Oooh, Nils! Very cool! I hadn't seen that formula for loglines, but it's really good. It's a great way to focus your story.

I've come up with this to sort of summarize my women's fiction WIP.  The working title is LEAVING BLISS. 

Lani, this formula along with one of the writing prompts -- Write the first sentence of your story, giving an idea of the main characters, setting, and conflict -- is what really helped me focus my plot and figure out how to start at the beginning.

Amy -- That is a great title! And the summary is equally engaging; it immediately makes me want to pick up the book and read more.

I haven't quite decided what I'm going to be writing for nano yet. I'm still debating several options, but here's one idea:

When Virginia Dare receives a letter her father sent before he died 10 years before, she is drawn back home, to the house she left to try to discover the secrets her father left hidden for her in a childhood puzzle, which hints at some interesting historical artifacts.  While doing so, she and Alexander, a fellow intern at the Institute, try to figure out how Virginia's father's letter found it's way to her in college.  If she can't solve the puzzle her father left and figure out who wants her to go home and why, she will lose the only inheritance from her parents that she really cares about.

And here's another:

When Detective Lane is called to the scene of the first traffic accident since the automated driver system was put in to place 5 years before, he has the chance to prove that investigation techniques are still valuable in a world where technology has been entrusted with most causal determinations.  If he can't solve the murder, he will lose his job and his calling.

So, maybe one of those, or maybe something completely different!  We'll see. ;)

Nils, Lani, and Amy, I can't wait to hear more about all of your stories!

Hello, All~! ♫

I have done (& won) Nanowrimo since 2003... I am not published ~ don't want to be. I am fully jealous of those storytellers who have "trilogies" in their brains and 125,000 words in their fingertips~! O.O

I usually do a few short stories with a single 'theme' to get my 50,000... also, I put in more than one day of just plain old ranting for my 1,700 daily word count ^.^

I am afraid to commit to O.N.E. storyline and set of characters... *BUT* after listening to the StoryWonk pod casts ~ I have had a lightbulb moment (or more like ~ twenty seven of them) and am a new convert to "IT IS ALL ABOUT THE STORY~!"

I had a few "bad" (not nurturing) teachers in High School who cut my writing down, while my peers LOVED what I wrote. In all honesty, hindsight and all ~ @ the age of 16 ~ there was no arc, no real conflict, no goal outside what to wear to get the cute guy to like the girl and NO GROWTH of the characters~! It was more like I wrote MTV videos and the "preview commercials" of Lifetime movies >.<  

The teachers LOVED my essays, book reviews and writing prompts (like Elizabeth Berg's Writing the Wave) but my "stories" NOT~! I have been doing Nanowrimo to let my High School writer out... now, armed with StoryWonk insights, I can give her the TOOLS to tell the story better~!

Thanks ♥

Here's my logline thus far:

Jackie, a discontent graduate student seeking some excitement and an escape from her ordinary life, runs afoul of faeries and has to outsmart them or become their prisoner and be trapped in their world forever.

The longer version:

Jackie is out taking urban exploration photographs when she sees a band of faeries kidnap a human. The faeries see her, too, and they hunt her to get her photographs and keep her from telling what she saw.  Now, she must learn to fight them and stop their kidnapping ring or she will become their next stolen human and be trapped in their world forever.

I think I've finally settled on a project for nano!  Here's the tag line:

Alan Kingsley stumbles upon a plot against his king while Alan is recovering from recent injuries, he has to decide if he's willing and able to do what it takes to save the kingdom.  Complicating matters is the beautiful young woman who clearly has motives of her own tied to the plot, and who quickly captures Alan's heart.  If he isn't able to stop the plot, Alan will never forgive himself for failing his country and king or for loosing the woman of his dreams.

Yay Jenni! That's half the battle!

Speaking of which, I've decided which story to do for mine too...

When Bolero Bowers is given a second chance at life by an
Ehrdian witch she offers him an ultimatum. He must steal the Sealing Machine
which could release Angor, the vengeful former ruler of the world, or he will die
again. He becomes tangled in a silent power struggle that’s existed since humans
overthrew Angor and realizes that he may have more enemies than he thought.

Now, let's see if I can't stick to it until NaNo when I'm too committed to switch to another story. ; )

Molly, I'm still not convinced I'll actually stick to my story idea until November too, but I'm getting more excited about it, so things are promising!  I'll cross my fingers for both of us.  (Or at least if we switch at the last minute that we switch to something truly amazing!) ;)

All so interesting! Love the avalanche of moles.

I keep saying I won't do Nano this time cause it's a bad time in my life, but I may end up joining at the last minute because oooh so jealous when everyone I know is doing it!!

When [MAIN CHARACTER] [INCITING INCIDENT], he [CONFLICT]. And if he doesn’t [GOAL] he will [CONSEQUENCES].

