# The Blueprinting Process — Step by Step

## Overview

The blueprint is not a traditional outline. It is built scene by scene, grounded in the protagonist's internal story, and developed iteratively alongside drafting. Plot is the servant of story — external events exist to force the internal transformation.

The process starts with the internal architecture and builds outward.

## Step 1: The What If

Every story begins with a premise. A story-worthy What If must contain three elements:

1. **Context** — the specific world, circumstances, and relationships that make the situation meaningful
2. **Conflict** — not just external obstacle, but the seed of internal struggle
3. **A point** — the thematic question the story will interrogate

### Testing Your What If
A neutral What If is not story-worthy:
- "What if a woman got a new job?" → neutral, no internal conflict implied
- "What if a woman who built her identity around being indispensable at work was promoted into a role where she has to delegate everything?" → story-worthy, implies collision between identity and situation

The What If is not a plot summary. It is closer to a thesis statement for the story's meaning.

## Step 2: The Protagonist

The protagonist is not whoever the story happens to — it's the person whose internal change the story is about.

### Key Questions
- Who has the most to lose internally?
- Whose worldview will be most challenged by the What If?
- Who will be forced to change or be destroyed by the attempt to avoid it?

### Common Errors
- Introducing too many characters without a clear focal point
- Choosing a protagonist who is too passive or already enlightened
- Confusing the most active character with the most internally conflicted one

## Step 3: Misbelief and Desire

### The Misbelief
A false conclusion about how the world works, rooted in a specific past experience. Not a character flaw — a coping strategy. It protected the protagonist once; now it imprisons them.

Excavate until the misbelief is:
- Specific enough to state in one sentence
- Traceable to a concrete origin experience
- Active — currently shaping decisions
- In direct conflict with the desire

### The Desire
Something the protagonist has wanted, perhaps for years. The misbelief prevents them from achieving it. Every time they move toward the desire, the misbelief sabotages them.

## Step 4: The Origin Scene

Write the specific moment the misbelief formed. Not a summary — a full scene in the protagonist's subjective POV. The reader must see the emotional logic: how this conclusion made sense at the time.

## Step 5: Escalating Backstory

Write 3-5 scenes from the protagonist's past showing the misbelief deepening:
- Each scene tests or activates the misbelief
- The protagonist acts on it, and the result appears to confirm it
- Each scene escalates in significance — the costs increase
- The pattern explains who the protagonist is on page one

## Step 6: The Opening

The novel begins at the last possible moment — when the protagonist can no longer avoid confronting the thing the misbelief has protected them from.

The opening scene must accomplish:
1. Establish the protagonist's internal state (desire, misbelief, the world they believe they're living in)
2. Introduce the unavoidable external problem
3. Plant seeds of major internal conflicts
4. Establish a ticking clock

### The Unavoidable External Problem Must:
- Directly threaten or challenge the misbelief
- Activate the long-standing desire
- Have a clear ticking clock
- Have a clear consequence the reader can anticipate from page one

Write a first-layer version. It will be rewritten many times. Use TK for elements not yet known.

## Step 7: The Ending (The Aha Moment)

Determine the internal climax before constructing the middle.

The Aha moment is not the plot climax — it is the moment of internal change: when the protagonist confronts and dismantles (or fails to dismantle) their misbelief.

Requirements:
- **Earned** — pushed to the absolute edge
- **Specific** — a precise scene-level moment
- **Tied to the third rail** — causally connected to everything the plot has put them through

The ending will change as the story deepens. That is fine.

## Step 8: Building Scene Cards

With opening and ending bookended, build Scene Cards connecting them.

For each scene:
- **External event**: What happens
- **Internal meaning**: How it forces the internal struggle forward
- **Urgency hook**: What question it raises for the reader
- **Cause**: What scene triggered this one
- **Effect**: What this scene triggers next

### Using TK
"To come" — a placeholder for something that must be there but isn't yet known. TKs are not failures; they are honest markers of what needs excavation.

### Mining the Past for Plot
Use backstory scenes to generate plot events. The protagonist's misbelief will predictably cause them to react in certain ways — those reactions generate consequences — those consequences become plot.

### The Sixth Tick
The last thing that happens before the novel begins. The final moment of the "before" life. Usually the event that makes the unavoidable external problem unavoidable.

## Step 9: Writing Forward

Stories grow in spirals:
- Write a scene → it reveals something about the past
- Revise earlier scenes → reveals something about the future
- Each pass deepens rather than merely extends

Draft and blueprint simultaneously. The two activities inform each other. Don't complete the blueprint before writing; don't write without blueprinting.

### The Plot Trap
Once a plot is in motion, it is tempting to follow external events wherever they lead while the internal story quietly suffocates. For every external event, ask: does it force the internal struggle forward? If not, cut or replace.

### Trust the Cards
When lost in a scene, return to the Scene Card. What is the internal meaning of this moment? What must the protagonist realise, resist, or choose?
