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Oct 26, 2025 at 3:32pm
#3765301
Hello there. For those of you that haven't finished the challenge yet, day 27 is a different assignment. While the contest challenge on Saturday helped you think about what happens before your story even starts, the one for today has a different focus. Now is time to consider what goes on after the end. How does the character feel? What changes have been made or developed over the time of the story? And to do this, instead of just listing the different changes and where things go from the end, you can try out a different approach. That is the style of the interview. Assignment: You are a journalist. The story of your novel is complete. Interview your protagonist and ask the following questions: (1) How is life for you now, compared to life prior to these events? (2) How did the events of your story change you? I have to admit that this assignment was easier the first couple of years when I attempted Prep. That is probably due to the fact that I was in college and worked for the newspaper. It's a little easier to imagine interviewing fake people when you have had some practice doing interviews with people in person. Or at least, it was for me. Now, nearly 20 years later, it's a little hard to get into the journalist mindset. But that's not the only option. For those that can do it. Have fun. Pull the main protagonist out for a moment and grill them. Ask a few questions and just get an idea how things are going to settle down once the smoke clears and the grand finale has passed. What happens after curtains down and the show is over? You can even pick a different style of newspaper journalist. They aren't all the same so the interview doesn't have to be one particular way or another. If you struggle with putting yourself as the question talker asking your character about their world, then try something else. Another option here is to have dialogue between the protagonist and another character from the story. They can ask the questions about how things are and such. Like, with my witch and detective story well, the witch isn't going to talk to some random newspaper person and the detectives can't divulge information. But the witch could maybe answer questions from his sprite cousin that works in his shop or maybe the cat/dragon familiar. The story with the regular detectives, well the partner finds out something he didn't know about his own partner, so he may have some questions. Have a little fun with it. The goal here is to look at the end for not just the big conflict but also to consider a little the character arc for the story but in a creative way. You can do it! Have fun. |
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by Dawn Embers
