The One Where...

Here’s an exercise that’s been proving useful in my groups of late. Especially with writers who are on the homestretch in their novels. 

It’s best to do this off the top of your head, without referring to any existing synopsis or the manuscript, because in this way you’ll be tapping into the deeper, more organic story that your subconscious knows is important and remembers. 

So, get a clean piece of paper and write down – in any order, doesn’t have to be chronological – the scenes you still have left to write. 

Use this format: 

1. The One where….Sara tells her mother she’s moving to Australia.

2. The One where… Sara says goodbye at the airport.

3. The One where… Sara’s father left when she was six years old and he said goodbye on the doorstep.

4. The One where…Sara arrives in Melbourne and Anthea, her girlfriend is there to meet her. 

Etc etc etc….just keep going until you can’t think of any more scenes. And as I said, even though the above examples could be told in that order, just write down any scenes that come into your head as they do, no matter where you think (you might not know yet) they will end up in the book. You just know they need to be included.

The reason it’s useful to start with the phrase ‘The One where…’ is so that you are not tempted to write vaguely, as in 1) Sara in primary school, or 2) Sara and Anthea falling in love. Push yourself to name a specific action that happens in the scene, one which enraptures whatever you are trying to show me about the character, or move on in the story. I.e., The One where Sara gets hammered on her first date with Anthea and throws up in the taxi.

In my group that met last Saturday, most of whose participants are in the final stages of their novels, it was encouraging to discover there were a finite number of scenes left to write. Nine, for one person, 13 for another, but identifiable, achievable! If you are not so far along, if you are still in the first third, or half, try this. Identify a large turning point that’s coming, an end of Act, a reversal, a major event, discovery, fork in the road. And then make a list of scenes left to write, using the same The One where format, but heading to this Turning Point and no further (for now). Hopefully this will make reaching that next milestone seem identifiable and achievable, no matter what stage you’ve reached.

Here’s The Sentence where I stop telling you what to do.