[00:00:00.

000] - Speaker 1
Hi, everybody. Okay, everybody. First of all, some ground rules. If you would like other people to see
what you're typing, you need to make sure that you are focused.

[00:00:18.600] - Speaker 2
On.

[00:00:21.330] - Speaker 1
Chatting to everyone, not to host some panelists. If you are chatting to host some panelists, only I will
see it, and I might be quite busy, so I might miss it. The goal is to try and make sure you're chatting to
everyone. Now, we've got a Q&A box that you can ask questions. That's if there's something that you'd
like me to try and address at the end, something longer, I'll do my best. But there's a lot to cover today,
so I'll do my best. There's also a 9:00 PM session in about 9 hours from now. I'm doing this again. So
if you don't get your question answered and you have the energy and you're in the right time zone, you
could come to the 9:00 PM session. Carol, the 9:00 PM session will be exactly the same as this. Other
than that, I might be a little more tired. I'm planning, I think, about 90 minutes, Courtney. We'll be here
for about an hour and a half, I think. So we want to be respectful to each other. We want to be kind in
the comments.

[00:01:22.230] - Speaker 1
There is a button here just to let you raise your hand, but I would advise not touching it because
there's just so many people in the room that I won't be able to do very much with a raised hands. And
so if you've got a question, just ask it. That's all. And I love comments as we go. I love to read the
comments. So if you're enjoying what I'm saying and you find it useful, shout out.

[00:01:42.510] - Speaker 2
Sounds.

[00:01:43.140] - Speaker 1
Good. Sounds good, everyone? Okay, great. All right, let's get started, shall we? Okay, I'm going to
share some slides.

[00:01:57.590] - Speaker 2
What.

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We're going to do today is I'm going to teach. Then I've got a handout for you that I'm going to share
towards the end, which is all about trying to work out if your novel is too complicated. I'm going to
explain what I mean by that when we get there. And then I've got an interactive prompt with you to
help you try out a new way or a different way, or I like to think improved way of starting a novel. We'll
sketch that out live, if we have time, live in the session, or it's something you can do afterwards for
home. Okay, sounds good. All right, I'm going to share my screen. Okay, do you see in front of you?
You should be able to see a white box with some writing on it and a picture of me to the side. Is that
what you see? Not messy dashboard, emails, Lord knows what else. All right, great. Okay. Hi,
everybody. This is a session all about how to plot your novel. I'm your host, Daniel David Wallace. It's
great to see you all.

[00:03:13.890] - Speaker 2
I'mso.

[00:03:15.340] - Speaker 1
What I want to do is talk about character-first writing and show how I think this method is really
helpful to helping people plot their novels. It can also be good if you're working on a novel and you
want to revise. Now, there's a few groups and... What are some of those? I know there are a few, but
I'm sure there are a few others that it's not as helpful for, and I'll talk about that later in the session,
but this is a technique that's helped so many people for a very long time, and I'm really excited to
share it with you. We're going to have three craft lessons today: how to begin your novel, that's the
lesson one, how to stop your story getting too complicated, and how to navigate the messy middle.
Does those sound like at least one of those sounds like a good craft lesson? Sounds like something
you might enjoy? All right, great. Okay, so my writing story starts with a sad moment, which is that
some years ago, I wrote my debut novel, a would-be debut novel. I got an agent for it. My writing had
won some minor, but had won awards.

[00:04:21.260] - Speaker 1
I won scholarships to go to various conferences. It seemed like things are going well.

[00:04:28.360] - Speaker 2
My.

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Agent sent out my novel to the big New York publishers, and it sunk without a trace. I wasn't one of
those close. They were interested, but they couldn't get the right editor. It was a total loss. That, of
course, was a difficult moment for me because I had taken so many classes. I had studied at the MFA
level. I had read craft books and different genres and styles. All the craft books that you've read, and I
had probably read them too. I just thought to myself like, What is going on there? Obviously, trying to
get published with the big five publishers is not the only game in town, but still, why have my book
missed the mark? What had gone wrong? What I came to understand over time, as when I had written
that book, I didn't know how to design a plot that a reader would love. I want to show you over the
next hour or so, how I teach people now to do that. Does that make sense? The method that I have
come up with is what I call character-first writing. That's what we're going to focus on today. This
method to my relief has been extremely popular.

[00:05:51.800] - Speaker 1
When I started sharing this method, as you can see, I started off with a very small number of people
following me, and now I'm well over 10,000 people are reading my emails every week, sometimes
every day if I'm feeling energized. The course and the method, which I've actually developed through
talking to students and writers of all kinds. It's taken me years to develop it because I've had to get
feedback from so many people.

[00:06:21.600] - Speaker 2
But the.

[00:06:22.690] - Speaker 1
Course is just full of positive comments and testimonials, and I'm very grateful to everyone who's
tried it out. These are people who are both literary writers and editors and also people writing a wide
range of genres and styles.

[00:06:40.580] - Speaker 1
It's been great. That makes you really happy because I'm really passionate about helping writers. If
you've been to my summits, you can see how much I enjoy this process, and I'm really looking forward
to going through the process with you today. A little bit about me. I'm a dad of two boys. I'm a
pescatarian, so I eat fish but not meat. I'm a host of a series of summits. I have a strange hobby,
which is I buy table-top role-playing games, independent ones, not the D&D ones, but obscure table-
top ones, and I just read them. I never play them with a group. I just read them as a literary thing,
which is maybe a strange hobby, but that's what I do. I also have, through my PhD, gone through a lot
of teacher training. And so.

[00:07:32.920] - Speaker 2
When.

[00:07:35.320] - Speaker 1
I design my courses and experiences, I design them with the goal of making them a great learning
experience for you. I've been lucky over the years to teach and speak at academic conferences, on
writing podcasts, and a few now business podcasts and talks because people are curious how this
community is built up.

[00:08:05.320] - Speaker 2
And then also.

[00:08:08.940] - Speaker 1
Just as I've mentioned, writers of all kinds, some of the names you might recognize from summits
have just said really lovely things. And these are all comments in the course. So if you join the course,
you'll see these comments.

[00:08:23.780] - Speaker 2
There.

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On the page. I don't know. This isn't some secret part of the course. It's really.

[00:08:30.160] - Speaker 2
Been.

[00:08:31.050] - Speaker 1
Magical to help so many people. Okay, so all right, that's enough about me, about you. So if you're
here in the room and there's almost 200 people here with you right now, which is amazing, you
probably know that writing a book can be hard. Not only is writing your first book hard, but trying to
write a better book than your last one is also difficult. I think we can all agree about that. Writing can
often leave us feeling frustrated, disappointed, tired, unsure what to do. I want to help you. I'm
imagining that people in this room, maybe you're a literary author, maybe you're working on a cozy
mystery or a science fiction thriller. I think someone is actually working on a science fiction thriller in
the room, so hi. Or maybe you're just trying to figure out what is my next book supposed to be.

[00:09:19.920] - Speaker 2
You're.

[00:09:21.030] - Speaker 1
Going to really enjoy this talk if you are ready to let go of a few truisms and rules about the craft. Part
of what I'm trying to do is make things more straightforward, if not simpler, but more straightforward
and clearer. I hope that you'll be interested in trying out some new techniques or new ways of seeing
writing. Okay? Sound good. Now, before we go on, there is a warning, which is this method doesn't
work for everybody in every book. Sometimes I encounter people who, for whatever reason, don't
want to change anything. They are perfectly happy with what they're doing.

[00:09:59.700] - Speaker 2
Or.

[00:10:00.500] - Speaker 1
They just not at the moment ready to change any viewpoint about their writing. And that's fine.

[00:10:07.140] - Speaker 2
But.

[00:10:07.960] - Speaker 1
This might be less helpful.

[00:10:11.660] - Speaker 2
And.

[00:10:12.180] - Speaker 1
Then also almost all the writing teaching that I do assumes that you have the goal of making your
reader engaged, compelled, excited to read your work. Do you know what I mean? And if that's not
you, if you believe that it's the reader's job to figure out how great you are and it's a reader's job to sit
there with a notebook, puzzling it all together, that's not really what I'm teaching people to do. I'm
more interested in books that secure the reader's attention early on and engage and interest them
through the whole story. Does that sound good? Does that sound like an appealing vision of writing?
Judy says yes, Kay says yes. Excellent. Okay, great. I want to just be very clear. I've been selling a
course called Plotting a Planning of a Novel, which is the full course version of what I'm going to
teach in this webinar. I've been teaching selling it for several years, and I'm very excited because I've
just published. Leo, my amazing tech expert team member, has just published the third version of this
course, and I can't wait to tell you all about it. That's the end of the webinar.

[00:11:33.930] - Speaker 1
Okay, so let's get started. All right, no more time wasting. Okay, so the first thing I want to talk about is
how to begin your novel. Good topic?

[00:11:42.770] - Speaker 2
All right.

[00:11:43.540] - Speaker 1
There are lots of ways to start a novel. You might be wondering, what's the best way to start a novel?

[00:11:52.340] - Speaker 2
I.

[00:11:54.210] - Speaker 1
Think we can all think about different options of starting a novel. You might try and start with some
big conflict to grab people's interest, or maybe a diary entry so they can get to know a character. We
might begin with a flashback or a dream to also get to know the main character. Maybe we want to
really open with some really complex magic to show the reader what world this is, some chase to get
people interested. Or maybe we need to start with everyday life. I think there are some famous
plotting methods that suggest we start with everyday life and then the story arrives at a later point.
And what I want to teach today is this idea of the project. And this is what I recommend, and this is
part of character-first writing. And this is a technique for starting a novel quickly and simply. Okay, so
to explain what the project is, I'd like you to imagine that your novel has two major components.
Obviously, it has a lot more, but just for a learning process here, teaching process, we're going to
imagine that we're going to divide the novel into two big elements: a protagonist and a plot.

[00:13:05.060] - Speaker 1
So two things: the main character and a plot. And we often ask ourselves, What makes a good main
character? What makes a good protagonist? I want to illustrate this point by suggesting that one thing
that makes a great protagonist is that they are bad at the real plot of the story. The genius detective
that we're going to hear about so much about who can solve any case, he or she is going to solve the
case. But in a novel, it's probably going to take 200 or 300 pages for them to do it. So in a sense,
they're not actually flawless at solving mysteries. It takes them time, they're probably going to be
twists. You may have heard me say this before, but I think it's just such a useful idea about how we
conceive of a story that the famous Shakespeare critic, AC Bradley, observed that one thing that
makes Shakespeare's characters in his tragedies so interesting is that they are, in a sense, in the
wrong play. That when you look at the character Hamlet, his problem is that he is in the play Hamlet
and not a different play. If he were in a different play, he would be fine.

[00:14:22.620] - Speaker 1
He would have no problems at all. And what makes Hamlet, the character such a great protagonist, is
that he is terrible at being in the play Hamlet. What do I mean by that? Well, he's faced with.

[00:14:40.460] - Speaker 2
A.
[00:14:40.790] - Speaker 1
Puzzle or a call to action that requires him to make some decisive choice and ignore the philosophical
ramifications of what he's doing. And that's the thing that Hamlet finds incredibly difficult and
stressful. If Hamlet, the character, were put in Othello's play, well, what are the challenges that Othello
faces? Othello faces the problem of cross-cultural communication, of prejudice, and someone who's
very clever trying to trick him. We know from Hamlet the play that Hamlet, the character would have
no problem at all with these problems. We see Hamlet, the character, meet all kinds of people from
different cultures, different social classes. They all like him. He is persuasive, he's compelling. And
when people try to trick him, he not only figures out what they're doing almost instantly, they usually
end up dead, some of those by his hand, some of us by someone else's.

[00:15:40.180] - Speaker 2
And so.

[00:15:40.870] - Speaker 1
He would have no problem dealing with Iago and all of the other issues that Othello has.
Unfortunately, that would be a terrible play because it wouldn't be very interesting. What makes the
play Hamlet so good is we've got exactly the wrong protagonist in the story. Does that make sense?
Does that make sense as an idea? Before we go on, questions about that? Okay, people saying yes.
All right, great. Another thing that I wanted to talk about, and I spend a lot in the course, but one thing
that I think people struggle with when it comes to designing a first chapter is we often have a problem
where as writers we read a lot of books, and it can be difficult to remember what it was actually like to
read the first chapter of a book you love. If you think back to a book you really enjoyed, I would say
that in those early chapters, what got you reading was the experience of following a character around,
a character that you liked, or at the very least, you found compelling. You got used to the world of the
story by following a person around. You didn't know much about what was going on, but you had to
keep this character, following this character around.

[00:16:58.900] - Speaker 1
And what I think is that a lot of us it's difficult to remember this because when we think back to the
books we love, what we usually remember is the middle or the ending, because that's the most
compelling part. It's hard to remember that at the beginning, what we really were doing was getting to
know one person, maybe two, maybe three, and following them around. And through them, we got the
whole story. And that's what character-first means. It doesn't actually mean character-driven versus
plot-driven. That's almost like a totally different question. Character-first means the reader is looking
to read your book by connecting to a main character. And if they can do that and that the story
develops in a particularly satisfying way, they're likely to keep reading. But if they can't do that, they
will struggle. If they can understand and relate to and inhabit a main character, they're likely to keep
going. And I would like to say.

[00:17:58.250] - Speaker 2
That.

[00:17:58.740] - Speaker 1
They need to have this relationship first before they're willing to read lots of exposition. It's a total lie
that readers do not like exposition. They love exposition. But they don't like it before they've got this
connection with the main character. And then this is a bit more controversial, but I would even say
that a lot of readers are not willing to sit through big, complex scenes, enormous parties, dramatic
fights. There's some exceptions here, but generally speaking, they want to get to know a person first
so they understand what it all means. What I'm suggesting here is this creates a real dilemma,
because this is why it's so hard to create a good first chapter. The reader is not ready for your big
story yet. They haven't made that connection with the main character. They don't want you to info
dump some huge details about the world. They don't even want to see, I.

[00:19:02.800] - Speaker 2
Don't know.
[00:19:04.240] - Speaker 1
A thrilling dinner party argument on page one because they're not ready for it. That's where the project
comes in. That's the solution I'd like to offer you. The project is your protagonist's own story. You
could see it as like the little story that they are inhabiting versus the big story. They have a little story
that's surrounding them when we meet them that's separate and maybe even in opposition to the real
story of the plot. Sometimes when I talk about the project, what people think I'm saying is a character
should want something. If you heard that idea, a character should want something, a character should
be interested in something, should have a goal, that's not really what I'm saying. I mean, a character
should have a goal. What I'm saying is that if you're following this method, you want to devote a fair
amount of the pages of your book to showing the character seeking out their project. And what I've
seen in following real books and seeing what really successful authors do is that a fair amount of the
book is really focused on what the character is trying to do, not what the real plot is calling for them to
do.

[00:20:18.280] - Speaker 1
Can I give you some examples? Laura says, Yes, please. Excellent. Okay, some examples. Okay, Bart
says, Yes. All right, so great. One book that I think is a great model of plotting, and I think it's really
worth studying, is the first Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child called The Killing Floor.

[00:20:47.530] - Speaker 2
If.

[00:20:48.360] - Speaker 1
You start look at this book, this is a synopsis of the book, and I'm going to read it to you. Jack Reacher
arrives in a small town looking for clues about an obscure musician, only to discover that he's the only
one who can stop a ruthless criminal conspiracy. If you've read the book, I think you'll agree, that's a
pretty good synopsis of the story. Without giving anything away, that's what happens. But look at the
text that's in dark purple. I hope that's legible.

[00:21:19.460] - Speaker 2
Is.

[00:21:20.380] - Speaker 1
That what we see Jack Richard do when he arrives, he's not sitting around waiting. He's not living his
everyday life. He's actually pretty unhappy and ruthless because he's been let go from the US military.
So he's not in his everyday world, but he's taking action. He's just taking action for his own plot line,
which is to find this obscure musician in this small town. It doesn't really make sense. Who knows
why Leachau came up with that idea, but that is what he's trying to do. And when he gets clues in the
first quarter of the novel about what is really going on, he tells the people who are giving him this clue
to leave him alone. He doesn't care. He's working on his own goals, which is to find this obscure
musician. And even when he's arrested, even when he's put in a dangerous prison, even when people
in the prison are trying to kill him, he's not paying attention to this conspiracy. He just wants to be
allowed to get on with his quest to find this musician.

[00:22:22.990] - Speaker 2
What.

[00:22:24.970] - Speaker 1
I'm saying is that dark text is called.

[00:22:29.280] - Speaker 2
The.

[00:22:30.310] - Speaker 1
Project. Now, Jim asks a good question, which is, Can you just do character introduction chapter one
and then try to hook the reader with being given a dangerous mission? Jim, you can, and I do give you
suggestions in the course to how to do this. But for the purposes of this training, I want to encourage
you to try and think of a way to do this a bit more in the style that I'm suggesting in this idea of a
project, because I think it's really effective. Maybe for this time, I can answer your question in more
detail.

[00:22:59.710] - Speaker 2
But.

[00:23:01.250] - Speaker 1
Let me give you some more examples to see what I'm talking about. Another book that does the
project in such brilliant fashion is The Age of Innocence. It's a wonderful novel. It's also a great film.
And if you look at this film poster, I chose the film poster rather than the book cover for a reason, in
the film poster, what they show you is the real plot. The real plot is Daniel de Lewis is kissing Michelle
Pfeifer. And that's the thing that everybody remembers, the love affair between de Lewis's character
and Pfeifer's character, which is fantastic. At the bottom of the poster you see May, played by Winona
Ryder. May is the woman he's supposed to marry. But at the beginning of the novel, what makes the
book so effective is that Archer is not trying to fall in love with Ellen, Michelle Pfeifer's character. He's
trying to marry May. And when we meet him, he has lots of good reasons to marry May. And he is a
little nervous about it because the process of trying to marry May is a little bit complicated. There are
some social issues he has to navigate. He's trying to make it go off perfectly.

[00:24:15.660] - Speaker 1
But his problem is that when he, and on the night they're supposed to announce her engagement, her
scandalous cousin, Ellen, has returned to New York and everyone's talking about it. Now, that's the
real plot. The real plot is that as he gets to know Ellen, he starts to fall in love with her. But on page
one, chapter one, he has no idea that that's what's coming and he would find it absurd if you were to
suggest it because he's got his own goal that he's working on. Does that make sense? Some
examples? Jim, what I would actually say, thinking about it more is I would begin with the character
being on the mission, but I would have them think, This mission is going to be pretty simple. I've done
it before. I'll do it again. Just one more case. And what they discover as time goes on is that it's not
actually that simple at all. And that might be a good way to do this for that story. Okay, so the key is
we want to meet a character for this style to work who's not interested in the real plot because they
have their own project to do.

[00:25:23.860] - Speaker 1
They are not sitting around waiting for the story to begin.

[00:25:26.850] - Speaker 2
They.

[00:25:27.850] - Speaker 1
Are not trying to seek out the real plot, the romance angle. They have something else they're working
on. And the point is, the reason why this works, and it's worked for so many writers, is that as they
figure out the real plot and as they start to care about it slowly, Handly. Remember, it takes Jack
Reacher a quarter of the novel before he's ready to investigate this conspiracy. As they figure out and
start to care about what's really going on, so does your reader. The reader is willing to now take on
that exposition, those dramatic scenes, all that big stuff that you were interested in, the family history,
dreams, diaries. Now the reader is willing to go through all that because they are engaged in the story.
Now, people like this idea in the chat. It's awesome. I want to keep moving. If you're thinking, Okay,
how do I do this, Daniel? Okay, give me some more details. A good project is simple. It's simple to
explain, it's simple to understand. We've got a prompt coming later, so you can try this out.

[00:26:31.990] - Speaker 2
Let me.

[00:26:32.560] - Speaker 1
Give you some more. Just to give you some more details before we finish this part, a good project
should be easy to explain. Something like, Newland wants to marry a woman that everyone thinks he
should marry. That's a great project.

[00:26:48.970] - Speaker 1
Everyone, even if you don't want to get married, even if you've been married, we all understand this
idea that people choose to get married in a lot of different places around the world. And there are
people that everyone else thinks it would be good for them to marry and people who everyone thinks
would not be good. And a good project is the character trying to marry the obvious person or trying to
just do something simple and clear with an easy to understand outcome, not something mysterious,
nebulous, opaque, just really clear. And that's the basis of what you build the more complex parts of
your story. Okay? Sounds good. All right, great. Stephanie says, Makes perfect sense. I'm at the
beginning of a second, first draft, a project that may well be the answer. Okay. Christian says, A focus
on the viewpoint character's tension is necessary for an engaging narrative. Yeah, I think that's a great
way of putting it.

[00:27:45.930] - Speaker 2
I.

[00:27:46.910] - Speaker 1
Would say that, as I'll explain this in a second, that you also want to shape the plot in a way to make
that visible to the reader. It's not simply about narrating what the character is thinking. The plot itself
should help show what's going on to the reader. But yeah, something like that. And Christian, it's also
critical that the character is engaged in something when we meet them. We're not trying to meet
someone who is basically at a standstill on page one. They've already got going on page one. And so
it's easy to make the reader feel engaged because they're watching someone do something that's
important to them. It's not like we have to wait 20 pages to see the character get worked up and
engaged. If that makes sense. Okay, all right. I'm going to go to the next one. Okay, so this is number
two. Are you ready? Now, this is a little bit more controversial. I want to be clear that this is me
speaking as a teacher, not me trying to hand out some rules about what a book it should be, what a
good novel is. This is me speaking as a teacher, as a coach, as a guide.

[00:29:00.170] - Speaker 1
I think that it's really important when you're writing a book or revising it to look at ways that it might be
getting too complicated. What I mean by this, I think that a lot of writing teaching does not focus on
this enough. I really think that the worst thing when you're writing a novel is getting stuck.

[00:29:18.620] - Speaker 2
I.

[00:29:19.990] - Speaker 1
Feel like people don't talk about this enough, that getting stuck at the beginning and making no
progress or getting stuck during revision is really bad. It can take you months, even years of your
writing life away to figure out what to do next. When I teach novel writing, I focus on a novel that I
would describe as a finishable novel, a novel that's going to entertain you, entertain your reader, but
you can get it shipped out onto the next stage, whatever your publishing goals are. Now, I want to be
clear that I'm talking about a complex, profound, sound exciting novel. I'm not talking about
something cookie cutter, formulaic, unless you want to write that. I'm not talking about something.

[00:30:07.750] - Speaker 2
That's.

[00:30:08.250] - Speaker 1
Really basic.

[00:30:10.270] - Speaker 2
But I am.

[00:30:11.070] - Speaker 1
Talking about something that avoids certain pitfalls that I see a lot as a coach, and I think you would
be wise to look out for when you're writing. Again, I'm not saying that we want to aim at the most
basic thing possible, but we want to have a story that's compelling, interesting, engaging without
having so much stuff in it that the reader is really confused. The approach I'm about to teach you tries
to help you take a middle path through these different poles, if that makes sense. You can write on
without getting stuck and stopped. With all that in mind, I'd like to offer you this method, which I call
the Five-ones. I didn't invent the idea of Five-ones. I stole it from a business podcast. It was really
good. But I've applied it to writing a novel. I think I'm the only one to do that, and people have found
this very helpful. What is the Five Ones? I'm about to hand out a handout, so don't feel like you have to
take notes here. There will be a handout very shortly. The Five Ones says that you could imagine a
novel having one of these five things, one POV protagonist.

[00:31:23.250] - Speaker 1
You could have lots of supporting characters, you could have lots of secondary characters and people
who pass in and out chapters. But we are hearing the voice, hearing the thoughts, or we're sitting on
the shoulder of one character, one character only. That's the one protagonist. We have one major
setting, London, a fantasy city, the estate of a rich nobleman, the space colony where the whole thing
takes place, one major setting. Yes, the characters can go off and have a weekend away somewhere,
that's totally fine. But the major setting is just one setting. One duration, one fixed and continuous
duration. I'm going to talk about why this is important in a second. But the story begins on page one.
We could have flashbacks, we could have tales of the past. We could have premonitions of the future.
We could have all kinds of elements, dreams that depict on a parallel universe. But the action of the
story takes place of a relatively short and continuous amount of time, like two weeks, like a month,
like a season at most. In The Great Gatsby, it takes place of about a summer. There's lots of other
things going on in the story, but the main action is like a summer long.

[00:32:47.320] - Speaker 1
And if you ever have to write something like two weeks passed, then later he did, then you don't have
one continuous duration. You have two time bits in your story, if that makes sense. Okay, the fourth
one is one frame. But by frame, I mean one way of understanding the story. So if halfway through the
story, it's suddenly revealed that your character is dreaming, that's like two frames. Because we read
the whole first of the book, half of the book, thinking that we were watching a person move about their
everyday life. And then suddenly, halfway through, we discover it's all a dream and there's like a
different set of goals here, I don't know, to wake up from the dream. Then that's like a frame switch,
and we have two of them. The character is actually somebody else. The character is being lying to us
the whole time, and in fact, they're the killer. That's like a frame switch, and that would be two frames.
And then lastly.

[00:33:49.110] - Speaker 2
One.

[00:33:49.870] - Speaker 1
Major mystery. So if it's a space opera and you've got a dozen characters moving around trying to
figure out what's going on, they're all trying to figure out basically the same thing. Your two detectives
are trying to solve the same case. Your literary protagonist is trying to figure out one thing about his
family and why, I don't know, his parents have stopped speaking to him. The historical fiction
protagonist is trying to understand what this new German plan is. But there's only one of those
mysteries, and we're trying to just focus on one thing, if that makes sense. Okay, so that's the idea.
Now, and just to be clear, you can have more. You don't have to have five ones. What I'm saying is as
you move away from the five ones, writing this book gets more complicated. And Forkner is a great
example, Carter. Forkner's novels would be extremely difficult to write and extremely difficult to
advise on. If you handed it to a beta reader when it's halfway done, I don't know if they would give you
very good advice. So what do the five ones mean? We got a single protagonist, one person.

[00:35:02.170] - Speaker 1
We've got a contained space and time. We've got a continuous duration with no jumps. We're not
saying a week later, the one frame, so no massive surprises about what is really going on. Then one
big... It could be pretty complicated. I'm not saying it needs to be basic. It could be space, Nazis,
summoning zombies to take.

[00:35:29.950] - Speaker 2
Over New.

[00:35:30.920] - Speaker 1
York City in 2001, that's fine. I love it. Bring it on. It could be something so philosophical that you need
to have read all of Wittgenstein to understand it. Love it. I love that stuff. But there's only one of them.

[00:35:43.940] - Speaker 2
Okay, so.

[00:35:47.420] - Speaker 1
That's my advice. And what I would suggest for most people, particularly people in the early stage of
trying to publish a novel, is try to aim for a four or five ones novel. The goal. So if you have, as Mary
has, a duration that takes place a year, a novel takes over a year and has breaks, my advice would be
try to streamline and focus the story in other ways so that there's four ones, but not three ones, not
two ones. Because my experience is that as you move away from the five ones, things get more
difficult. Okay.

[00:36:29.800] - Speaker 2
If.

[00:36:30.700] - Speaker 1
I'm saying a name right, Mauricio. Mauricio says, What about travel logs? Talking about it. Yeah, that's
great. I love a good story in a novel. The main character's best friend says, Oh, my friend, one day you
must come visit my town and he tells us all about it. Yeah, I love that stuff. But what I'm saying is if we
move the story to the best friend's town halfway through, then you're taking on way more work than
you might realize. You've got to invent this whole other setting. You've got to answer the question of
like, Well, what are the other people doing in the previous town? What are they up to now? After a few
days have gone by.

[00:37:08.470] - Speaker 2
You've.

[00:37:08.890] - Speaker 1
Got to handle a lot of complexity that is not obvious when you get started. What I think a few people
start to worry about when I say this is like, Well, is my novel going to be too simple? What I would say
is I have so much to teach you about how to plan out and fill out the middle of your novel. There's so
much that you can do. And I would say that to go back to a question that came up, I think it was
Christian, that once we streamline, I don't want to say simplify because I know that has a bad
connotation, once we streamline the telling of this story, we can build up so many interactions
between the protagonist and the plot in a way that's fascinating to the reader.

[00:37:57.050] - Speaker 2
But.

[00:37:57.710] - Speaker 1
It makes it clear for us what is going on. What I believe is a lot of writers tend to underestimate the
cost of taking on a more complex story. It seems simple to say, I'll have two people.

[00:38:11.350] - Speaker 2
Both.

[00:38:12.150] - Speaker 1
Of them in Rome in the 1940s, both of them fighting the Nazis. It's surprisingly difficult to weave all
that together, particularly when you're getting started. The one I want to talk about for one more
minute is the idea of duration. I think there's something that a lot of people.

[00:38:30.900] - Speaker 2
Don't.

[00:38:32.570] - Speaker 1
Think about, is it can be tricky to motivate your reader and your storytelling when there are big jumps
in time. If you're in reading with Daniel, my reading group right now, I'm reading an absolutely amazing
novel.

[00:38:47.230] - Speaker 2
That.

[00:38:49.650] - Speaker 1
I just enjoy every page of it. And the novel takes place over a longer time. Decades go by. But I would
still say, maybe you can disagree with me, the novel I'm talking about is The Gentlemen in Moscow.
It's wonderful, but I still feel like you can feel the strain of the writer trying to keep this story going year
after year. You can feel the effort of trying to explain how it all fits together. I would say that novel is
doing it as well as it's possible to be done, and yet it still feels like an effort.

[00:39:27.560] - Speaker 2
In.

[00:39:29.180] - Speaker 1
Some way. I would just make you aware that when you write two weeks later, the reader is going to
have the question, which is, Well, I thought you told me the stuff in the previous chapter was
important. So what has the character been doing about it for the last two weeks? I know you can
come up with answers. What I'm saying is it's harder than it might seem. If you have to have a multi-
year novel, think of ways to simplify it as much as possible or streamline it as much as possible. Does
that make sense? Does that make sense as an idea, as a frame? For instance, with POVs, we've all
heard that thing where readers will say, Oh, I prefer one of those POVs more than the other. It's
annoying when they do that, isn't it? But it's real. It's completely real. Readers are just like, Wait a
second, I've got back in that guy's point of view. And people mentioned George R. R. Martin. We all
had those characters we wanted to get back to. And yeah, he made it work. It's a famous novel. I'm
not saying it can't be done. I love those novels.

[00:40:36.170] - Speaker 1
And Christian brings up Hundred Years of Solitude. Yeah, I love it.

[00:40:39.540] - Speaker 2
I mean, classic.

[00:40:41.560] - Speaker 1
But you got to understand that you're taking on a lot. If someone asks you to sit down and write the
next 100 years of solitude, that would be a big challenge. And I think that a lot of writing teaching
doesn't quite focus on this in a way that it really should. And that's what I'm trying to offer here. I'm
absolutely not saying that 100 years of solitude is a bad book. It's a masterpiece. But it's taking on
more than you might realize to try to do it that way. Okay, so a few questions. Karen asked about a
romance or a buddy cop story. And I want to suggest that when I say a protagonist, I'm being a little
bit more straightforward and basic than some writing teachers. And what I would say is if a character
has got POV that they count to me and they're doing stuff to investigate this main plot, the real plot,
then they can be a protagonist. They might not get as much page time, screen time, as I was about to
say, as the truly main protagonist, but I would call them a protagonist. So if you have two cops
investigating the same mystery, then I would try to encourage you to have the other ones try to keep
those at one.
[00:42:00.350] - Speaker 1
So one setting, one duration, one mystery, one frame. If you want the cop to suddenly turn out to have
multiple personalities, and one of those personalities is the killer, then I would advise you that once
you have two POV protagonist, this is getting a bit complicated. That's all I'm trying to say. Okay.

[00:42:22.530] - Speaker 2
All right.

[00:42:23.980] - Speaker 1
Okay, sounds good. Okay. All right. I'm going to keep going. Okay. And so what I encourage people to
do with duration is, as a coach or as a teacher, I often say, Can we find a way to compress this
timeline? Can we push the story to start a bit later so that we have less of a duration? I'm going to
move on. Thanks for all the comments. I really love this, but I want to give you my third training.

[00:42:53.620] - Speaker 2
Tip.

[00:42:54.940] - Speaker 1
Technique now. The last thing I want to talk about, and this is going to approach this quickly, but in
my course, I get into in a lot of detail. There's a famous thing in the creative writing world called the
messy middle. Many people find who are trying to write a well-plotted book, that the middle is where
things start to.

[00:43:17.750] - Speaker 2
Really get.

[00:43:19.100] - Speaker 1
Off track. People tend to talk about a baggy middle. Then a lot of literary authors will talk about how
they can get to page 70 of a draft, and then they're just like, What do I do next? I'm completely unsure
what's going on. What I want to say is something a bit controversial is that I actually think that most
people who complain about a messy middle don't actually have a messy middle. The problem is that
they have a missing middle. Actually, their problem is they don't have anything to put in the middle,
and that's what's making it messy. What's making it messy is the effort to find things to put into the
story. But actually the problem is that there isn't a middle bit of the story. And if you could figure out
what that middle should be, suddenly your middle would seem a lot less messy, baggy, whatever
adjective you want to use. That might seem a little strange. How is it possible that you could have say,
you finished a whole draft, how is it possible you've written 150 pages in the middle and I'm saying it's
missing? That might seem a little bit unfair, unhelpful.

[00:44:30.360] - Speaker 1
The way I would look at it is... And by the way, a lot of writing advice, there's some great writing advice
out there, as you've seen in my summits, some amazing teachers out there that I'm in awe of. But I
think that there's a lot of writing advice out there that says the way to solve the messy middle is to
add more stuff into the story, add more complications. I don't think that's bad advice, but my
approach instead is to try to figure out what was your original goal? What was your original vision for
your story? How do we make that work? And what I find is that what a lot of writers are doing is
they're working on their writing, and they find as they go through the story, particularly as they head
into that middle, that to their surprise, they're adding more and more backstory elements. Have you
had that experience, like you're trying to make forward progress in your novel, and instead you find
yourself writing more and more details about things that happened before page one.

[00:45:31.460] - Speaker 2
Some.

[00:45:32.290] - Speaker 1
Of the things that happened before your main character is even born.
[00:45:34.600] - Speaker 2
Or.

[00:45:36.360] - Speaker 1
You feel like, Wait, this draft is just totally gone off track. I'm not sure what's happening. What I think
is actually happening is this, and this is what the character-first approach tries to solve, what I think is
actually happening to those writers in many cases is that your main character is not involved enough
in the story. That's what I think is actually happening. Another way to look at this is they agreed to
take part in the real plot too quickly. What I find is that when you get into that situation, the character
is given a mission or something really interesting happens in chapter two, and they just go into it and
begin it, some writers are able to whip up a great plot for the middle. But many of us, I would say most
of us find that there's just not much to do once you've made that choice for your main character. And
that's why the middle feels messy, is that there's a big hole in the middle of it, which is the character
accepted this real plot way too fast, and now there's not actually much to do except explain the whole
mystery or the puzzle or the difficulties and then get to the ending.

[00:46:58.030] - Speaker 1
It's like, What else do you have to do? And so this journey the character needs to go on is not quite
there. And so what I advise people to do is design your middle around your main characters slow, in
fact, very slow acceptance of what is going on. How could you delay the main character's acceptance
of that real plot even further? I would encourage you to think in terms of two elements when you were
thinking about this. It's the picturing the 25 % mark of your story. I don't know if it's a 300-page book,
that's page 75.

[00:47:38.650] - Speaker 2
From.

[00:47:39.290] - Speaker 1
That part through towards the ending, can we think about when is the moment that your main
character starts to really care about this real plot, when they start to get really emotionally invested? If
you read the Jack Reacher novel, that's a quarter of the way through, 25 % of the way through the
whole novel.

[00:47:58.410] - Speaker 2
And.

[00:47:59.650] - Speaker 1
Then second parameter is when they start to really understand what is going on. So when Jack
Reacher starts to care about what's happening, he still doesn't know what the actual conspiracy is.
That's held back from us for quite some time. But he started to there at the 25% mark, and then a bit
later on, he starts to really grasp what is happening. A book that I think is just a wonderful example of
this principle is Tasmane Mure's wonderful novel Gideon of the Ninth. And in Gideon the ninth, it takes
Gideon a really long time to understand what is happening and to get emotionally invested in. She is a
terrible protagonist, and that makes her an incredibly compelling protagonist, because she could have
sat down and read a book in chapter three and understood what she's being asked to do, but she is
just useless. The book takes an incredible amount of time for her to get invested in this life and death
challenge that she and her best friend, frenemy, enemy boss are engaged in. And she doesn't really
grasp what is needed of her until very late in the story in a way that I think it would be shocking to
many people if you sat down with a pen and tried to see when those two big moments happen.

[00:49:24.360] - Speaker 1
When does Gideon's not just care about the story? When does she truly understand what's going on?
We're talking late in the book, I would suggest. I would say that that's my advice to you. Can you look
at those two parameters of your book? Can you push one or both of those moments back, deeper into
the middle, forwards. So not on page one, not on page 10, not on page 50, maybe not even page 150.
Can you push that further back? And when you do that, what I would suggest is you'll start to find
your...
[00:50:00.370] - Speaker 2
You start.

[00:50:01.000] - Speaker 1
To find that the messy middle stops being quite so messy because you've got something to do on
every page, which is to show your protagonist on this journey. As an idea, does that make sense?
Okay, people are saying yes, absolutely. Excellent. That's great. So much sense. Mary says, This is the
aha moment. Oh, wonderful, Mary. I'm so happy.

[00:50:41.780] - Speaker 2
I'm just trying to think.

[00:50:46.710] - Speaker 1
People say, Fascinating. I had a question that I wanted to answer. It seems I've vanished. Karen says
this, Can you give an approximate percentage, Mark, of when these should occur? That's a really great
question, McCarron. I can give you a basic answer, which is that often it's something like 25% of the
way through the book, the protagonist really starts to care about this real plot. And that around about
the 50% mark, they probably are starting to get a pretty good sense of what's going on. I developed
this more in the course, but often they still need more time to understand the full consequences of
what's happening. And so a writing teacher that I really admire, Derek Murphy, once told me this idea
that at the 50 % mark.

[00:51:44.290] - Speaker 2
The.

[00:51:44.670] - Speaker 1
Protagonist has figured out the what and the who. And Derek is mostly talking about mystery, puzzle,
fantasy, sci-fi-type puzzle-type stories, a bit like the things that Brandon Sannison writes where there's
both high magic and there's some mystery in the setting that we've got to figure out before we can
win the day. What Derek once told me is at the halfway point, the protagonist has figured out the what
is happening and the who's behind it, but not the why it's happening. That happens later. Okay, great.
Let me answer some more questions.

[00:52:27.570] - Speaker 2
Carter.

[00:52:28.340] - Speaker 1
Says, Does it mean that the firm at 50 % is building character? No, not at all, Carter. I don't think that's
a good way of thinking. I don't mean to get excited, but if you don't mind, if you'll forgive me. But what
we want to show in our story is the character in motion from the very beginning. Newland Archer in
The Age of Innocence, he's trying to get his engagement to go off without a hitch to May from page
one. And he is absolutely focused on this. When there are problems, when there are complications, he
is dedicated to solving them. Unfortunately for him, one of those problems is that her scandalous
cousin keeps getting into trouble. He has to keep rescuing the cousin because he can't marry
someone with a cousin who everyone is ashamed of, who can't go out to parties, and he can't look his
wife in the face if he hasn't done his best to save her cousin. He's doing all of that in the first half. His
issue is there's something bigger coming, which is he's falling in love with this woman and that's
going to make him reconsider his whole life.

[00:53:41.090] - Speaker 1
But we're not there from the start. If you try to... If Edith Warden had tried to do that from page one,
we would all be like, Wait, what's going on? What's happening? We're totally convinced by Archie's
goals on page one, but we see probably a little quicker than he does where this is all going. Okay.
Mary, did that answer your question about engagement as well?

[00:54:13.810] - Speaker 2
Jim, that.

[00:54:15.900] - Speaker 1
A middle trip by self-discovery is the offshoot of the overall mission and leaves the story as dual
resolution. That sounds good, Jim, but it sounds a little bit complicated. I want to be a bit more
practical.

[00:54:31.090] - Speaker 2
Than that.

[00:54:32.850] - Speaker 1
I think that speaks to that idea of the character's arc, the story's arc. But I would look at it as literally,
Jim, the character does not understand what is happening.

[00:54:44.150] - Speaker 2
They.

[00:54:45.340] - Speaker 1
Don't realize that if they're going to succeed in this love story that they need to change. They don't
understand that this love story is actually more important to them than the other things they're
invested in. So as they figure that things out, their goals change and maybe they change. But I would
avoid overcomplicating it, if that makes sense. Sonny says, Unstuck now. This is so clear. Why
couldn't I have figured this out on my own? Sonny, thank you. I love those moments. Carter says,
Great. Excellence says, Great. Okay. Amber asks, What if the main character is one of the drivers of
the plot and thus is on board early, but is fighting to get others involved? Does this still apply but in
reverse? Well, Amber, that's a great question. I want to be clear, just very clear before we go on, that
lots of novels can work. I'm teaching a very specific way of designing a novel that might or might not
work for you. But I would look at this, Amber, a different way. I would look at it like, if this cause is so
important and your main character is so compelling, why aren't these other people on board right
now?

[00:56:06.370] - Speaker 1
What is it about this character that makes them so bad, this character, so bad at getting other people
involved? What do they not understand about what's happening.

[00:56:15.800] - Speaker 2
That.

[00:56:17.730] - Speaker 1
Is alluding them at the beginning? What's really the block that's happening here that they don't grasp?
And that, to me, would be the drama of the story. Does that makes sense. Okay, so good. Let me give
you a handout now before we go on. Thank you so much for all of this.

[00:56:41.140] - Speaker 2
Here.

[00:56:41.900] - Speaker 1
Is, I'm going to post a link in the chat. Here is your worksheet. You can try this out by downloading
this. This will let you think, Okay, what am I doing? Is my story too complicated? Is it complicated? But
I'm okay with that. I accept it. I'm just going to have to make a lot of notes. Or do I want to try and
think of a way to simplify this? Pamela asks, Is it important the reader gets the who and the what
before the protagonist in this approach? Not necessarily. I would advise in this approach that you
don't have it after the protagonist does. We want to keep the reader close to their person, to their
fictional ambassador. I would advise against the situation, unless it really is Hercule Poirot, where
Poirot would say, Now I know who the killer is, but he doesn't tell the reader. I would generally suggest
avoiding that, but beyond that, keep it simple. Okay.
[00:57:46.570] - Speaker 2
All right.

[00:57:47.450] - Speaker 1
Okay, I'm going to keep going now. I've got lots of questions. Maybe at the end, I can come back to
some more. Again, we're going to do a project shortly, so you can try this out at the end. I want to talk
about my course now, as I mentioned. This is so exciting for me because I'm so excited to share the
new version with you. Lots of people have taken this course. Grayson was kind enough to write this
review and saying, It's a great course for any fiction writer, literary, or genre, particularly people who
feel overwhelmed by plot questions. Once I completed the course, I saw the whole concept of plot
from a fresh perspective. That's a very kind thing to say. I want to just say that I really think that
writing is important to me. It's important to you. We've been here, and I want to encourage you to take
a risk, take a next step, and try out this approach with me.

[00:58:37.200] - Speaker 2
You.

[00:58:37.760] - Speaker 1
Might be writing a... If we talk about the fantasy puzzle story, you might be writing a story based on
your own life, a travel auto fiction. You might be writing a personal story about self-discovery. I think
this course can really help you, and I hope you would like to check it out.

[00:58:58.520] - Speaker 2
So.

[00:58:59.920] - Speaker 1
If you're interested in trying to see your story in a more profound way or get writing if you've been
stuck for a while, plotting and planning your novel is your guide to a simpler, happier way to plot. I
hope that you've seen my advice, both in the slides and on the chat that at times I'm telling people to
keep things simple rather than trying to add some really complicated secret knowledge that only I
have, trying to help you see to it maybe a simpler way to get to a story. This is the course. It's a very
substantial guide with handouts, visuals, interactive prompts, and email support. One of my students,
to answer Lisa's questions, one of my former students is Allison Saft. She's since become a New York
Times bestselling author. We worked on a book together for a while and she abandoned that book.
But the very next book she.

[00:59:58.500] - Speaker 2
Wrote.

[00:59:59.200] - Speaker 1
Ikohorra, sense. And she said, at the time of writing this review, she sold two books and she's gone on
to incredible things, which I feel so impressed by and I'm grateful for to played some role in that
process. If you've taken an MFA, a Masters in Fine Arts, creative writing degree and you thought, I
learned a lot, but I feel like there's so much more that I haven't quite got. That's Michael Nultamaya
situation, and he said that sitting with me is one of the best decisions he ever made. Tanas Laidlaw
had been publishing her own mystery series for a long time, but she first was kind enough to say that
using the project got her the next five-star review for her most up-to-date book.

[01:00:50.730] - Speaker 2
And.

[01:00:51.220] - Speaker 1
She said, This is a review, this is not her words. The review said, Oh, the beginning is like a slow ease
into the mystery. And the reader said how much they appreciated this style, and Tanas was kind
enough to attribute this to the course.

[01:01:09.030] - Speaker 2
Ray.

