It was a whopping 50 degrees here in northern Wisconsin and felt downright hot outside. Such a departure from the previous -20 degree nights and 5 degree days. We actually popped a window and felt warm, fresh air for the first time since September.
Spring, for me, means the arrival of warmer weather, puddles, and happier dispositions. It also marks my annual "getting out of here" vacation.
I'll be gone all next week (hint, hint: no new blog post next week - take a break for yourself, too) catching some much needed warmer temps in the southern portion of the USA.
To prepare for this trip, I had to write something new. A care instruction sheet for the person watching my rabbit while I'm away.
It was not more than a page and consisted mostly of bullet points detailing her morning, afternoon, and evening routines, and yet, it was one of the most important pieces I'd ever written. Without this care instruction sheet, the bunny-sitter would have no idea how to properly care for Bun. Without being able to read through her routine, the sitter would not understand why Bun was biting his ankles profusely at seven o'clock in the evening. Without a perfectly understandable and direct care sheet, the unneeded stress inflicted upon the sitter and my Bun would be immense.
And it hit me that something so mundane as writing out a daily routine could mean a great deal if done improperly.
In the moment I reread the care instructions before printing a few copies (in case the first copy was lost, then the backup lost, and the backup's backup lost) I thought of my protagonists daily routines. No doubt he/she has one. Perhaps it's like my rabbit's and takes up, in single spaced font, an entire page. Perhaps their routine is less of an all-day occurrence and more of a morning ritual and bedtime custom.
Perhaps your protagonists lives are so unpredictable that they are reduced to single days in a week - I do laundry on Saturday...I eat fish on Fridays...I get coffee the first Monday of every month...no post on Sundays.
Whatever it is, your protagonists, like my Bun, expect their daily routine to go uninterrupted. And it is when there is an interruption that we have a story on our hands.
So, here's the steps I want you to take:
1. Write down your protagonist's daily routine. If it was the best, most predictable week of their lives, what would they do in the morning, afternoon, and evening of every day? What would their "normal" look like.
2. Implement your inciting incident. What throws the routine out of whack?
3. Document how this will interrupt the protagonist's natural flow of their routine. How will they react to this? What will they do to get things back to their normal?
Trust me, it's one thing to think you know their routine and quite another to have it sitting in front of you. When writing out Bun's routine, I'd thought it'd be simple: feed her this food at this time, clean her soiled litter box, give her cuddles, etc. But actually writing it out in detail caused me to truly focus on how much of a scientific method we have to our coexistence. Your protagonists will have this as well if you intend to make them real, tangible, believable people.
As the weather warms and you air out your house, take the time to stop and air out your novel and its main characters, too. Dive deep into what makes them them. If you do it now, it'll save you a lot of headaches down the road when you're revising for the umpteenth time and still can't get Janet's reaction to event X down pat, or when you're on a twenty-hour car ride to another state and the rabbit sitter can't find the correct bag of veg in the fridge to feed your starving Bun.
Do your planning now. Reap the rewards and relaxation later.
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