From the course: Write a Bestselling Novel in 15 Steps

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Dark night of the soul: Explanation

Dark night of the soul: Explanation

From the course: Write a Bestselling Novel in 15 Steps

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Dark night of the soul: Explanation

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- [Instructor] For every action, there is a reaction. For every catalyst, there is a debate. And for every all is lost, there is a dark night of the soul. I just love the title of that beat. It's so dang appropriate. If the all is lost was the beat in which the hero hit rock bottom, then the dark night of the soul is the beat in which the hero sulks in their rock bottom and questions their very soul or at least their very flaws. Remember, the all is lost was a single scene beat. Something happened to force the hero to that rock bottom place and then it was over. So now the hero has to, you know, deal with it. And they get multiple scenes to do that. The dark night of the soul takes up about 5% of your novel. It goes from the 75% mark to the 80% mark. But I've also seen it done successfully in less pages. The point is your hero needs time to process. They need time to react. Like the debate that came after the catalyst, the dark night of the soul is when the hero sits down and thinks…

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