Playing Around with What If continued

So here's a possible route...

She likes her job

Colleague gets promoted/new boss comes in

She doesn't like the new regime

Starts job hunting

Finds new job hard to find

Clashes with new boss

Leaves job

This has lots of negativity inherent in it - she doesn't like the situation, although at least she's fighting against it.  Lots of conflict is good - I can picture some dramatic scenes. But her character isn't particularly confrontational, and part of her character arc over the course of the book is to wise up. Here's an alternative route...

She likes her job

Hears of new job 

Decides to apply

Gets interview

Gets job offer

Leaves old job

Starts new job

I month trial period

New company hit by recession, can't make post permanent

Old job has either gone to someone else, or not hiring because of recession

Now she's unemployed 

There are lots of potential scenes here as she goes through the job process, which is good as I can weave them in with the other plot strands.  I'm slightly concerned about timing - this process would plausibly take at least 2 months if not 3, but I can always get round that if the route is interesting. It's certainly more positive in feel than the first one, but there's less conflict.  Now I'm asking questions to see if there's potential for conflict.

How does she hear about the job?

Through an ad is the least interesting, through a friend has more potential for blame later on.

What makes her decide to take the job?

More money - always plausible.  More status, ditto.  There could be some issue at work also.

Is the job a change in career direction? Or is it a promotion?

If it's a promotion, she will have different feelings about the new job - success, moving up the ladder - than if it's a change of direction.  She's not that ambitious a person, so a new direction is more plausible with her character than going for promotion. 

I'm playing around with a couple of routes, seeing how they pan out, where they fit with the other characters, how the choices my character makes fit in with her personality.  I'm looking for a plausible route that gives my characters lots of potential action.  I thought I'd cracked it with one route, but then realised it wasn't consistent with another character's motivation.  

Hey ho - it's back to What If for me. 

Playing Around with What If

I've come to a tricky moment in my current novel.  I've written a lot of it, then realised that I needed to start earlier, so I'm writing the beginning section at the moment.  This means I know where I need my character to end up but I'm not 100% sure how she's going to get there.  In this case, she needs to leave her job - but why? and how?

I'm playing What If.  

There are usually limited choices for characters at any one time.  So I'm going to start with Does my character like her current job, or not?  That's two options. I write them both down on a piece of paper.  Then I choose one of the options.  What if she likes her job?  Why would she leave it?

what if she was fired?

what if she was offered a better job elsewhere?

what if she was persuaded to apply for another job?

what if she did something dreadful and had to leave?

what if she had an affair with a colleague and was forced out?

what if she's inherited some money and doesn't need to work?

what if her family need her to return home?

Each What If suggests more questions, more What Ifs...for example, why would she be fired?  I write them all down, seeing where they lead me.

Then I do the same process with the other starting option: What if she doesn't like her job? There the prompt has to be, Why hasn't she left it so far?

what if she has no qualifications?

what if she's trying to apply for lots of jobs, but can't get interviews?

what if it's only recently she hasn't liked her job?

what if a work colleague has been promoted to boss and is now making her life hell?

I like this option the least, because it puts her in a negative or victim situation.  I'd rather my character was making positive choices.  On the other hand, I want her to move forwards so the last couple of options could work.  

On the first option, I'm aware that Natalie in A Single to Rome loves her job but gets fired, so that's not a route I'm keen on. 

I'll show a possible route tomorrow, along with the questions/possibilities it suggests.

Ideas R Us

It's one of the standard questions writers get asked: Where do you get your ideas from? The short answer is something like, Ideas-R-Us, where you can get a boxed set for £9.99 and the deluxe version (bestseller guaranteed) for only £19.99. The reality is that ideas are all around us, whether from something we hear from friends, or see on television or read in the papers or just from observation of daily life. Finding ideas really isn't a problem. Finding a good idea is another matter.

A good idea is one that matters to you. That's why it's no good telling me all about your amazing idea and suggesting I might like to write it up. The idea is amazing to you, so you should write it. It's not MY amazing idea, so I'm not going to spend the best part of a year slaving away - writing is hard enough when it matters. The next thing to look for is scope. When you think of your idea, lots of possible directions should come into your head. Some writers use spider diagrams for this stage - you know, those ones where you start with a word in the centre and radiate ideas, joining them with lines so the end result is a page of words all linked like a spider's web.

I prefer to play What If. What if this happened? How would I react? What might happen next? What would make it really tough? What if that happened? And so on. With A Single to Rome, I started with What if you thought you were going to marry someone, and then they dumped you? How would you feel? What would you do? Would you want revenge? (By the way, that's why my working title was 38 Bonks.) I knew I wanted to send Natalie to Rome because I'd been a student there and fancied writing about it, so why was she going? To escape, fine, but who was she going to stay with? How would she meet them? What if they had their own problems?

In answering those questions I was able to start writing, and in the process of writing the novel, ditch some of the original questions and ask new, more interesting ones (which is why it didn't end up being called 38 Bonks, although that stayed as the working title because it makes me laugh). Good ideas inspire good questions. Good questions inspire good answers. Good answers mean - I hope - good novels. It's either that, or this year for Christmas I'm asking for the deluxe idea set.