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Today…
Lisa’s (remember, Lisa Cron created a method for crafting novels in her book STORY GENIUS, and I’m testing it on short stories) question is “what does your protag already want before the story kicks off?” Followed by “what would make him most happy?”
This was a tough question because, up until that moment, my main character (MC) was just a kid with a tricked out bow and arrow. I had to dig…WHY does getting this +1 to his ranged attack matter to him? Lisa stresses (from what I remember) that it’s not about what happens, but it’s about why what happens matters to Roti.
I still don’t want to lose the edge of those Facebook types that ‘fire from the hip’ (you know who you are). What might be driving them? What’s keeping them from starting campaigns of their own? What might they really be after?
I landed on significance. So here’s the want:
Roti wants to be considered a significant voice in his village. The thing that would make him most happy is if his entire village gathered around the speaking rock and listened to all of his ideas with rapt interest.
The keyword here is rapt. Roti wants people to listen sincerely and so this ‘want’ of his sets him (and the story) to be deeply impacted by him acquiring the bow and arrow.
And to go any further would be getting into the topic of my next post 🙂