Turning Points Revisited

Today I tried to persuade myself that I look much better with long hair and shouldn't pull it out. The turning points in my novel were not coming together and my frustration over it was acute. I had nothing for the midpoint crisis -- it became the inciting incident at some point -- which left me with a concrete inciting incident, climax, and a huge muddle of events in between.

Jenny Crusie's workshop about turning points was incredibly helpful so I revisited my own recap as well as Crusie's blog post on the subject and hit upon the issue: I was trying to place events, but not the protagonist's decisions that went along with them. My heroine would find a key journal but wouldn't make the choice to do/not do something with it (not an actual event in my WIP, just an illustration). My heroine wasn't pushing the plot.

I'm won't go back and adjust my original post but it's interesting to revisit the topic. Yes, new information should be presented and yes, it should change the course of the novel but there's a lot you can do with character at these points. After analysis of my own turning points, I opted to have my heroine charge forward with certain actions and hesitate with others. The turning points are no longer only revealing basic plot developments but rather showing my heroine's growth, and some of the finer points that make her the woman she is at the end. If you struggle with any point of your plot, this is an excellent area to analyze as it might be the source of your problem too.

Aside from the frustration of the turning points it was a huge relief to realize my mistakes on this topic. It might have created a big mess later on. This is my first work and I give myself room to experiment and commit error every once in awhile. We're allowed to do that. Learn the lesson and move on, right?

This is me moving on and happy to have progress with my work.

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What have been your Aha! moments about your WIP? Is there a moment with a past work that particularly sticks out? Share your thoughts. Perhaps there's another writer who might benefit from your discovery.

As an aside, you might also check out Story Wonk as run by Lani Diane Rich, the author referred to in Crusie's blog post. The current wonkshops are closed and I apologize for failure to include notice in my workshop post after an excellent tip from Terri. I still hope some of you were able to sign up!