35 Comments
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Nicki Rose-White's avatar

Character 1 - The coffee shop is closed

Character 2 - Has a pregnancy scare

Eve's avatar

Once Outis completes his first task as messenger to the herald, he unknowingly proves himself to his statue companions, forcing Outis into solitude as they never return to life again.

The Story Professor's avatar

Great. So Outis is forced into solitude and it starts his journey. This book is shaping up so well!

Stephie Buckingham's avatar

Casey wakes up one morning to discover she's part-wolf (the most feared and despised creature in her world), but that's not the half of it, her wolf has just killed someone.

The Story Professor's avatar

Woah...the last part of that sentence had my eyes popping out of my head. THAT'S a hook!

alice's avatar

Sophie has the accident when driving the train and gets signed off work. She moves her mother into a care home and finds the grimoire. Then later on, she reads in the diary what her grandmother did to her grandfather and that destabilises her. She falls into a dark magic spiral and has to find her way out

The Story Professor's avatar

Great: so Sophie discovers/reads the grimoire, and it starts her journey. (Have I told you how much I LOVE books about magic and witches?!)

Kevin Fussell's avatar

Destabilising moment works a lot better for me. Call to adventure always sounds so positive.

Mine is: When children in a busy city mysteriously disappear, a detective is tasked with finding them before it is too late.

The Story Professor's avatar

Glad that term works better for you! It makes way more sense for me too. Your destablising moment is great, because there's mystery attached (of course), and we automatically ask, "what happened to the kids?!" We're destablised with you.

Suzanne Parnell's avatar

Her mother’s death had shaken her but, on top of this, the company she had given her life to and which held her in such high regard, it seemed, announced a reorganisation – and her role had become surplus.

The Story Professor's avatar

Yes, it sounds like the reorganisation is what really does it. Once you write out that first few chapters and get to this moment, you'll see what really sets her out on the journey.

Victoria's avatar

My destabilising moment is when Prince Karim wakes up to see Wren by his bed, looking hurt. Shaking her head, she turns and leaves. Before Karim can process this, he hears a seductive laugh next to him.

In that instant he knows his life will change but by how much depends on his next course of action. Go after Wren or roll over and enjoy the dreams lying beside him.

The Story Professor's avatar

This sounds like his choice moment. I wonder if the accident is actually that one one moment that changes everything. What do you think?

Yatsuko Howes's avatar

My protagonist is invited to sing as a professional to the audience entirely consisted by the Allied and their families stationed in Tokyo, and that is against the school rules and her parents surely disapproves, so she decides to do it secretly.

The Story Professor's avatar

Great! A literal invitation! Love that.

Richard Jackson's avatar

I'm probably going to cheat again - I'm playing the two (ish) heroes card...

So for Jack: He gets a phone call with a voice telling him that they have his sister and he is now theirs or he will never see her again.

For Carrie: She gets kidnapped from her bed in the middle of the night.

But I have a question. Is that the destabilising moment for Carrie - because she has no choice? She can't choose not to be kidnapped. Does the destabilising moment have to have that element of choice, in which case hers is not coming until a wee bit later. But it seems weird not to have "being kidnapped" as the destabilising moment...

The Story Professor's avatar

Your instinct to ask this question is spot on...and today's video (Saturday the 10th) will answer that for you! There are two types: the actual choice, or they have no choice. Let me know if today clears it up for you.

Rebecca New's avatar

Authority reps come to Leah’s work to tell her her father is dead. It should be impossible, she’s never heard of anyone’s date of expiry tattoo being incorrect, but the reps are adamant his tattoo stated the correct date and he must have just avoided the end of life call up for the Transition centre (what we would call a hospice) he must have had.

The Story Professor's avatar

Amazing. So her father dying is the destablising moment, and that's so clean and perfect. It launches into a problem to solve / a question to answer.

ClareFHCreates's avatar

For Thalia in book one, her destabilising moment is sort of two things. She gets forced out of her world by a funeral so she must go back home, but that doesn't really change change it, what changes it is when an Angel and demonic creature fall into her courtyard. In this book, her situation destabilises once more when she discovers the person she has been sent to find, is dead. For Anthea - her destabilising moment is clear cut, her father comes home drunk, has no money for the protection fee and so Anthea is kidnapped by Reivers. For Kellan - his OG moment is when his father and brother "die" at sea and a strange Regent steps in for the throne, forcing Kellan out. (More widely this is the OG entire world destabilising moment.) As of when we join him in the book- his destabilising moment (Although he doesn't really know it) is when he rescues Anthea. And boy, does his world change after that.

The Story Professor's avatar

Great. So some of these are going to be the trials and tests, and it sounds like the real destablising moment is the creature falling into the courtyard. We'll see once you get it on the page!

Penelope O'Gara's avatar

Mine's fairly basic: our swashbuckling anti-hero finds the girl alone, moves to kiss her - then doesn't. "Not yet..."

The Story Professor's avatar

Ohhhhh. And is that really out of character for him? It reminds me of these super 'trashy' books I picked up a while ago to see how they were structured. (It's called the Four Horsemen series.) In the second book, War, the destablising moment is the very last line of chapter 3, when War is about to kill the protagonist, and he stops and goes, "You're my wife." And we're like WHAT? HUH? Now we have a story! (Perhaps worth an easy, trashy read?)

Penelope O'Gara's avatar

It's VERY out of character. (And are you calling me trashy??? 😄)

The Story Professor's avatar

Hahaha...no no...but maybe I'm calling myself trashy? (Because I did kind of enjoy those books. Shhh, don't tell my mother.)

Penelope O'Gara's avatar

I may have just downloaded the first one on Kindle unlimited.... Shall report back!

Richard's avatar

OK, for my story it is the moment she discovers her father has gone MIA whilst out scavenging (and she was back home partying and shirking her responsibilities). If she chooses to do nothing, she risks it all - her life and the lives of all her extended family, the crew of the Martian Crawler.

The Story Professor's avatar

Great. Fantastic! And I love that it happens when she's living her core flaw!

Rook's avatar

The destabilising moment - Alice leaves her room and the hallways have branched out like a maze, she is trapped

I plan to hint at the buildings transformation in the setup, the stairs feel a step or two longer than usual one morning, the rat infestation gets worse, a rusty pipe in the bathroom has become 3

The Story Professor's avatar

These hints will be fantastic! Like something is a little OFF, but we can't quite tell.

Olly Riach's avatar

to keep it short, once the first two candidates for the voice of the town to the governing committee of the continent are announced, the Bard's daughter, who I have decided to call Eilidh, is struck with fear, both candidates believed in a humans first world, one going as far to suggest hiring an extremist group of witch hunters to protect the town. The same group that drove her and her father out of their last home.

For Lyca nothing could destabilise her, or so she thought.

tale 1- When called upon to slay a dragon which had scorched the village of Caldscar, she comes face to face with the beast only to discover it had the same scars as Vel'ach, missing an ear like her companion and its front leg marked with the same patterns as the curse that nearly killed her years before. This fight could not be won with a sword.

tale 2- she found out the person she had chosen to replace the fallen empress was created by the fallen God Beinn and sought to eliminate all life on the continent.

Liam Marshall's avatar

My destabilising moment is the return of the character who does not share the collective false memory.