Plot Got Your Tongue? Try Out This #WritingPrompt to Help You #GetWriteOnIn

When you’re writing a book, sometimes the hardest part to get into is the actual plot.

Is the story interesting enough?

Do you have any gaping plotholes you’re not aware of?

Have you thought out every possible arc?

What if there was a better way to tell this story?

If this character took this path, or that character took another one.

Today, if you’re having a hard time getting into your writing — whether you’re on NaNo day two when this is posted or anytime on your storyline of writing -- try purposefully writing out a bad subplot.

This may seem counterintuitive, but if you spend some time — three paragraphs, fifteen sentences, to be exact — writing out a plot you know is bad, you’ll get it out of your system.

You won’t have to worry about it sneaking back and ruining a perfectly bad first draft.

Let out the crap, flush it down the toilet, and get write on in to your story.

Happy writing, everybody.

See you tomorrow!

My Response:

When Vaeda explores the caves that have him trapped, he stumbles upon a yeti and a dragon coupled together. The yeti, it turns out, is pregnant, and the dragon is tasked with protecting the cave from intruders — like Vaeda. The dragon, however, is unable to breathe fire, and clipped his nails before Vaeda arrived. The dragon tries to fight off Vaeda, but is unsuccessful. Vaeda is able to remain invisible to enemies.

The yeti knows how to brawl, and isn’t afraid to fight. Pregnant or not, she attacks Vaeda when the dragon proves unsuccessful. Vaeda, of course, doesn’t have anybody else in the cave with him, because they’ve all abandoned him and left him to die. He runs through the halls of the cave, chased by the yeti, who screams at him in some foreign language. He does everything in his power to calm the beast down, but to no success. 

At last, Vaeda outruns the beast. He doesn’t know where he is, obviously, because he’s pushed himself further into a cave, but no matter. He’s escaped the jowls of the beasts that wanted him for dinner, and he was on to live to see another day. It would be nice to find a friend or two, but he remained grateful of his ability to stay alive on his own. He just hopes his luck sticks out with him for the rest of his life.

Read the first chapter of The Fight to Save the Future here.