Last week we finally started our story, using all of the tools we have talked about so far (you can find what we actually wrote here).

So, let’s keep going. I will start us off with the last few lines of what we had already.

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“Lemon,” her mother continued, “I just ran out of milk and I need to finish this recipe for the bake sale. Take some money out of my purse over there and run down to the store and get some for me, will you?”

Gulp.

Lemon walked over to her mother’s purse and gingerly pulled out a ten-dollar bill. She looked at the front door and then turned to her mother.

“Are you sure that you can’t just—”

“Lemon, please hurry!”

Lemon carefully folded the bill and put it into the front pocket of her overalls and then slipped on her rubber boots. It wasn’t raining; Lemon just really liked those boots.

“I would like to buy some milk, please,” Lemon practiced under her breath as she walked.

“I would like…”

“I would like to buy…”. She stopped and sighed.

“Pardon me, good sir. Might I prevail upon you to supply me with…” Ugh. It was no good. Her palms were starting to sweat.

Lemon took the bill out of her pocket and looked at it while she walked. It gave her something to think about. Something other than going in there and talking to mean old Mr. Lamprey.

She tried to see, in her mind, what it would be like to just go in there and buy the milk like everyone else seemed to do.

What she didn’t see was the broken part of the sidewalk in front of her.

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So there are a couple of things we can point out here. First, do you remember how we talked about the inciting incident, the thing that kicks off the adventure? And how we said that it had to be something that the hero willingly takes on.

Think of Chief Brody in Jaws, or Moana, or lots of others; the thing that kicks the story off is something that the hero says yes to, even if doing it isn’t their favorite thing.

In fact, that probably works out better. Not their favorite thing, but on the face of it, it looks do-able.

The other thing is that in terms of beginnings, we are getting a pretty good sense of who she is and what her character is like (which will help us come up with kinds of problems that directly relate to how we want her to change).

So, we’re rolling now. And when we meet again next week, let’s try to give her something bigger to deal with.

Happy writing, young writer.