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Carol and Jamie-Thank you both for responding to my request for help. As I stated, I had plenty of info on the structure and what needs to happen in a scene but not much on how to imagine/envision what the characters actually do in the scene to accomplish that.  Jamie, I had completely forgotten about Kate's suggestion to 'tell' the story in 1000 words - just tell it vs. drafting a Synopsis. That may really help. I also reviewed the Hero's Journey and Heroine's Journey and can see how starting with listing the steps and filling in what happens can lead to imagining what happens in between. Great suggestions!Carol, thanks for sharing that you brainstorm ideas with your partner. Starting with a scene you've already dreamed up and then asking what would have to happen before that and after that?  I can see that prompting my imagination even without a brainstorming partner.  Yesterday,  I asked a friend to help me re-envision my status quo opening explaining: here's what the scene needs to do and who needs to be in the scene, then asked: where are they? What are they doing? We came up with two options and one works perfectly in setting up the arrival of the inciting incident. Thanks so much for your suggestions!   

Hi RJ,I may not totally understand your question, but I found this blog post about the 10 key scenes most novels need, and I thought it could help. http://writershelpingwriters.net/2017/09/the-10-key-scenes-you-need-to-frame-up-your-novel/I guess if that's no help, I would ask, are there any specific scenes you've envisioned already that you think are going to be the stars of your novel? Maybe pick your favorite(s) and then imagine what types of scenes/interactions/conflicts might need to happen to lead into that scene, and what will happen after it. Kind of go from there.Or, what I do when I'm (hastily) plotting a NaNoWriMo, I figure out the big things I want to happen and then figure out the scenes that would need to happen by talking it through with my partner. Like for Viral, the one I'm trying to revise now, I said OK, I want a group of teens in kind of a "Stagecoach," "And Then There Were None" type scenario where there's some kind of horrifying thing happening in an isolated place and they're dying off and trying to figure out what it was. From there I thought government-manufactured virus that gives them supernatural abilities. OK so let's get them to an isolated place. Road trip! Random road trip? No, let's have one of the kids be the son of a government agent, and he's trying to get himself and his friends away from the virus. But he won't reveal that at first, so it seems like a regular road trip except the main kid seems kind of tense but you don't know why. I want the virus to come with them, so one of the kids needs to exhibit psychic powers. How can I do that on a road trip? She senses a cop car and makes the driver turn down a side road. No one will believe her at first, but later she'll prove her powers in other ways.So then I wrote down my scenes, in one sentence or so, from the beginning: They're in the car and talking, which gives me time to describe them and introduce a hint of trouble to come. Scene eating at a truck stop shows their personalities and more hints that something's not normal. The cop car scene, where they're smoking weed and the girl makes them turn to avoid a cop. Getting to the vacation home, jockeying for rooms and revealing more of their relationships. Next morning, an innocent walk in the country where the psychic girl shows she's been reading everyone's minds. Not all of these scenes are perfect or the best scene, and right now I'm looking at which ones I can cut or make more exciting. I tend to be pretty linear, how can I get from point A to point B and then C? But at least this kind of planning got me to write a first draft all the way through.I hope this babbling is making sense! Your query hook really seemed like you had a good linear story in mind, so I'm trying to figure out what you think is missing. Can you not envision your characters doing the things you described?

It's a busy week for me, so I'm only resurrecting one of my goals from last week that I didn't do: create a plan for the rest of the year. I want to at least come up with a larger month-by-month goal (working backward from having a self-publishing-ready book by the end of the year), but hopefully I can also start breaking those months into incremental weekly/daily goals. I tend to do better with bite-sized tasks.I've decided to add another goal: To finish reading a self-published paranormal fiction book that I bought. I've read part of it and it skews more YA than mine, but I feel like it'll give me a better sense of the quality I want to achieve. I almost picked up a Stephen King book last weekend and thought no, I'd better read something a bit more modest. His grasp of tension and plotting are so incredible, I don't want to get intimidated instead of inspired! I'll wait until I'm farther along reworking my plot.

