Plot 5

This is the main plot, which I have been avoiding, I suppose in part because it hasn't quite coalesced in my brain. Knowing a lot of the background details will help though, such as what kind of job he had, and such. Now I just need to work out how he learns about the dragon. How much he stalks the dragon. And why he is so obsessed with the dragon.

First meeting: He has seen the dragon before, but he didn't realize it because he uses many different shapes. But the dragon only owns so many cars, and really isn't a fan of public transportation. Most of his cars are very expensive, so easily remembered, and driven with a manic, almost dangerous, style, though the dragon has reaction speeds beyond that of a human. His first happens sometime before the book, or near the beginning. The dragon is interviewing him about his business, because the dragon wants to know what kind of equipment it will need to keep its humans in good shape in its tunnels below the ground. It is especially obsessed with equipment that will last a long time. Nothing that breaks.

Second meeting: Steven spots someone else driving the car (getting gas), and approaches it. This is sometime after the accident, possibly while he is stalking the teacher's brother. But the person who steps out isn't the person he interviewed before, or so it appears. Instead it is a man who works for the military...airforce? (whomever keeps all the ICBMs). This man shows a moment of recognition on looking at Steven, but that disappears and the man moves away. Steven is curious, but not curious enough to follow the man. He does ask a few questions, but the man just waves him away.

Third meeting: This happens at the Dragon Sworn. They show him a picture of the dragon which Steven recognizes, but they claim it is just one of the dragon's agents. The dragon sworn are so obsessed with the agents and what theythink the agents are doing, that he begins to believe some of what they are saying.

Fourth meeting: After losing his job, Steven begins to believe this dragon character might know more about magic than his teacher seems to. So Steven does a little research and discovers where the car is. So he begins to hang out outside that garage, waiting for the car to move. His car is starting to look a bit run down, because it was vandalized, so it appears to be abandoned. While he is there, the police see him and talk to him. During that time, the dragon appears again and takes off in his car. He is again appearing as a military man. Steven wants to follow the car, but is afraid of driving away from the officer, since the officer might well follow him and he has no desire to get into an accident from a high speed chase. The police officer avoids writing him a ticket, and lets him go with a warning. Steven pulsl away, but the car is gone. Steven can't see it, as it is miles away. He tries to figure out where it might be going. He thinks about where he saw it last, at the gas station. And how there is a military base in that direction.

Disaster: Steven parks outside the miltary base, but not for long. He is detained by several officers and questioned as a suspected terrorist after the soldiers find out he was just causing trouble for the police. Hours later he is released, and exhausted. He is determined now to learn all that the teacher knows, because he is becoming obsessed with the dragon. But the teacher won't teach him any more.

After learning everything the teacher knows, which is the hard to understand piece of paper, Steven breaks into the garage with the car. He is desperate at this point to get a proper teacher and hopes the car will have information on the location of the dragon. He finds nothing but oil change information and other useless paperwork. But he does find a book about the place where they intend on storing nuclear waste. At this point his mind begins piecing thigns together and he believes the dragon is planning nuclear war.


Disaster: Steven hunts down the location, stalking it for weeks beofre he finds the entrance. He only finds it because he sees other people exiting it. He finds a way inside. And he sneaks around, learning all about the base. It appears to be some place that the dragon plans to live after inciting nuclear war. He also finds hundreds of children. It is then that the dragon finds him.

Climax: They confront each other, eventually the truth comes out. The dragon plans on killing Steven to protect his seecret. Steven suggests that he work for the dragon, but the dragon has no use for him. Steven must prove he is useful.

Resolution: Steven stares at the papers, and it finally makes a kind of sense. He does some magic which resolves one of the dragons problems...(what?)

Day 18 - Plot 4

Today's Plot I'll for the moment call the Dragon Sworn plot. This is the group of people who believe that the dragon exists but are seeking ultimate proof.

Inciting Incident: They are carrying the talisman, possibly in a car, which he collides with. A spark of unformed magic enters his brain from that and becomes stuck. there are some clues as to who they are, but he doesn't realize it right away.

The paper: The paper with the magic formula on it has some scrawling on the back that mentions the dragon sworn but in no clear terms that Steven can understand.

The kidnapping: They kidnap him after he is following what they believe is one of the agents of the dragon.

The cell: The cell turns out to be in someone's basement. he tries to use magic to escape, but fails. Eventually they blind fold him and let him go, but only after he has lost the dragon's scent because it has moved on. They drive him around and throw him out of their van.

The deal: He realizes that these are the people that the dragon really needs, because they will willingly live in his underground home.

Day 17 - Plot 3

The next plot line will be the "romance" subplot. I put romance in quotes, because this is by no means a romance novel. There will be no happy ending. There will be no sex that is shown, and perhaps none alluded too. They won't end up together.

Next step- He asks her to move in with him, but she refuses him. She had a lot of excuses, such as not wanting her finances tangled with his while he is starting a business.

Good news--While he is driving she calls him to say she wants to move in with him after thinking about it. It is then that he gets into an accident.

Next step - After his accident, she offers to let him move in with her. At firs this seems like a good thing, as she can take care of him al lthe time, but it soon becomes clear that he has lost his motivation with life. He spends all of his time watching sports, eating, drinking, not shaving, not showering, becoming a waste. She gives him an ultimatum, and he tries to follow it.

Disaster - She confronts him at work because she thinks he deserves a better job than this. She demands he get a better job than this. This leads to him getting fired, because he does something bad there.

Worse Disaster - The keys on the apartment are changed. He can't go back inside or get his stuff.

Apology- She sends him an emailed apology. He is about to reply, but something comes up.

Self realization-After getting hsi new "job" he finally replies to her email. He tells her that he doesn't want to move back in, although he thinks of sending her an uglier email first.

Day 16 - Plot 2

I think the next thread will be one involving his job. At the beginning he has one job in mind, but that doesn't turn out so well because of his accident. He needs a new job after that.

Beginning: Steven Right is planning on starting a business with his friend and personal trainer, just like him. The guy I called a boss in the character descriptions. The business is a gym with weights and whatnot, where they have some great idea on how to get people to join and get real results out of them, instead of a place like Bally's that just takes your money. Something like Curves. They are having some troubles with it, but find ways to work around the problems for now.

Next: Steven Right has a horrible accident which ruins his physique, because of the months spent in the hospital where his muscles wasted away. To make matters worse, when he has permanent injuries that make working out very difficult, because he needs prosthetics if he doesn't want to be stuck in a wheel chair, and he only has one good hand, and it isn't even the one he writes with. To make matters even worse, he is seriously depressed when he leaves the hospital. The business has collapsed because his partner is left in the lurch. His partner is going to wait on him, until he sees how seriously depressed Steven is. Steven is in no shape to start a new business, so the guy decides to start a business on his own without Steven. He steals the idea for the business, however, just changing it a bit to avoid any legal trouble.

Third: Steven is seriously hurting for money. He didn't have any insurance, or enough anyway, and has to pay most of the medical bills out of pocket, and he doesn't have enough to cover it. When he begins working for the teacher, it doesn't pay any money. So Steven tries to get away with just a tiny amount of sleep and working at some fast food place to make ends meet.

Fourth: Something happens at his place of work and he ends up fired. (from another thread?) His lack of sleep and depression don't help.

Fifth: He gets a rather unusual job with the dragon. It doesn't pay regular money, but it has its benefits.

Day 15 - Plot 1

I'm going to use a technique that my friend robin showed me to do plotting. It is called plot braiding, and I believe it was invented by Alison Kent, but I can't promise to me. Essentially what I do is write out each plot as its own seperate thread, which will take me a bunch of days. I'm going to start with the first thread, the magic thread.

First: And accident happens to Steven Right, which damages his brain, his body, and he absorbs some magical energy. This magical energy remains stuck in his brain, although for a short time he is exuding energy, causing things to happen with barely a thought. But that ability quickly fades, until it seemed that it was only imagined.

Second: Steven Right learns that magic exists. He learns this in a meeting for recently disabled people being held in a public school at night. One of the other people there comments on how he was once looking for something to cling to after his accident, and how at one point he came to believe in magic. He even found a teacher, but it turned out to be a bunch of crap. Steven Right heres this and demands information on the teacher, because he also is looking for something to cling onto.

Third: Steven Right hunts down the teacher, but the teacher won't teach him anything. Steven begs, saying he'll be the teachers servent, doign whatever he wants. The teacher takes him up on that, and soon has Steven spying on the teacher's brother.

Fourth: After several weeks, Steven grows desperate, certain that the teacehr wil lteach him nothing. Steven breaks into his private files and his safe. There he finds a piece of paper with a few diagrams drawn on it, and a few words of explanation, but not enough for it all to make sense.

Final: Steven Right believes that he understands magic and trusts himself enough to try it. Because he believes in himself, he is able to achieve what he couldn't before.

That's only about five scenes, so this clearly isn't a major plot of the novel, but is a subplot. I might end up with ten or twenty subplots at this rate. ;) As long as it works, I'm happy.

