's there uh there's the hero at the mercy of the villain which might be there i think i've got something that might just need to be built up so it really feels like a oh my god she's about to die moment um but i've circled that just because i'm not sure and then i have my beginning and my end so based on where the notches are in the story clock from 12.5 percent to 87.5 percent things are pretty complete like there are those things i mentioned that i need to address but i feel like what's there is pretty solid however the first 12.5 percent at the moment i have two short chapters and there should probably be more there i'm just not sure what else to put there for the final 12.5 percent so i've made my epic final battle go from 75 percent to 87.5 percent just because the climax is supposed to start around the 75 percent mark and given that it's an action book and as story grid says it is the central event it should take a while so i think it's okay dedicating 12 percent of the book to this oh that sounds really long is it worth dedicating 12 percent of the book to a single scene every time i make a decision i then start to wonder if it's the right one but anyway at the moment i've like marked out that part of the book as epic final battle because it is a fairly lengthy scene it's not all fighting there's the getting to the battle like sneaking into the location where it's going to be so there are sort of these like mini scene sequences rather than it all being we're just fighting for 10 000 words so i think it works then the last 12 and a half percent as i mentioned earlier after the battle there's only really one scene where they sort of meet and recap and i think there could be something else there i'm just not sure what so that very end of very beginning of the book there a bit of a question mark for me the other question marks are fairly small so all in all i think it's in pretty good shape but i'm also aware that i'm mapping out the existing scenes in the book and squeezing them in so they fit in the right places now rather than having actually reworked anything so in reality even though i have all of part two squeezed into this quarter of the story clock it hasn't actually changed the amount of content that's there it is actually more than 25 percent of the book so i'm not sure how to do that same thing in part three the when they get caught by the antagonist that's supposed to be at the 62.5 percent mark so midpoint of part three and even though i've written it so it appears there on the story clock i haven't actually changed the story itself so in terms of word count it's probably not in that location so i'm not sure what to do about that because what i originally thought when i started this exercise was that going through the obligatory scenes and looking at story grid again would highlight the things that i'd missed or just hadn't included which it has but there isn't actually that much other than the beginning or the end so this exercise probably isn't going to fundamentally change the overall layout of the book so i'm a bit not stuck i haven't been doing this long enough to say that i'm stuck but i'm not sure what to do next so from here i think i'm going to take a break hopefully drew will be up soon and we can go out and explore and then i'll come back to this either later today or sometime tomorrow good morning it is the next day and i'm heading towards the lake that's near our airbnb because if you have the choice of working somewhere beautiful why not this chair is really far back from the table i don't know how i'm going to do this and i might need to relocate but we'll see hello i have looked at the first 25 percent of the book and i've added in two new scenes that i actually thought of last night went before i was going to bed so it shows the value of just leaving something for a few hours and not even consciously going back to it it was just before i went to sleep these ideas popped into my head so there are two new scenes now and that's going to affect a couple of the existing scenes and i think make it much stronger the first one the book's now going to open with hana and her father working in the lab together which i think could be a really good way to establish more of a relationship between them because at the moment we don't really establish anything before she gets kicked out it almost seems like she just gets ignored which i think can work but since we don't have like a whole lot of time to build this up before there is the rift i think it would make sense for them to be a little closer i was thinking they could have a scene in the lab where she has a hypothesis that gets proven and he praises her like says very good or something not overly flowery but because she gets his approval so rarely that's like oh my god i'm finally proving myself to him i think that works from her perspective i think it works almost in the sense of how like abusive relationships can sometimes work where the abuser is horrible to the abuser they demean and control and even attack them time and time again but then they're remorseful afterwards and they promise they'll be better and there might be this lull in between spurts if you like or episodes of violence and abuse and that's what often oh there's a spider and that's what persuades the victim to stay for so long because each time they think oh that's the end they're going to be better and if i am just better and i don't trigger them then maybe they'll turn into the person that they used to be or that i thought they were that could work from Hannah's perspective that she gets this praise very rarely and that's what keeps her hope alive as opposed to if he's just been ignoring her for the last let's say four years then it would make less sense for her to still be invested in getting his approval and acceptance so it works from her perspective i don't know if it works from Artem's perspective so i need to think about if he's going through this charade if you like like if he's still spending time with her in the lab if he's giving her praise even if it's dim praise what's his motivation for doing so one of the big parts of the story is that he sees no value in her because she doesn't have powers and this implies that he sees some value in her as a researcher or an assistant so i need to think about how that affects other things i have one new scene at the beginning of the book and then there's sort of the first inciting incident where and i'm just realizing this lighting is very inconsistent so sorry about that so there's the first scene in the book then there's sort of many inciting incident one the supers get called on a mission inciting incident two there's something unusual about the mission that prompts further investigation and then inciting incident three she gets kicked out as a result of this which leads us to our turning point which is she is going to go looking for trouble so she can develop powers and go back home so i think that these scenes have been added in without detracting from that they contribute to that i worry that if i add in extra scenes they're going to just be filler so i'm going to continue playing with this i might actually try to map out each of the scenes and see how they'll go i actually didn't bring the print out of