Welcome to...
The Novel Carnival
Five days of lessons, prizes, and invention. By the time the funfair departs, your novel may never be the same.
(in a good way)
This is day four of the Novel Carnival.
Today's dare: failure on page four
Today's video: why we need a committed protagonist on page one
Today's bonus: what the protagonist actually knows at the start
Day four:
Now the funfair is buzzing and wild with people.
How could you have ever believed that other writers wouldn't discover this place?
You hear laughter, and friends calling to one another, and the theatrical firing of a pistol.
You almost feel like the carnival is too busy to enjoy, and you end up watching an outdoor magician. It's fun to watch him perform and captivate the passersby. Even though they have a whole funfair to explore, he catches them off guard, somehow getting them to watch him deal cards, juggle, and produce small woodland animals.
The Dare... are you ready?
In a quieter moment, while he sips some water and counts the money collected in his top hat, you ask him how he does it.
"You have to make a connection," he says. "Then people will make time."
- Rembrandt, the magician
The dare for day four:
Imagine this: your protagonist wants something meaningful that is not the true focus of the plot or the main action of the novel. This is something important to them, not their world. In four pages, and only four pages, you have to show them:
1. Trying to get this thing
2. Thinking about it or talking about it so that the reader understands how important it is to the protagonist
3. Failing to get it
This could be the opening of your novel, page one. They start the story trying to get something, and by the end of page four, they have come no closer to getting it. Indeed, they are further away.
Examples:
- at the start of chapter three, the husband wants to strengthen his marriage on this family trip to Mount Desert Island. By page four of that chapter, he and his wife are no longer speaking to each other.
- when this book opens, a retired jewel thief is trying get an imported camera through French customs. She pursues the camera and its paperwork all over Paris, only to discover, on page four, that she has walked into a meeting with her old foes on the police force (they "just want to talk.")
Excellent!
Now watch your craft lesson and download your bonus for the day:
"People like to spend their lives around people."
- REMBRANDT, THE MAGICIAN
Craft lesson: Begin with your character in motion
Now get your handout for this craft concept:
Handout: How to fail
Okay! That was day four of the Carnival!
Have you tried out the dare, watched the video, and downloaded the handout?
A new lesson will appear on this page tomorrow.
Ready to join the leaderboard, and share your dare?
All you need is a one-sentence description of how you might apply the dare to your story: