NaNoWriMo: It’s In The Cards

Here we are in November once again, and that means many writers you know are starting to look a little wild-eyed. November is National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. More than 300,000 writers have accepted a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It doesn't have to be pretty. It doesn't have to be finished. It just has to be 50,000 words closer to a finished product than you were in October. If you divide 50,000 words by 30 days, you'll find you need to write 1667 words a day. 

A while back I purchased a writing tool called Story Forge. It's a deck of cards you use in a myriad of ways to spur creativity, organize your writing, and generally have some fun. NaNo is the perfect time to try them out.

The cards are larger than your average playing card. They're more similar to a tarot card, very sturdy and well made. They come with a small instruction booklet. It took me just a few minutes to get the gist. There are several suggestions on how they can be used. Since I am at the beginning of a project, I chose to use them to guide me in creating an outline. They have a couple different layouts, or 'spreads', for a book-length project. I shuffled the cards as best I could (they're quite stiff), and laid them out as suggested. Then I keyed them in to my Scrivener outline, and voila! in less than an hour I had a very workable outline.

Story Forge borrows from the master of story structure, Joseph Campbell. I merged my layout with Campbell's 12 Stages of the Hero's Journey, then plugged them into the Scrivener outline feature. As a secondary project, I played around with color coding and labeling each stage of the journey based on whichever card had popped up in the layout. The end result was a 22 step outline, complete with brief descriptions on what was supposed to be happening in each step and why. Like my NaNo project, it's just a first draft. But a first draft of an outline for a complete novel in under an hour is pretty dang cool IMO.

You may be thinking this sounds a little too formulaic, but what book or movie isn't? In fact, the sociological research of Campbell and others indicates adhering to certain basic patterns contribute significantly to how much the reader/viewer enjoys the story. I figure, why mess with success? Rather than feel constrained, I feel comforted that Campbell is my guiding light so that I won't leave out any important components.

But back to the Story Forge cards: they can also be used for smaller projects. Here's an example of using them to flesh out a minor character. It requires only 7 cards. If you're doing NaNo, feel free to give it a spin and use this layout to crank out those 1667 words each day.

Character 'Quick Pick'

Here's the layout, or spread:

The 88 cards are grouped into six different categories. The instructions explain the meanings of the categories, suggest some spreads, and indicate what each card position in the spread represents. Here are the results for helping develop a minor character, completely at random after a few shuffles. Since the writing is a little small in the picture, I've spelled it out for you below. The card number indicates its position in the layout. Directly below is a description of the card that landed in that position as I dealt them out.

Card 1: The character's base nature

WAR. Negotiations break down. No equitable solutions can be agreed upon. Conflict escalates to violent combat.

Card 2: The influence of the universe

THE BUREAUCRAT. As someone who accepts or even embraces bureaucracy, this person could be a powerful foe or ally in the political or financial arenas.

Card 3: His/her 'Achilles heel'

A WEALTH card. While wealth cards can be taken literally to represent money or finance, they can also stand for nearly anything in the physical, material world, including issues of shelter, employment or security.

Card 4: The influence of family/friends

RELAPSE. Forces or patterns that were thought to be left behind rise anew, stronger than ever.

Card 5: The character's driving passion

CHAOS. Chaos prevails. Rationality and predictability give way to random or seemingly insane events.

Card 6. The character's destiny

Another WEALTH card.

Card 7. What stands between them and their destiny

HEALTH. The body is strong and free from disease. Can be a generally good constitution or a return to health after having been injured or sick. Notice this 7th card is laid across the 6th. Crossing cards represent a barrier or obstacle to the card they are crossing. So in this instance, there is something about the health status of the character that is preventing them from achieving that second Wealth goal.

Obviously these spreads aren't going to make sense 100% of the time. No one is suggesting you become enslaved to them and try to make their suggestions work against the grain. If you turn up a card that doesn't work, there are several options. I don't know if you can see it in the photo, but each card has two meanings, usually opposite. For example, the bottom half of the Health card is Illness. If a card turns up that doesn't fit your needs, turn it around and try it that way. If it's still not working, draw another card. If the whole spread is a mess, reshuffle and try again.

Story Forge is just another way to get the creative juices flowing. I thoroughly enjoyed using it and will continue to do so, even though part of me keeps envisioning a scene from Tin Cup. If you haven't seen the movie, Kevin Costner plays a down-at-the-heels golf pro. Feeling some pressure about an upcoming tournament, he turns to some unusual training tools to help get back on track. He looked silly using them, but underneath all the silly tools, he had some mad skills. I like to think we have that in common.