Day 14 - Setting

I gave myself 3 days to work on the setting on this novel. That might be too much, as I think the Novel Writing Made Easy book does it to the point of overkill.

Explain how your story suggests a particular setting:
At some point they probably need to go to where they plan on storing nuclear waste, because that is a very stable piece of land. Tearlach will probably want to put his eternal nest there.
They will probably visit a military site where nuclear weapons are stored as Tearlach wants to prevent them from being used.
Other than that, the dragon can move around. The character just needs to live somewhere he can get injured, which is pretty much anywhere.

Explain how your characters suggest a particular setting:
Er...? They'll probably be based in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, or Madison simply because I am familiar with those cities.

There's a couple more questions, but they are a waste of time until I know what the scenes are and where things will happen! I honestly believe this isn't a good way of doing things, to try to figure out the setting and then figuring out the scenes. I figure I should do them at the same time! May the light protect me!

Day 13 - Minor Characters

Minor characters. I need to do some kind of summary of these, though probably not quite as thorough.

The personality types are again from: http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/intro.asp

Teacher:

The teacher is a type 7, an enthusiast. "Spontaneous, versatile, distractable, and scattered. " He keeps himself always doing something to avoid dealing with his inner self.

Name: Timothy (last name)

Appearance: Often ragged looking, as though he didn't take the time to shave carefully or put away his clothing before they wrinkled. His hair is blonde, but scraggly. And he is a bit too thin as of someone obsessed or a drug user.

Goal: Revenge on his brother

Motivation: He has always been jealous of his brother and mistreated him until his brother attempted to kill him. That caused him to get badly injured, for which he wants revenge.

Negative Trait: He has difficulty focusing on anything too long...except his obsession

nick name: none...?

self-concept: He thinks of himself as deserving more than he has because of his intelligence.

trauma: when his brother tried to kill him.

secret: He wants to take revenge on his brother, he knows magic

Power: limited magic control

adversaries: his brother

allies: no one

darkest hour: when his brother began getting more atteniton than him as a child

shining moments: When he gained the power to get revenge

legacy: Mostly focused on the revenge thing

Girlfriend:

Challenger: "self-confident, decisive, willful, and confrontational." These people express their anger right away with no barrier stopping them.

Name: Anne (last name)
Appearance: She is black, her hair is straightened. Thick lips, wide eyes, cocoa skin, brown eyes. Round face. She always dresses immaculately.
Goal: To live the good life.
Motivation: Her mother was a single mother, and pressed into her the idea that money equals success.
Negative Trait: A bit shallow.
nick name: None....?
self-concept: She thinks of herself as deserving more than others because of her intelligence and effort. She paid for herself to go through college.
trauma: One of her friends was shot in gang related violence.
secret: She blames herself for the death of her friend.
Power: none...?
adversaries: no one?
allies: her mother.
darkest hour: death of friend.
shining moments: Graduating college with a degree in nursing.
legacy: Children going to good school in a good neighborhood.

Boss:

Investigator: "perceptive, innovative, secretive, and isolated" He is afraid of the outside world and copes by withdrawing from it. He uses his minds to penetrate the secrets of the world but never feel they know enough to act on it.

Appearance: Balding, so he shaves his head. He doesn't talk much about himself, and his clothes are non descript so no one can learn anything about him. He never wears t-shirts professing his like of anything. He always wear a suit a tie, as nice as he can afford.

Name: Joseph

Steven Right's Younger sister

She is a helper: "demonstrative, generous, people-pleasing, and possessive" She deals with her shame by getting other people to like her, She focuses on her positive feelings instead of her negative to make herself feel better about herself. As long as Twos can get positive emotional responses from others, they feel wanted and are able to control feelings of shame.

Name: Elizabeth (Liz) Swanson (maiden name Right)

Appearance: Her clothes tend to be home made sweaters or other clothes that suggest niceness without any threat toward other women for being too feminine. She over tans her skin at one of those tanning places, and bleaches her hair almost to white. ASlthough somedays it is too red, other days dark brown, depending on her mood. She has thin lips, and a thin face, and a mousy appearance. She isn't entirely certain what her original hair color was, although it was most likely that brownish blonde color which is so typical of America.

Goal: To make other happys, have children and make them happy.

Motivation: She wants to be like her mother.

Negative Trait: A bit too desperate to please others and doesn't think of herself enough.

nick name: None....?

allies: her husband and Steven Right

I'm thinking she will mostly appear on the phone because she lives far away, though she may visit him in the hospital.