Monday, March 12, 2007

GMC Decoded

I’m actually afraid to say this out loud, or to type the words, but...I think I may have decoded the mystery of GMC. Granted, for many people, this isn’t much of a mystery. I know some people who can whip off their characters internal and external GMC the same way some of us can whip off the different kinds of Lindt chocolate balls available at their local Chapters.

But not me.

Every now and then I think I have it within my grasp but the harder I think about it the more elusive it becomes. Internal mixes with external, goals overlap motivation and the conflict doesn’t blend cohesively with any of it. Oddly enough, I can write the book and have those elements present in the writing, but if you were to ask me to nail them down, or pick them out, I stutter and stammer and get this blank, glazed look in my eye. Eventually I wander off wondering where it all went so horribly wrong.

But today in the lunch room, as I worked on my hero’s GMC for Brimstone, it became clear to me. I had an epiphany. The skies opened up, sunbeams danced upon the looseleaf, a chorus of angels sang. I wept with joy. Okay, perhaps I didn’t actually weep, I was sitting amongst my co-workers after all. But I did to a small little happy dance in my chair. Complete with arm-pumping.

If I manage to pull off my heroine’s GMC with equal ease, I’m not sure I can be held responsible for my actions.

8 comments:

Lexi said...

Awesome news on the hero's GMC. Good luck on the heroine's!

Unknown said...

Awesome Kelly!! GMC always seems like such a good idea to plot, and I usually try, but it changes on me as I write the story. At least it's a starting point.

I hope your heroine cooperates. :)

Anonymous said...

Good for you! Hopefully your heroine's will fall into place easily.

I just spent two days trying to figure out the GMC for my story. It's the conflict. I have lots of internal, but am woefully short on external. Argh!

Tess said...

Yay!!! I love epiphany moments like that - hope it happens with your heroine too :-)

Julia Phillips Smith said...

I think pantsers - like myself - find prefiguring out GMC to be an ordeal. But I never really have it in my mind as I write. I discover it when I go back and reread it.

Unknown said...

I have the same problem with GMC. But I have a critique partner who is EXCELLENT at it so she does it for me.

I try to have a GMC for each scene too. I find the smaller scale a little easier to wrap my brain around.

Sometimes I can figure it out about three quarters of the way through the book

Anonymous said...

I suck at GMC. I usually can get the heroine's...but I can't ever seem to vocalize the hero's in a way that it..well, conflicts with the heroine's. I'm working on that right now.

so if you could give me the secret...

Julie S said...

Great news! You're very lucky. GMC is hard, I don't care what anybody says. Personally, I get it in theory but that's about as far as I get...