In Which We Generate Conflict

One week until NaNo! Woo Hoo!

Are you excited? I'm excited. I got my scene list/outline created yesterday. Now I just have to figure out some biological questions regarding my sea serpents. (Mostly, should they be mammals, reptiles or fish? I'm leaning towards mammals for reasons related to another character, but there are downfalls to the mammal option as well.)

OMG! This sea serpent is totally badass! I LOVES it!

Have any of you other plotters out there started your outlines yet?

OOOH check out this fun website I found!

It's a random plot point generator!


This is really helpful for me because I'm always looking for bad things to happen to my characters. When I cant' think of something off the top of my head, I always default to "a fire breaks out"

Needless to say, I think you can really only have so many fires in so many novels before you need to break away from that.

At this fun website it generates random bad things that can happen. Obviously not all of them pertain (especially since I write fantasy and there aren't things like phones or cars) but I would say a good 50% of them are usable.

For example:

"Aliens attack"

"Peer pressure is fun. Especially when it convinces your character to shoplift, trespass, or go naked"

"There is battle/conflict/fight/duel and the loser gets their ass kicked so badly it is just embarrassing for everyone involved. This conflict should upset the balance of power, with the winner walking away with all the spoils" (I really like this one)


How is everyone else's NaNo idea coming along? (for those of you who plan ahead, anyway).

In Which There Is Too Much Conflict?

So a few months ago I wrote about how, though I loved The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, I felt the pace was just a bit too fast. I mean, I understood why it was effective. I literally could not put them down. But I like my stories to let me enjoy them a bit and a manic pace takes much of the leisurely love out of the equation.

Still, as a writer, better to have a manic pace than a slow one.

I think I've found a book that has the same issue, but in regards to conflict instead of pace.

I'm reading A Game of Thrones and there is so so much conflict I actually want to hide a bit.

Too much conflict you say? No such thing!

Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up (HA! I love you Inigo Montoya)

I love the characters in this book. Love them so much. I want things to go well for them and I want them to be happy and smiling etc.

I most certainly don't want bad things to happen to them.

And they do, ohhh yes they do.

It got to a point the other night where something HORRIBLE happened (not that I didn't see it coming, but there were a few betrayals that were shocking) and I actually had to close the book and set it aside (much like I did with HP 7 when (HARRY POTTER SPOILER ALERT!!) Fred died. Of course, I could only put that down for like 5 minutes. But still...)

I'm still upset about that...

It was just too much horribleness happening to the characters. And to make it worse, this is book 1 of 4 so I know NOTHING will be resolved until I read 3 more novels.

Sigh. Just too much conflict.

Of course, I picked it back up after a bit and continued on. Still a lot of bad stuff happening but I can take a breath now.

So this is why I don't like too much conflict. Even if there was just one little nice thing that happened for the characters it would carry me through the rest of the trouble. But over the top conflict makes me have to set the book down.

But not forever. Just for a moment. Then I continue on.