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tell-all thursday

Ahh, I'm off work early today to make up for early morning conference calls which would put me into overtime, and there is no working more than 40 hours a week for me!

I've been reading about novel structure and debating the way I want to put together my book. I found an interesting site site that reccomends writing a one sentence summary of your novel.

Here's mine:

A narcissistic woman copes with her ex-boyfriend's apparent suicide.

Next, the author of the website suggests that you take an hour and expand that sentence into "a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters, and ending of the novel." (The sentence itself was supposed to take an hour as well. I wonder if you think I spent an hour on mine.)

The paragraph is supposed to have five sentences and should read like back-cover copy.

This is fun.

Louivillian Laurel Lancaster's charmed southern world is quickly coming apart at the seams. After an alledged bout of mania, she spends two weeks in a mental health care facility. While battling to reintegrate herself back into everyday life, she receives news that her ex-boyfriend is dead. Laurel must cope with a death she believes she caused, and she discovers that the only redemption -- or perhaps the only punishment -- is to keep on living.

Hmm.
My paragraph is only four sentences long.

The structure is supposed to be:
1. story set-up
2. disaster one
3. disaster two
4. disaster three
5. end

I only have four sentences, because I only have two disasters so far. Well, three, if you count my perpetual avoidance of actually writing the damn novel.

Comments

Jm Diaz said…
That's not bad.. actually, you could probably make your character a writer, who has an unfinished novel and a publisher threatening to drop her if she doesn't complete it. There is no way she can focus to write with the other two things going on in her life.... and then her dog runs way. There, 4!

:)

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