I don’t know about this. I’m sure I’ll get back into the swing of things soon, but I only managed to write about 800 words tonight. I was still remembering how my plot worked, though, and looking through my copious notes (thank goodness I took plenty) to remember what subplots I was setting up and what my characters’ motivations were.
I read an interesting and helpful character development exercise on one of the NaNoWriMo message boards, which was in turn ganked from a Harry Potter role-playing message board:
The BEEP test is a form of character development, using the following four things: Boggart, Expecto Patronum, Mirror of Erised, and Pensieve.
1) Boggart – What would your character’s Boggart turn into? This is your character’s worst fear; nothing can define a character like their weaknesses. They are what make us human. (And nobody likes a Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu)
2) Expecto Patronum – What would your character’s Patronus be? What protects them? What might they think of to conjure a patronus? This is a character’s strength.
3) Mirror of Erised – What would you see in the mirror? Your character’s deepest, most secret desires.
4) Pensieve – What memories would your chaarcter put into the Pensieve? What recollections are their most treasured? Their most private? The most burdensome?
That actually helped me decide how to develop my main character, as he needs some serious development. Getting into the thick of the plot is going to be interesting, too, as I just read my whacked-out web of plots and who’s-deceiving-whom. I also need to work on my writing style, as I find it to be much more laborious than my standard blogging style, which I kind of like better.
I hope I can do this… and even if I don’t get my 50,000 words in a month, no biggie. At least I got my finally story back out of mothballs.
