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I am having a major struggle plotting this journey story. This is actually the second draft. I’m not even halfway through what I had planned for the first draft, but it came to my attention I was functioning off of an outline/plot structure that was doomed to fail. I love the Three Act plot structure, and I am trying to rework my second draft to fit that structure instead.

I have a journey story, and I am struggling with how to to properly outline it. Going into this second draft, I would like to open in the characters’ home village to develop the stakes and a sense of normalcy before throwing the characters into this huge journey. However, I don’t want to spend too much time here. In my first draft, I excluded this altogether. The opening scene was day three of their travels together.

But revealing them as the adventurers and having them set off sounds exactly like First Plot Point material. It’s a huge change. I just can’t have that be 25% into the story. The story is about the JOURNEY.

I’m concerned that if I come up with another plot point, that it will be overshadowed by this major change of events, and it will seem like I placed my plot point too early. Does this make sense?

Now you can see how I’m struggling. Also, I’m not sure how to craft stakes and motivation for these characters to embark upon a journey to collect something none of them care about as of yet.

I have been wrestling with this for weeks. I sat down this afternoon to really attack it, and after an hour my brain is spinning. Any suggestions at all would be helpful.