Hmm.  The first thing that comes to mind actually is the assignment from Kate (that I haven't started on yet) about writing out your entire story as if you were telling a friend how it goes, and trying to keep it about 1000 words (two full typed out pages).  My theory is that I'll forget the 1000 words criteria and just follow my outline, explaining to my husband (who already knows the story since I've been working on this for years, which is helpful), and get his help to envision each scene, asking "what would he be most interested in during this part?", etc.  Another thing that helped me with my outline and getting the entire story pieced out was to follow a the Campbell Hero's Journey format, sticking the scenes I know have to happen into that format.  + One of my next tasks is to pair that with a Heroine's Journey format to map our my MC's emotional arc, since the two are different -- Hero is mostly external, Heroine is mostly internal.  But YMMV (your mileage may vary).I also decided I was going to have 30 chapters, giving the first 10 to my initial MC Azur, having her die in chapter 10, and shifting the focus to Kite for 11-30, which means certain things have to happen at certain times.In my Excel outline, I have numbers along the side for the chapters, the locations, and then a description of what happens in each. But I also have these notes (that I apparently got from a website but decided not to write which one, ugh I hate past me sometimes):Chapters 1-6 = Intro to world and charactersChapter 6 = Protag must have a goalChapters 7-18 = ObstaclesChapters 19-25 = Heroic ArcChapter 28 = SacrificeChapter 30 = ResolutionI hope something in here is helpful to you RJ!  Good luck!

I guess I should update my accountability from last week -- I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't quite accomplish what I set out to do.+ I managed to get my artwork feature posted... but not til yesterday (Monday) Feb. 12.  Oops.+ I figured out what weeks I need to do my two planned posts (the birthstones and the writing thoughts) each month, but didn't really get much more planned yet.+ I only spent that one hour (not the two I wanted) on the forum, but hopefully I'll get better at that.Okay, on to the next week, good luck all!

Hi everyone-I've researched all sorts of books and websites on creating plots, characters, structuring scenes, dialogue, etc. but I've not come across anything that talks about how to imagine/envision the overall story and then piecing out the scenes that tell/show that story. Have any of you run across resources or have any ideas?RJ

Thanks for starting this one, RJ!  Those seem like great goals.I'm still not super focused, ugh, so my goals are a little less grandiose this week...1.  Get the next Writing Dragons post out on time2.  Finish work on the next three months at least of my new scheduling calendar3.  One more hour of reading/replying here

Hi everyone!It's a new week and time to post new accountability goals!  I'm a firm believer that goals change based on what happens and we need to adjust to ever-changing conditions.  As long as we continue to set goals, meet some, and adjust, we'll all make progress. This week my goals are:1) Dissect the next 3 chapters of my HF novel;2) Finalize new Inciting/Triggering Event, & Opening Scene 3) Develop chronological scene list for entire book w/focus on what's missing 4) Create a sequential list of already-written scene 'islands' including word counts.

Update: I finished the Scrivener tutorial today! I even pasted my manuscript into the tool, so that feels like something. What I did not do: tension graph or make my plan for the year. The night is yet (sorta) young, so we'll see. At least I completed one of my three goals for the week, which I thought might be more realistic with everything going on.

HI everyone,OK, it's Feb. 11 and time to report in.  I accomplished 1.5 of my original 3 goals but added one (see below): 1) No progress on my magazine article.2) I finished the first 18 Chapters of "Your Book Starts Here". Until my first draft is done, there's no point in reading the last third so that's tabled. In the process, I realized I'm closer to my 'first draft' than I thought - so rather than being depressed about wasting so much time, I'm actually energized!3) Rethink my opening/inciting event: this haunts me every minute. It made me create another goal: to dissect the first two chapters of a classic HF novel, from a writer's perspective, noting narrative, backstory, use of dialogue, the introduction of characters, and the inciting incident reveal and how Ch 2 is set up to draw in readers. I finished that this morning. Very enlightening. It's helped. I believe I've identified my new inciting event.