The Vonnegut Spread

******Vonnegut Spread*****

Card One: What the character wants (Spear Two)
The hawk waiting to be released, the spear waiting to be thrown, the clear path forward

Card two: What opposes that want
The castle, shrouded in dreams and delusion. What is real and what is fantasy?

Card three: Rising Action
The journey into the otherworld to capture treasure

Card Four: Climax
Fosterage by the Lady of the Lake/the high Priestess; initiation into intuition

Card Five: Resolution
Who are what are you trying to best? Contention, a setting sun

Jumper: Spear Knight
What is being risked? A fearless, hot-headed warrior

 

The opening scene of my story has been the hardest to write. Interestingly, when I started writing my novel again, I skipped right past the mess that was the opening scenes and started writing the second day. When I saw the vonnegut spread, I decided it would be a great chance to start over, to scrap the original beginning and start anew. Imagine my surprise, then, when so many of the cards that came up echoed my original beginning. The lesson here was simple, to not abandon the first, uncertain starts, but to go back and deepen and edit the original beginning. In some ways, that can be harder. To look at pages you don’t like and see the beauty in them. To accept that it may not be what you wanted to say, but that you can make it better instead of scrapping it entirely.