#NaNoWriMo and a #Free #Writing Tool
(Beth Turnage Blog) So you are deep in NaNo and emotions run high. Perhaps you’ve finished a chapter or two, but then the dreaded crash. You know where you are heading but now you’ve become stuck in the mire.
Because I write a lot of novels each year for my clients, I don’t have the time to wallow through the muck. One thing I found helps me move along is this tool.
The questions this form helps you answer are:
What happens in the chapter?
Who is your POV character?
What is your character’s:
a.)motivation
b.)conflicts
c.)feelings on the matter
But the real gold in this sheet is this:
This is the lower half of the sheet. I find it helpful to separate the chapter into three parts and use escalating emotions, and increasing jeopardy to jack the tension of the chapter. I choose three emotions, escalating in intensity for the chapter. For this, the book The Emotion Thesaurus is very helpful. But if you want to use the online version, I suggest ponying up for a monthly subscription of One Stop for Writers which was created by the authors of The Emotion Thesaurus as well as their other fine thesauri. Pro hint: It’s so much easier copying and pasting the information you want to use than typing it from the book. 
I’ll use most of the first third examining the character’s reactions and emotions about the action in the previous chapter. At the first one-third mark, I’ll change up the chapter with a twist and set up the action to come. The last one-third is about the action, and the result of the action, with a set-up for the chapter to come.
So, if you ever cross a chapter you have trouble gestating, this sheet will help you to hash it out.