MidSommer Madness starts on June 1 at Liberty Hall. You do not have to be a member to do this. Just go to the blog every day to see what that day's task is. If you wish to have peer review, set it up amongst yourselves and share via email or forums, etc.

http://www.libertyhallwriters.org

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Day 1 - Write a one-paragraph summary of your novel.

Imagine that this is your back cover blurb. How might you structure this premise so that it would sound interesting to an agent and potential reader?

Day 2 Identify and describe the ‘genre’ and major restrictions of that genre.

For instance: if you are writing a fantasy, will it be set in the real world, contemporary or historical? Will you employ significant world building as in high fantasy or will your world be realistic as with magical realism? These are all things to consider when building your resource list.

Post the results to your forum.

Day 3 Write a paragraph or create a chart that describes the story arc.

What is your main conflict? (This is a good place to start as it relates directly to your theme and climax.) What is your introduction, your rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution? Is there a denouement or will you leave this up to the reader’s imagination? (Post-modern writers often leave denouements up to the readers.) Remember that this story arc can and will likely change over the course of writing your novel. That’s okay. At this stage, you’re just drafting.

Post the results to your forum.

Day 4 Go to each of the participating members’ topics and critique the above (Days 1-3).

Don’t kill yourself doing too much; this is supposed to be fun. Pick out and note what works well. Identify what doesn’t work for you and tell the author why it didn’t. Try to suggest an alternative.