powerless with me because i thought oh i'm just doing the story clock i won't need to look at scene by scene and now i'm like i should have brought it so i can look at the existing beats in each scene but oh well so that's the first little chunk of work i still have to do my first pinch point my midpoint so where the protagonist understands the antagonist want the realization that hannah needs to change and the all is lost moment hannah being at octam's mercy in the final battle which i think that's something where i need to look at the printed draft so i can see what's there already because i'm like i know there's a moment um when he's basically spoilers um there are things that he does in that battle where her life is in danger and others lives are in danger but it all happens very quickly it's like weapons are thrown into the arena strikes a dealt punched whatever strikes a what's the verbs strikes a struck and um there are things that happen but there's no build up whereas my idea of someone being at the antagonist mercy is that there's a moment when they're completely helpless and i don't think there's the time for that at the moment so i need to have a pause at some point it's like the lion king the final battle where scar has simba over the edge of the cliff and simba feels helpless he doesn't know how to get out and that's when scar leans forward and goes i'm the one that killed your father so there is that moment when it feels like all is lost within that battle and i don't think i have that at the moment but i think i can work it in with the existing structure of said battle and then there's my ending so how are the protagonists rewarded i don't know if i'm going to get the ending before i revise the book and this is something that's very common in the way i write so the way i write is that i often leave the end to the end and this was always the way i did in fact i often leave the introduction to the end as well when it comes to nonfiction so i write the body of what i want to say that naturally flows into the conclusion and how to tie it all up and then i go back to the introduction because like i know how to introduce it all now and that's even been the case when things are mapped out because i do map out nonfiction quite extensively so when it comes to this plotting work i'm not too worried if i don't come up with the last bit before i start revising again just because i know that this is how i work so i'm happy to sort of revise everything to the end of the final battle and then see what feels right for the characters and i acknowledge that that might mean that i have nothing to say beyond the little end scene that's there at the moment however i'm also comfortable where if i'm happy with the rest of the book and i'm not quite happy with the ending i'm still comfortable working with an editor when it's at that stage and getting some external feedback about how things could get wrapped up so not too worried about that end chunk it's really just the three points i'm going to look at now and then the battle which i'll look at when i get back to the airbnb for the midpoint what i needed to do was have a moment where Hannah figures out the antagonist motivations and rather than adding something new to that point what i realized is that in the new scene i'm adding to the beginning where she has the discovery she is going to discover how to trigger a superpower reaction outside of a super's body by mixing like the dna with the chemical basically with a chemical cocktail and um her father is going to steal that for the weapons he creates so when i originally did the draft the weapons dealing thing that came up was really a it was not part of my prepping it was something that i thought of while i was working on the book because i needed i knew they were going to like break into his house somehow or like interrupt the family and emission um but i didn't really have a reason for it other than general research when i first started writing it and then i wanted to create a countdown for a sense of urgency and i thought okay well what if he has something that he is going to auction with or launch into the public and then i decided it could be weapons that use super dna so now he is going to have stolen her research and this is the real reason he kicks her out of home so rather than introducing something new or some new want or desire or trying to figure out the why behind it it's more a she realizes that this is what he wanted all along and everything that's happened up to now starts to make sense so yay it's coming together i think i'm done and this feels very strange to say after how worried i was about yesterday about my capacity to make any changes that would improve this at all so i've come back to the airbnb i've looked at the printed out version of the draft and i looked at the dark night of the soul moment and the final battle scene and what needs to change there is the dark night of the soul hannah needs to realize that she needs to change in order to win and i think i can work that into the existing scene fairly easily so i'm not worrying about adding something else to my story clock it's basically going to be a one or two line thing in the existing scene regarding the hero being at the villain's mercy there is actually a moment where he is holding a bomb basically with his finger on the trigger saying you know let us go or um i'll blow this up so that is actually a hero at the mercy of the villain moment now the way it's played in the book at the moment is that they are pretending to negotiate with him but i can change that so there is an actual moment of fear and all is lost again so again in that scene nothing really needs to change i just need to emphasize that moment more and after that all that's left is the very end of my book the last 12 and a half percent ish and as i mentioned earlier i'm happy to leave that until i'm actually in the revision process so that means i'm done with the overhauling my plot so having done all of that work my final story clock isn't actually that different to my original one most of the events are still the same i have added those two new scenes i mentioned in the first quarter and i've basically listed the same scenes but squeeze them so they fit into the 25 percent parts of the book i don't know if they will actually be 25 once i start revising based on word count but at this stage i almost feel like having this intention upfront is the most important thing because i used story engineering when i was prepping this book and i think that's one of the reasons why i haven't had to rework much because i did have those four parts when i was working on the outline originally i did have my turning point midpoint climax and pinch points in there when i was outlining it and they might not be in exactly the right place now but if i can get them within like five percent of where they need to be i think i'll be pretty happy so that is all from me for today i am now going to wake up my husband because it's time for us to go out and enjoy the day i hope you are having a great day whenever it is wherever you are if you liked this video please like comment share subscribe hit the notification bell i think that's everything you can do on youtube and i will see you next time bye