The big news for us this week is, of course, the new Hero Map.
If you didn’t get the email update, you can sign up here for the free Hero’s Guide: Get The Hero’s Map just by asking for it. There’s a wealth of information that put the entire idea of heroic characters into the proper perspective.
In this guide, we backtrack from the the five fundamentals of character to explore the larger idea of the hero’s journey. It’s easy to imagine that the hero’s journey, with it’s epic and sweeping scale, is a framework worth of stories like Dune and the Game of Thrones series. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
In mapping the hero’s journey, it became clear that this framework is perfect for really focusing on any human experience that forces a character into change against her will. You read this in The Hunger Games and in Jane Eyre, in The Hobbit and Robinson Crusoe. An in “The Hero’s Map,” we explain how simple it is to take the most unlikely protagonist and turn him or her into a hero with a few, simple tweaks to the character and plot.
We’ve even provided examples in mentor text and helped you map your way through the planning in 8 easy steps.
Over the next month of NaNoWriMo, we promise to keep delivering content that helps you get over some of the toughest hurdles in this fabulous month of writing. To make it more interesting, we’ve created a theme for the month of NaNoWriMo that we’ll unveil with the opening of National Writing Month. Check back as we open the threaded discussion group for writing questions and the fiction writer’s community.
That’s it for this Wednesday … enjoy The Hero’s Map and stay safe on The Night of Writing Dangerously!
— Jackie St. James
Chief Content Officer, Author & Editor