[01:01:10.560] - Speaker 1
Published her first short story in an anthology after taking the course and just said how much it freed
her up to get moving, and it's great. Is that good so far?

[01:01:25.010] - Speaker 2
Okay, so.

[01:01:26.690] - Speaker 1
The course is designed by me. I'm a highly trained teacher over many years, and I try to design three
ways for you to succeed. It's not just simply a whole bunch of videos for you to watch, but we've got a
really focused approach to help you make progress in your story if you want. You don't have to. You've
got lifetime access, but to make progress quickly. I got this idea. It may be a little silly, but the idea is
that in 24 hours after you buy the course, you could plan out your opening chapter using the project
and a series of other ideas. And then in the coming week after you buy the course, you learn the
building blocks of this character-first approach that I've been talking about, that I've given the very
brief introduction to here. And then over the month after you buy the course, you can plan out your
entire novel and start writing a calling card or sample chapters that you could show to somebody
else. That's how I've designed the course. What I'm also going to do is drip in more material as we go.
We've got this basic framework, but as we go, more lessons will automatically just appear in the
course and I'll send you an email about them.

[01:02:41.950] - Speaker 1
So that if you want to do something else or something more complicated or you'd like more
examples, you'll see those develop in addition to the material. There's also ways to get support. Some
of that is like machines offering you support because there are prompts and manuals that guide you
through and pose questions to you to let you think, Okay, what am I doing? Is this following the
course?

[01:03:09.050] - Speaker 2
And.

[01:03:09.830] - Speaker 1
This is Victoria saying some very nice things, that she's just found working with me to be really nice.

[01:03:19.320] - Speaker 2
And.

[01:03:21.970] - Speaker 1
That she particularly liked the prompts, that the prompts guide you to come up with an idea. It's not
just me talking, but that you're trying it out. You're going to do this in hopefully next five minutes or so.

[01:03:34.370] - Speaker 2
And then.

[01:03:35.440] - Speaker 1
Three, I've got emails that come to you, and I've got a B-roll series of videos. That's just me looking at
my phone while I do my normal life, commenting on the lessons, trying to explain them in another way
so you can really get what I'm talking about. As I said, there's more lessons coming over the first
month. That's the course.

[01:03:52.960] - Speaker 2
Okay, so.

[01:03:57.230] - Speaker 1
If you have any questions, one question you might have is like, Well, what if I don't know what to write,
Daniel? I've got a bonus module for you where it's what I call the Quick Start Guide. It's just a series of
videos to prompt you to come up with something totally new, a totally new idea for a story. Then
you've got something to look at when you are writing your book.

[01:04:18.180] - Speaker 2
Some.

[01:04:18.610] - Speaker 1
People might say, What if I'm not writing regularly? Well, I'm adding and building a bonus module to
help you improve your writing habits. A lot of that is taken from my Summit on Writing Process. If
you've been to the Summit, you may have seen these talks already, but it's in the course to help
people just get more practice.

[01:04:38.200] - Speaker 2
You might have a.

[01:04:38.800] - Speaker 1
Question, which is totally reasonable, which is, What if you buy the course and you don't like it? You
got 30 days. You can get a refund within 30 days. No questions asked. You just email us and we'll
send you the money back. Okay, so the price to join the course is $197.

[01:04:58.700] - Speaker 2
Because.

[01:05:00.140] - Speaker 1
I've just gone through this big relaunch, the price will rise to 497 once everything is published and
ready.

[01:05:12.480] - Speaker 2
And.

[01:05:13.190] - Speaker 1
I've shared it with the general public. I think that's fair. A bowl of Mac & Cheese at Panera suddenly
costs $11.

[01:05:22.310] - Speaker 2
Now, it's very.

[01:05:23.360] - Speaker 1
Different to when I was first started selling this course five years ago, and the course is now a very
substantial, very well-regarded experience. We've got a payment plan for the 187 prize as well. I hope
you will join us in this course. In addition, when you sign up, you'll see that there's an option to add on.

[01:05:46.170] - Speaker 2
A.

[01:05:46.470] - Speaker 1
Month-long or three-session-long live class called Novel Experts. There I'm going to wait a week to let
people try out the course, experience it, get the most from it, and then we're going to try and take our
writing to the next level.

[01:06:02.660] - Speaker 2
Both.

[01:06:03.090] - Speaker 1
Through some discussions and talks from me. And only people who have signed up to the course can
join the class. Class is not open to the general public, and I won't be selling it to my general mailing
list. It's just people who know these techniques, and it's going to help you revise or dream up a brand
new novel. I'm calling it novel experts. I hope no one of the writing teachers is taking that title, but
that's what I'm calling it. Okay. All right, to wrap up, I just hope that you like the comments that you've
seen from other writers. Just imagine how happy you would be with a real plan for your writing. Like I
said before, if you wish to, you don't have to do this. Don't want to stress anybody. You have lifetime
or ongoing, as long as I'm around, you've got lifetime access to this course where we quickly try to
design an opening chapter. We learn a series of techniques that people have found so valuable. Then
we try to really plan out the whole book with interactive prompts and manuals and actually start
writing or start rewriting. Lots of writers really love this course.

[01:07:14.950] - Speaker 1
People have gone through it, literary authors,YA, fantasy authors, people writing family fiction,
memoirists even have taken it. I told them not to, but even some memoirists have taken it and have
really enjoyed it.

[01:07:26.790] - Speaker 2
I've.

[01:07:27.110] - Speaker 1
Been popular with cozy mystery writers, all kinds of writers. Just to conclude, Anna said about the
current course, Anna hasn't seen the new one yet, that she says.

[01:07:39.540] - Speaker 2
She.

[01:07:39.860] - Speaker 1
Likes the way that the current course is structured to just get you writing. That's something that I
really love. I hope you'll join us before the price goes up. This is a great opportunity. Let me know if
you have any questions. Questions, thoughts? Shall we do the prompt now? Inga, the price will rise
probably about a week. Okay. Let's do the prompt. Here is the prompt. I'm going to share it in the link.
Share a link in the chat. What I'd like you to do now, if you'd like to do the prompt, is click this link. I'm
going to stop sharing. Hi, everybody. Click this link here. Brenda, let me answer your question just a
second, Brenda.

[01:08:44.080] - Speaker 2
Don't.

[01:08:44.650] - Speaker 1
Buy it yet, Brenda. What you're going to do is if you click the link, you should end up here. You should
see a picture of a woman in a coffee shop. And the way it works, if you can't see that, let me know, the
way it works is that you type in these answers and you're working your way through the prompt. And
the prompt will guide you through this idea step by step.

[01:09:17.170] - Speaker 2
Now.

[01:09:18.840] - Speaker 1
You can share your email address with me at the end and you'll get all these answers. You'll get
everything you write if you wish. I won't do anything weird with your email address. I mean, you're
already on my mailing list, so I already got your email address.

[01:09:35.100] - Speaker 2
But I.

[01:09:35.570] - Speaker 1
Don't do anything weird with this data. I just use it so that I can send you the results. Okay, questions.
Brenda says, If I've got an early version of this course, Brenda, if you've got an access to PPM already,
plotting a funny novel.

[01:09:58.730] - Speaker 2
Then.

[01:10:00.040] - Speaker 1
The update is completely free.

[01:10:02.920] - Speaker 2
All.

[01:10:03.300] - Speaker 1
Improvements to the course are free once you sign up.

[01:10:07.550] - Speaker 2
At.

[01:10:07.960] - Speaker 1
Least for the foreseeable future. So you've got it, don't buy it.

[01:10:13.270] - Speaker 1
Now, if you want to sign up to novel experts, that does cost money. That is a paid class. I can give you
a link for that later in a second.

[01:10:28.420] - Speaker 2
But.

[01:10:29.920] - Speaker 1
That's how I design it. Rebecca, I'll share a link to people who have bought the course in the past
about buying novel experts. If you don't get that message, let me know. Okay. Lisa says, I'm in, plus
novel experts. Looking forward to this. Thank you so much, Lisa. You might get quite a few emails
from the two courses, but they'll die down pretty quickly. Sheryl says, Thank you. Yashir says,
Awesome. That's great. Miller asks, How do I find out what I paid for? Well, Miller, send an email to
support and we'll just check in. Okay. All right. Questions. Okay, thank you. Let me answer some
questions while we talk about some time. Thank you, Drew. Drew says excellent presentation. Casey
says, Wonderful motivation and tips. Okay, Karen asks, What are your very favorite craft books? Well, I
think a book that I really recommend people studying.

[01:11:45.170] - Speaker 2
Is.

[01:11:48.850] - Speaker 1
Scene and Structure. That's a really great craft book, and it really is quite revolutionary in the way it
describes how people read.

[01:12:02.570] - Speaker 2
I.

[01:12:02.970] - Speaker 1
Would encourage you to look at that book. The book, in a strange way, suggests, gives its most
revolutionary ideas in a offhand way, and it seems to be focusing on a style of book that's actually
much simpler than what it's actually teaching at the end. A bit strange, but it's a really good book.
Bickham is the author. Allison asks, How much of this applies to short story writing? Well, if you're
writing a short story where it's a really plotted short story, then it could absolutely work. I would
encourage you to read The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud. That was part of the inspiration for this
approach.
[01:12:46.320] - Speaker 2
I think.

