I had never thought of it that way before either, but it does make sense. It goes with the "Somebody... wanted... but... so... then" method I teach my students to help them make sure they have a coherent plot for their short stories. "So" would also work in place of "therefore." The video's only a couple minutes long, so it's a quick watch. I wish it was longer; I would love to hear their whole talk! I think they are creative geniuses.
I guess it's possible to consider each chapter in a novel as a short story, but that that just makes it feel really convoluted. But you're right, every novel starts because a character wants something, but something happens to keep them from getting it. I do think sometimes I fall into an "and then" within a chapter, but between each chapter is typically a "but" or a "therefore." But... (lol) I think this is something to look at during editing. It was interesting, it said it premiered a while ago, so I wonder if there's a way to find the whole episode.
You know Nick's motivation in the story, so if you haven't already, maybe you need to take some time to think about the other guys' motivation as well. What do they want, and what gets in their way? How does taking on Nick's typical story roles affect them?
I do have all of this, I think I just made the mistake of writing in order when Brian's early arc was less interesting. (Sorry Brian.) It gets better later on, it's just not punchy from the beginning because he has this perfectly normal motivation in the beginning of the story. I think I made Brian too realistic in a story about subverting stereotypes, lol!
I guess I should figure out who's "I want" is the strongest besides Nick's "I want to be a minor character" (or we could call it Nick's "I absolutely do not want," lol) and write that part next. Or just skip ahead to the parts that should be more interesting and circle back instead of focusing on the beginning chapters. I don't know if it really matters if I'm holding on to it until I have some kind of backlog for it anyway.
I updated my word count spreadsheet today since I cracked 1000 words in a day again and I have written my word count goal for this month, just not in this story. My output for it and PDemons is about equal, but I've spent 20 less days trying to write something for PDemons. Is this WADD? I can't tell? lol
Edited to Add:I finished another chapter of PDemons today. Maybe I am WADDing...
In my stories, Howie and Kevin had the more interesting storylines from the beginning, and Nick just got dragged into their drama. Both of those stories started out more plot-driven, with Howie/Kevin being dealt a crappy hand within the first few chapters, and then became more character-driven as the rest of the story focused more on how they reacted to it and how it changed them.
Of course Nick got dragged into the drama because he can't just sit still when drama is around, lol! Do you feel like most of your stories switch to character-driven after the inciting incident and/or turning point? Or are there any that feel like they stay fairly plot-driven?
That makes sense. I don't really do that; I've never really enjoyed writing prompts or exercises, which I guess is why I end up posting whatever I finish. Even if it's silly, it's still a complete story, and if I'm entertained by it, I figure someone else might too. If I wrote more things like the six-word stories or bonus scenes I have no intention of putting in a story, I would keep those to myself too. I did once write an uncharacterist ically graphic Brian sex scene into a chapter of Undead just to see how Rose would react LOL; I had no intention of keeping it in the story, but I do still have that saved somewhere for my own amusement.
I really only look for them if I have a "I want to write, but what" moment. And as I've mentioned, this doesn't work well for my plantsing self for a full story, but it's usually good enough for a little sandbox moment.
These six word stories are hard since each word does count, literally, lol.
LMFAO! But what did she say?! Did she tell you to keep it?!