And also, my plot is finally developing fully, and I love it. I have a direction for the rest of my novel, and the adventures that my characters will be having are no longer incredibly disjointed and annoyingly separate.
My original premise was this: my three main characters, who are rather cliche, fantasy stereotypes (a rebellious princess, a mysterious ranger, a runaway slave) would unite for the ultimate quest: to have fifty thousand words worth of adventure in one month. The idea was that they knew about me - or rather, the fictional me and the fictional personifications of my muses (trust me, sorting out the levels of reality and how much the characters actually knew was a pain) and my inner editor - who was the villain, and wanted to stop them from having the 50,000 words of adventure.
A few snippets of a plot appeared in the first three scenes I wrote, but my character Katarina was uncooperative and I had no idea what the wizards chasing Benjamin wanted from him. And Aoyam just completely refused to show up. But I managed to get through the scenes that incited the plot at the last write-in I attended, and after finding a way to end that scene and determining what was going to happen next, I had a plot breakthrough. Then another. And another. And finally, I know where my story is going.
As it turns out, it breaks down to these main threads:
-The overall quest; that is, the quest of the characters to have 50,000 words worth of adventure in one month. Actually has taken a backseat to the other plotlines.
-Benjamin running from the two wizards who are chasing him, who want to reclaim an object he stole from them.
-Katarina being reluctantly forced into the adventures.
-My two muses trying to find and encourage the characters to keep going so they don't lose a bet one of them made with my Inner Editor, known as I.E.
And, what really clears the plot up, is the fact that my three main antagonists and sources of opposition for my characters have clearly emerged.
1. I.E., the Inner Editor, who made a bet with one of my muses for five hundred dollars that my characters cannot have 50,000 words of adventure all within one month. His plan is to find the characters and turn them against me. I mean, the fictional personification of me.
2. The two wizards who are chasing Benjamin at the beginning of the book and later chase him and Katarina away from Katarina's camp. They want the object that Benjamin stole from them. They are basically all around evil. So far, they have said nothing. They may go through the entire novel mute. We'll see.
3. A group of [enemy soldiers, or bandits, or land-pirates of some sort; what they are has yet to be determined.] They also want the object that Benjamin stole from the wizards, and when the object falls into my muse's hands, they begin chasing them. Whoever they are, they are ruthless and wield the Traveling Shovel of Death.
Other things that have happened because of my plot breakthroughs - my muses have become very wise, apparently, and have appointed themselves the guardians of the object that Benjamin stole - a glass orb that swirls with color and is, so they say, very powerful. They're being stubborn, though, and won't tell me what it does. Katarina and Benjamin are plunging headfirst into their romantic subplot, which surprises me as I thought they'd resist. Aoyam has come out of hibernation. My half-crazed seer has determined when she will put in an appearance. The lines I accumulated in preparation for this novel are finding homes. My word count it climbing. Things are good.
Hoping everyone else is finding their plots as well,
~blackandwhitedreamer
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