When Liz gets permission from a cult that dabbles in shapeshifter mysticism to interview the leader for her PhD dissertation about werewolf origin mythology, the FBI asks her to take an undercover operative, a werewolf named Alex, into the cult with her as a research assistant. If Liz and Alex don't learn how to thwart the cult's dangerous followers, not only will Liz's dissertation and their budding affair be dead on arrival, but their bodies might never be found.

....and a sub-plot with Alex's bobcat cousin and his girlfriend, who's a witch and doesn't know it.

That is immensely clarifying to boil it down like that! I don't know if that's the book I'm going to end up with, but it should help begin with the end in mind, as they say.

When Mariska starts having dreams about her sister that has been missing for two years, she begins to believe that her sister might not be dead.  When she learns that her sister is actually alive, but possessed by this unknown evil, she must save her.  If she doesn't, well, obviously her sister will forever be lost.

When 12 year old Evie discovers her older sister, Della, is being courted by the school teacher on the same day that she rescues a horse that he'd been mistreating, she sets out to split them up - until her social climbing aunt leaves town with all the money left to the girls by their late parents. Now Della is determined to marry the teacher and his ill-gotten fortune, unless Evie can find the secret their mother left to them, the secret she keeps seeing in her dreams.

Hmm - I feel like that doesn't really capture everything that's going on in my head and on my whiteboard. ;-) 

Wow, all of these sound really good! I'd be interested in reading more of any of them!

Okay, here's mine. I didn't use the formula, just wrote the type of summary that might go on the back cover:

Delia Grey’s best friend is dead...and she’s not okay with that.

She’s not the only one, either. After The Tragedy last summer, lots of kids at the high school are missing friends and relatives, grieving and unable to move on. So when Delia overhears some teens in the mysterious group she privately refers to as “The Sleepers”—all of whom lost someone close to them in The Tragedy—talking about how they’ve found a way to contact the dead, she’s in. Doesn’t matter that she’s not invited, she’ll crash the party if she has to—even if it means going up against her friend’s beloved older brother, a member of the mysterious group. All she knows is that she has to talk to her friend again, no matter what the cost.

It just may cost her everything. Because the Land of the Dead is a dangerous, maybe even lethal, place...and someone, or something, wants nothing more than to trap Delia and the others there so it can feed off them. Forever.

**************************************************************************************************
I'd love to hear what you guys think! :)

Beth, that sounds great! I'm excited. All of these are really interesting ideas. Can't wait to see how they pan out!

I'm trying something completely new for me this year. Instead of women's fiction written in first person, I'm trying contemporary romance in third person. 

When [MAIN CHARACTER] [INCITING INCIDENT], he [CONFLICT]. And if he doesn’t [GOAL] he will [CONSEQUENCES]

Hmm. I'm going to change it up a little.

By day, Kendra is a super programmer for one of the world's most exclusive banking institutions, by night she's a hard hitting derby girl for the Metrocity Derby Dames. Blake is a retired Marine with a photographic memory and plenty of time to kill at his plush new job as head of security, but he can't stop gravitating to the programing star child. When Kendra drops one of her derby fliers in the lobby, Blake is shocked and intreigued to learn about her double life. As the games ramp up for a new year, Kendra has plenty to juggle without the added strain of someone messing with her code, and a man stalking her at the games.

...and that's taken me a few minutes. Happy procrastination! 

Thanks, Lani!

Wow, MelissaDK, I'm impressed--that is a huge undertaking, writing a character that belongs to a faith with so many rules to follow, what with keeping kosher and everything. I'd be very intimidated by that! Good for you!

This is my plot:

Sheila, Timothy and Tomba, who all share the same body, stumble across a government-plot for an Invasion of a peaceful planet -- but the more determined they and their friends fight against this war, the clearer the true face of their own government shows... If they can't stop this war, it will not only destroy a whole, beautiful world, but also everything they have always thought their own civilisation stood for.

It's supposed to be young adult's science fiction.

Melissa, perhaps romance is about figuring out exactly why and how we connect and how that pleases us, rather than figuring out what keeps us apart and how that hurts us?

Medi. Read your plot summary again, forget the last sentence that includes supposed, accept the first paragraph as your truth, and then tell me about your writer's block again. I love you when you're an idiot just as much when you're a genious. You manage to be both, and one amplifies the other. <3

I think the power of this formula is focusing on what we want to say, and not how we should do it.

Oh, it's taken me a while to get here, but this is where I'm coming from:

Oooh, Brusselsprout, that's so fascinating! It conjures up warm memories of Alanna/Alan from Tamora Pierce, and the artistic flavour is sure to pique my interest. That convent is a real threat! I love how she can choose between spy and murderer, or convent. That's some brilliant conflict right there.
Now I really want to be your beta reader! (: