The Magna Carta I & II, the fork in the Novel

They are really just my Likes & Dislikes, to help point me in the right direction and they come in the form of two lists called the Magna Cartas I & II.

Chris Baty's No Plot, No Problem book introduced the twin lists as a guide and after I created them I could review the lists during next months NaNoWriMo, through out the writing process.

This is just a reminder of things I enjoy to read and things I try to avoid and in doing this, I'll try and use some of the same items from Magna Carta I and steer clear of Magana Carta II this month. So let me start off with my Magna Carta I and some of the things I like in books.

Magna Carta I (Likes)

1. Fantasy


2. Magic


3. Sci-Fi


4. Complex Characters


5. Humor


6. Witty Banter


7. Emotional situations


8. Fast paced stories


9. Lots of twists


10. Surprises

Now for the things I really don't care for in books or the types of books in general I avoid all together.

Magna Carta II (Dislikes)

1. Romance Novels


2. Westerns Novels


3. Extreme Gore


4. Sexual Violence


5. Racism or Sexism


6. Very limited to hardly any dialog at all


7. Flat & boring Characters


8. Bad Stereotypes


9. Slow paced stories

I have my general path to work on and the things I would like to try and include in my novel, as well as the things I should really avoid. I'm not saying that things on list one are always right or things on list two are always wrong. It's a choice I need to make and the things I need to remember and include or exclude. I'm sure Romance & Westerns are great, just not my kind of thing.

Things are starting to fall in place and I only have one last item to take care of. I'm sure he's watching and eager to speak his mind and try and put his twist on my story this month. I know he means well, but I'll need to sit him down and ask him for a favor and to really wait till I'm done. I'll let you know how that all goes next time... other than that, I'm ready to rock and roll this crazy thing.