[01:12:46.860] - Speaker 1
You might really like it. But a short story that's like a slice of life, characters, reflections, some of these
techniques might be a little bit in excess of what you need. Elizabeth asks, Why don't you recommend
it for memoirs? No, Elizabeth, I was just joking. I love it when memorists buy the course, and I think it's
extremely valuable.

[01:13:13.040] - Speaker 2
It's just.

[01:13:13.600] - Speaker 1
That all the language in the course is about novels. I feel a little bit bad when someone buys it for
screenplay, writing, or something else. But no, as you say, memoir is intensely and about point of
view, and the course is very valuable for that. Melvin asks, How does one major protagonist work for
romance? You're referring to the five ones, I think. Well, some romance novels do only have one
protagonist, where you have two.

[01:13:46.920] - Speaker 2
It is.

[01:13:47.460] - Speaker 1
Just a reminder that we probably want to keep the other elements of the story focused. Again, this is
not saying that every novel should only have five ones, but that once we get to four ones, we maybe
want to make sure that we're keeping things simple. If you have two protagonist and someone who
spends half the time in New York City and half the time in rural Pennsylvania, maybe we don't need
the New York scenes. Maybe she can be in rural Pennsylvania on page one, just to keep things a little
simpler. Melvin also asks, Please explain the one framework. By frame, what I mean is that the reader,
in a frame, understands what is happening, what the words on the page mean from the start. For
instance, in Gone Girl, it's a great novel, it's a wonderful novel, we are presented with diary entries. I
hope this is not a huge, I don't think it's a massive spoiler, but we're presented with diary entries that
turn out later to be a lie. And it's a shock because that's not really what we're supposed to be doing in
a novel. We're supposed to believe that when someone talks to us, they're telling us the truth.

[01:15:11.340] - Speaker 1
And that, to me, was like a shift in a frame. It's not what you thought you were reading. The words on
the page were not what you thought was going on. And so that's what I would think about, and that it
often comes up in thrillers where there is a character who is not being honest, or I may give you the
example of multiple personalities.

[01:15:38.400] - Speaker 2
Or something.

[01:15:39.470] - Speaker 1
Magical is going on that we don't fully understand. That's what I would look at as a friend. Mary says,
With duration, could you open up a chapter but have a quick recap? Mary, I think that it's fine to have a
recap of what's happening. And in the course, I even talk about ways you have a prolog, but I would
just encourage everyone to be a bit bold with this. What if you didn't have a recap? What if you just
show the character showing up wherever they're showing up and they're already annoyed or they're
already frustrated, already worried, and maybe they try to buy something and their credit card is
declined and they're like, Oh, and they find some cash in their pocket. That is often enough. I can't
speak for every single novel, but that's my suggestion. Okay, let me answer some more questions.
Elizabeth asks, How slow can we go if we sign up? Elizabeth, let me double-check. Let me try and fix
that. That might be a me problem. Okay. If you sign up, Elizabeth, you can go as slow as you wish.
You have indefinite access to the course. You can go… You can take as long as you want.
[01:17:19.140] - Speaker 2
Through.

[01:17:20.070] - Speaker 1
The course.

[01:17:21.680] - Speaker 2
And.

[01:17:25.260] - Speaker 1
It is totally up to you. What I'm doing as the teacher of the course. Elizabeth, just refresh the page. I
think I maybe made a mistake there. I apologize.

[01:17:41.340] - Speaker 2
Try.

[01:17:42.330] - Speaker 1
That again, Rachel. Elizabeth, you can take as long as you want. I'm just trying to be like a useful
teacher and streamline things for you because.

[01:17:51.670] - Speaker 2
There's.

[01:17:52.320] - Speaker 1
A lot to explain. But there's also my understanding that many people want to get moving quickly and
they want to get some great results, a quick win. I try to design the course in a way that works with
both groups, but that's the option. Okay. Questions. These are great questions by the way. Thank you
so much for coming. Oh, yeah. Tell me about the prompt. What did you think of the prompt? Doro
says, So much fun. Angela says, I found the prompt very helpful. Rebecca, I think the group calls are
so worth it to add to the course. It's up to you. Hang on. Let me send you the, Go here, Cs. There's the
link again. Okay. It's going to be great, Rebecca. If you like the way I teach now, just imagine we're all
in a Zoom room talking and I'm sharing advice about the course and giving you chances to try and
really take what you're doing to the next level, solving problems with a bit more time than.

[01:19:19.200] - Speaker 2
We have right now.

[01:19:21.420] - Speaker 1
I think it's going to be really great. Okay, let me see what are the questions I can answer. Answer live.
Cheryl says, ask a question, which is, Cheryl says, What's your theory on protagonist not being present
in chapters? Cheryl, I'm going to answer this to make sure I'm answering the question right, which is
something like, you've got one protagonist, but in certain chapters they don't appear. Is that fair
enough? Like other things are happening, they're not there, if that makes sense. Is that correct,
Cheryl? Well, let me answer that as best I can. What I would say is, when you have a protagonist, I
think that you can have one, maybe two chapters where they don't appear and there's no other figure
for the reader to latch onto. So it's not like, Oh, every so often we switch to the villain and we see the
villain moving around doing stuff. To me, that's fine because the villain becomes our ambassador to
the story. The villain becomes the other fiction or representative on the page. But if there really isn't
that character, we're just seeing other people move around, I would be a little bit cautious about that
because character-first writing says that the reader is trying to make contact with a person to become
their person in the story.

[01:21:00.390] - Speaker 1
When they don't really understand what's going on in terms of that relationship, they can get very
confused. What I see authors do that do this, they switch away from the protagonist at times, what
happens is that the narrator starts to become a really visible character in the story. The narrator
becomes a self-conscious storyteller. You can see that in the novel that the reading group is reading
right now, a gentleman in Moscow, where in fact, the narrator is clearly becoming like a character. We
thought we were reading the author speaking, but it's clearly like the narrator is literally a character.
But even before that, the narrator takes on a air of like, Hey, friend, I'm telling you a tale. And so when
we leave the main character, the count behind, we're still in the presence of this very likable, amiable
narrator, if that makes sense. Okay. Miller, there's no coupon code. It's all the same price. The price is
just going to go up soon in about a week. Is that helpful, Miller?

[01:22:12.120] - Speaker 2
Lilly.

[01:22:12.660] - Speaker 1
Says, Prompt made me think of things I hadn't considered as part of my book or even important, but
I'll consider that. Thank you. That's great. More questions. I got a few more minutes and my voice
hasn't quite broken down yet. Kat asks, Does the course bring you through all acts of a novel? So
when you are done, you have a complete novel? Yes, Kat, that's the idea. The course is meant to guide
you through the entire process. I've focused on the beginning right now because that's easier to
introduce. But the course tries to guide you through the whole story. And that's part of what I'm trying
to teach in this approach, that the relationship with the reader that has the main character is
something that develops through the whole story, and that's what gives the story its power. Oh, thank
you, Miller says. This sounds exciting. If I'm saying your name right, Miller says, This sounds exciting,
well worth it, and well-chuffed. Oh, that's great.

[01:23:42.150] - Speaker 2
The right group.

[01:23:42.760] - Speaker 1
Says, You have questions that give you an idea? I know there's some great questions. I'm just working
my way through them. Michelle says, Would you recommend this course for a story that has been
developed? I. E, I've written the first and second draft already. I have two answers. One is that if.

[01:23:58.100] - Speaker 2
You.

[01:23:59.820] - Speaker 1
Areif you are not really interested in doing a big revision, then the course is still really valuable. For the
course this size, I think the price is very reasonable, but what I would encourage you to do is look at all
the lessons in the middle that talk to you all.

[01:24:19.830] - Speaker 2
About how.

[01:24:21.150] - Speaker 1
To design interesting plot elements. I sent out a video, for instance, about manifestations. I sent out
two videos about manifestations. And if you find that thing interesting, then the course is full of that
training of adding smaller elements to your story to help you make it deeper, more profound. If you
feel like after two drafts.

[01:24:43.580] - Speaker 2
This.

[01:24:45.290] - Speaker 1
Just isn't coming together yet. I feel like something is not working. Then the course is fantastic
because it helps you try to simplify, clarify what's going on, try to come up with the next draft that's
going to be really clear and easy to write. Rebecca asks, Is it possible to have multiple mysteries as
long as they dovetail at the end? Rebecca, I want to just be clear that I feel a little uncomfortable with
the language of like, Is it possible? Can I do this? Because the answer is, You can do anything. I don't
mean that in a silly way. When you look at the history of all the novels that have been published, that
is endless. There's so many things that have been done. I would never want to get in the position of
saying novels that have two different mysteries are wrong or bad. In fact, I really think that if someone
comes to me and says, Oh, I'm halfway through the book. It's going well. I've got this agent interested
in it. My beta readers love it, but I'm doing something that breaks your rule. I would say, Ignore my
rule. Keep going.

[01:25:59.100] - Speaker 1
Please keep going. The worst thing you should do is try to follow what some writing teachers
suggest. But what I would say is that when you have multiple mysteries that are distinct, it's not like,
Oh, we're all... We're all the different characters are trying to pick out one bit of the elephant. One's got
the tail, one's got the ears, but they are genuinely different mysteries. What I'm saying is you're taking
on a lot, and that might be more than you realize. Where people are in a situation where they might
potentially write a sequel, I would think about, could some of this be in the sequel? And when I look at
a novel series, it's often surprising what we do not get taught or explained in book one. We finished
the Jack Reacher book, book one, knowing very little about Jack Reacher. We have mysteries in
Brandon Saniz and The Way of Kings, the Somalight Archive series that are still not answered after
four books. I would just think about how it's going. That's what I would say, if that makes sense.
Rebecca says, I joined. Thank you. Oh, that's wonderful. I had the call. Thank you so much.

[01:27:22.430] - Speaker 1
Mk says, Thank you, Daniel. That was great. Thank you so much. Veronica, could you ask me that... If
you're still here, could you ask me that question again? You say, Can the thing the protagonist learns
is fault in internal conceptions? Could you explain that question? And I will happily answer it. I think I
answered that question. Melvin, just to come back. Melvin, I think I answered it already, but just say
many of the Romans, Novels, do have two protagonist. But usually.

[01:28:03.630] - Speaker 2
Those.

[01:28:04.770] - Speaker 1
Two POV protagonist are tightly focused on the same thing, each other, whatever. Usually one of
them has some big professional goal that the other gets wrapped up in, that they're focused on each
other and the story is closed in some way. And that's what I would suggest. Rachel says, Conway, to
get started. That's great.

[01:28:33.520] - Speaker 2
Okay.

[01:28:37.420] - Speaker 1
That's awesome. Casey says, I have a protagonist who has three alternate identities. Fantastic,
Casey. Love it. What I would suggest is the lesson of the five ones would say is just be aware that
you've got a lot of things on your plate and other ways that you could say shorten the duration of the
story so that it takes place over like two weeks or a month, because when you're doing a lot, there's a
lot to cover. Susanna says, very helpful session. Thank you. The time for this is I plan a short time for
him. That's my would be strongly encouraged. Brenda, can you ask your question again in the Q and
A? Because I want to make sure that I'm answering it. I think I'm up to date with the Q and A, so
please let me know. Mary says, Great ideas. Thank you. Alpatina says, Thank you very much. I'm so
happy. As you can see, I really love... This is what I love doing. I love helping people. I love talking
about stories. It's such a pleasure, and thank you for being here. Mauricio says, How to streamline a
character to go into various settings?

[01:29:54.140] - Speaker 1
So the question is basically like, what if you have to have multiple settings? That's just the story. Well,
what I would do, I would do a few things, Mauricio, if I'm saying that right. Mauricio, I would try to limit
the number of tertiary characters that we meet. I would try to keep the characters interactions fairly
brief with different people, a bit like a tourist or a professional coming in, doing a job and leaving. I
would try to find ways so that it's not sprawling out of control because you have a problem that if
you're in Prague for the first three chapters and you have this fascinating, attractive woman character
in the first three chapters, some of you readers are going to be like, Well, I want to see her again.
When's she coming back? If your intention is she's never coming back, that was the end of Prague,
she's in Prague, you're going to get readers that are a little confused. Trying to aim the story so that
we're not meeting a bunch of... Or meeting characters that can flip in and out would be really helpful.
Secondly, I would try to think of ways.

[01:31:07.300] - Speaker 1
I would try to think very hard to think of ways to make more of the story cohere through these
settings. I would try to have a plot. I try to have secondary characters that travel with the character.
The character is doing one thing or solving one problem or investigating one mystery in each
situation, or learning about a puzzle or a plot or a conspiracy or a thing of some kind through these
different settings.

[01:31:40.000] - Speaker 2
Maybe they... Oh, like.

[01:31:47.080] - Speaker 1
Maybe.

[01:31:48.200] - Speaker 2
They are….

[01:31:57.720] - Speaker 1
Maybe they just find out a bunch of… If they find out things that are going on. Or maybe, for instance,
as they go through the different cities, sorry, this is what I'm going to say, they go to different cities,
they see the evidence of someone who came before them. They are like, Oh, this same guy was doing
the same stuff I'm doing and he got killed. I wonder what happened to him. And they're collecting
evidence, if that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Christian, using unconventional structures.

[01:32:51.410] - Speaker 2
The.

[01:32:56.780] - Speaker 1
Advice that I would give for multivignette structure, is I would really think about ways to... I would try
and use the literary toolkit at your disposal. Christian, I would really think about ways to use repetition.

[01:33:11.670] - Speaker 2
That.

[01:33:12.040] - Speaker 1
Could be repetition of phrases, repetition of ideas, repetition of scenes. Have the vignettes almost
seem a little surreal, but the same things keep happening. The reader always is clear, Oh, I'm still in
the same story.

[01:33:28.120] - Speaker 2
The.

[01:33:28.740] - Speaker 1
Character in... Every third vignette, the character tries to order a vodka, martini, and the bartender
says, Oh, we're out. I don't know. I'm just coming... That's just off the top of my head. Don't quote me
on that. But that the reader is always like, Okay, I'm in the same story, even though we keep jumping.
Then the next thing I would suggest is to really think about your narrator. Can the narrator play a role
of connecting for us what's going on? I think that sometimes writers are trying to use unconventional
structures overestimate how much the reader is willing to sit there with a pen and paper figuring out
what's going on. And someone who I think writes at times quite unconventional novels, Haruki
Murakami does just such a wonderful job of through the narrator, sometimes the narrator,
protagonist, just telling us what's happening, telling us what's going on, guiding us through in a way
that lets us absorb these quite complex and at times very weighty books in a really profound way.
That's what I recommend. Another person that I'd recommend looking at is a Tela Cervino, if you don't
know Cervino already. Because what Cervino can do in some very unconventional stories like Invisible
Cities is create recurring frame narratives where we go back to these two characters having a
conversation and they comment on what we've just read, then the vignettes continue.

[01:34:57.990] - Speaker 1
It's very appealing. Brenda says, If I haven't started writing it, am I ready for novel experts? Yes. It's not
going to.

[01:35:10.380] - Speaker 2
Be.

[01:35:13.420] - Speaker 1
Tough to get into. It's just that we all need to absorb plotting, planning on novel already. We know
what I'm talking about in these lessons.

[01:35:24.500] - Speaker 2
Christian.

[01:35:25.390] - Speaker 1
I would encourage you to read Norwegian Wood. I'm actually on a podcast soon talking about
Norwegian Wood at some length. You'll see how the frame narrative connects. The book is very
conventional in some ways, but it's also strange in others. Some of the short story is like a kidney-
shaped stone that moves every day.

[01:35:46.290] - Speaker 2
And.

[01:35:47.320] - Speaker 1
Then the masterpiece book is The Wind a Bird chronicles. How does that book work? It's remarkable.

[01:35:59.970] - Speaker 2
Veronica.

[01:36:00.990] - Speaker 1
Asks, My protagonist struggles with his internal demons in the middle, which is when he realized what
was going on, not an ashton happening, but all within his emotions.

[01:36:11.410] - Speaker 2
Veronica.

[01:36:13.750] - Speaker 1
If I understand what you're saying correctly. First of all, when you say does this count? Absolutely.
Your vision for your novel counts, and it's fantastic. If you're asking, is it following the stuff that I
talked about in this course? I like to have a interplay. I recommend that people try and find some
interplay between what's happening outside the character and what's happening inside. It doesn't
need to be really complex. You don't have to have magic swords, car chases. But trying to answer the
question of why now? Why is this realization happening now?

[01:36:54.510] - Speaker 2
I.

[01:36:56.170] - Speaker 1
Think is really good. There are novels, incredibly successful novels that have been made into
successful films where the present moment of the story is not that developed. I'm thinking of...
[01:37:11.900] - Speaker 2
Oh.

[01:37:12.500] - Speaker 1
It's a lot of my mind. Sorry, my mind slipped after talking for an hour and three quarters. The book,
sorry, the novel where Anthony Hawkins is a butler, I'd have to come up with that.

[01:37:24.270] - Speaker 2
One.

[01:37:25.180] - Speaker 1
Where there's not a huge amount of present moment action, but it weaves together a lot of internal
reactions and developments so that we really get what's going on.

[01:37:40.040] - Speaker 2
The.

[01:37:42.440] - Speaker 1
Third book that from Urakani, Mary, oneWynd at Bird. Yes, Allison mentions the...

[01:37:57.490] - Speaker 1
The Wind at Bird chronicles of the other books.

[01:38:00.010] - Speaker 2
And.

[01:38:04.860] - Speaker 1
Mrs. Dalloway is another example. A lot happens in Mrs. Dalloway. It's just not intensely plotted. It's
like a lot is happening and it's happening to the characters and it's important. It's just like this literary
novel. Okay, well, everyone, thank you so much.

[01:38:25.620] - Speaker 2
One.

[01:38:28.130] - Speaker 1
More chance. I encourage you to buy the course. It's really good and the price really is going up soon.
I would like everyone on this list if they have the chance, if it's possible to get the advantage of this
course while it's still at a very affordable price. There's lots more being going to be added to it over
the next month or so. Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to talk and share my ideas. Thank
you all. Bye, everybody. Thank you for a great session. Here's the course, Linda. Thank you, Jessica.
Thank you, Frank. Thank you, C. S. Thank you, Angela. Bye, everybody.