NewNovelist Novel Writing Software Tutorials
New Novelist software for writers is structured to process your story in five stages in accordance with the Jarvis Method. These stages are Story Concept, Story Category, Story Type, World Creation and Story Creation. The first three stages are processed through a Story Wizard to enable the story engine to “know” what components make up your story and therefore which template it naturally fits into.
You begin by giving your story a title or name. This, like nearly everything else about your story idea can be changed later. But the story wizard will not let you proceed without it. Once you have typed in the name or title for your story idea the Newnovelist story wizard will then ask you to supply a story concept, which is the briefest premise you can come up with for your story. The story concept is meant to capture the essence and purpose of your story and takes the form:
SUBJECT,-->CONFLICT,-->OBJECT
The subject is your character or idea, the conflict describes what happens to the character in the story or the major thrust of the plot, and the object represents the outcomes for your character. All this has to be summed up in a one-liner and coming up with this sort of succinct summary for your story idea is quite challenging but it is in fact a good exercise and one that forces you to think in depth what your story really is about. You can of course go back and change the story concept later. An example of a story concept reads something like this:
Young idealist, exposes at great risk to herself, a corrupt corporation
When you are done writing your story concept the Story Wizard in New Novelist novel software asks you to specify the story category and you can select from Plot, Character-driven or Epic story types. Nearly any story you ever want to write falls under one or the other of these three story categories.
Finally the story wizard asks you to select one from 21 story types. Most stories will usually fall under one of these 14 story types: Character Adventure, Locale Adventure, Chase, Capture and Escape, Coming of Age, Excess and Downfall, Kidnap and Rescue, Love, Intense Love, Puzzle, Revenge, Supernatural Transformation, Internal Transformation, or Triumphant Victim. Some of these can belong to both Epic and Character or Epic and Plot.
Each of these story types follows a 12-step template for writing your story and these 12 steps are unique for each story type. To find the best-fitting template for your story idea you may need to experiment with two or more story types and then checking what the story engine gives you in the 12-step story creation phase. New Novelist novel software always updates your template based on your selections. An example will make this clearer.
Let’s say you have selected PLOT story category as the one that best describes your story idea and you have selected TRIUMPHANT VICTIM for your story type. The story engine in NewNovelist novel program will assign these 12 steps to your story:
Step 1. Personality and Activity of Hero: This stage describes the hero’s everyday activities in the Ordinary World before the dramatic changes, e.g.: The hero is a child growing up happily in a loving home.
Step 2. Challenge: This stage describes the dramatic changes that propel the hero into the external world, e.g.: A severe reversal in the child’s fortunes sees his home broken up.
Step 3. Mentor/Helper: This is the stage where the hero finds a helper or sidekick character. E.g. the hero finds a friend
Step 4: The Edge of Adventure: This is where you introduce the event or circumstance that begins the hero’s journey, e.g. the hero starts out for a new home
Step 5: Point of No Return: At this point the hero enters the world of his antagonist, which could be another character, a situation or state, a new place etc.,e.g. the hero arrives at new home and life is never the same again.
Step 12. Resolution, e.g.: Final status of the Hero, maybe a change in circumstances, a better home, etc
You might find that these steps do not represent the course of your story as you imagine it. Your story is still a Plot category story though. So you may go back and select another story type, say Kidnap and Rescue. NewNovelist novel software will then assign a different set of story creation steps as follows:
- Heroine and potential victim at home à 2. Kidnapping of victim …à 6. Heroine's attempts at rescue à…12. Heroine and victim back home.
I think you get the picture. The thing here is that you can try as many story types as you want and find one that best describes your story idea.
A note about the 12 steps: You are not bound to follow the 12 steps in the exact order in which they are presented. New Novelist allows you to change the order of the steps and also to rename them to suit your unique story concept. Plus, you can make these changes at any point as you go. When it comes to story creation you are again free to work in any stage of your choice, not necessarily chronologically. The novel program basically assigns a template to your story and stores your settings but after that your storytelling experience is determined more or less by your personal tastes, your preferred method of work and your style.
The story wizard in NewNovelist novel writers program is a nice story-development tool that enables you to plan your novel by taking your story idea, finding the best template for it, and refining its plot structure so you know that everything hangs nicely together and you will have a trouble-free story-telling experience once you embark on the story creation itself. The story templates in New Novelist are designed basing on the finest works of fiction past and present, but you still have lots of room to write your story in your unique style and following your unique technique.
Read Also: Novel Writers Program For The New Novelist
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