Over the last few days I’ve done a lot of crying, thinking, praying, and eating (Taco Chex Mix – yummy). As I’ve calmed down and let God begin to minister to my heart, I’ve realized one very important writing-related thing:
I’m methodical.
When I wrote my first novel, it was in the “pantser” style (for those of you how are unfamiliar, that’s short hand for fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants). I had an idea, I sit down, and I wrote. It wasn’t very good.
Now I’m working on #2. I’ve got over 40,000 words, but it’s not coming together. There’s a tension as I try to bring my characters together and weave their lives together. The more I write, the more I realize certain characters wouldn’t really do this or that, and I wonder if that problem is really such a big deal (and therefore strong enough to act as the main conflict). The more I write, the fiercer the struggle.
Since I put my manuscript aside I’ve been working on articles. I gather information, formulate a plan (which sometimes includes an outline), organize my notes, then write. My articles usually come together with minimal writing effort if my info is in place.
HELLO!!!
Why aren’t I doing that with my manuscript?? What I need is order – I need to have a plan in place, have my notes ready for review. If I had all of my info before I started, I imagine there wouldn’t be so many incoherent spots along the way.
So I’m appealing to all of you organization buffs – how did you learn to create your outlines, write up story boards, and put things together? Did you use a book? Hear a lecture? Meet a helpful alien?
My suggestion for getting all your pieces and parts organized — OneNote!
It's a Microsoft program. You can download a free, 60-day trial and check it out.
It allows you to set up "filing cabinets," (down the left side of the page) and in each filing cabinet, you set up tabs across the top of the page that I consider "drawers." Then, in each drawer you can set up individual pages, which go down the right side of the page.
It also allows you to search by words through ALL your OneNote files. So if you filed information for a story under more than one title, even under more than one category (I've done that!) you can search and find all the pieces. And it lets you move pages and folders from one folder/filing cabinet to another. It's wonderful!
Before someone recommended OneNote, I had all my story ideas in one humongous Word file, organized alphabetically. I had to search forever for my notes, because of course I filed them over the space of months, years even, and mis-filed/mis-labeled them.
You can set it up any way you want — it's YOUR filing cabinet, after all!
Another trick I use is to print out calendars — either weekly calendars or monthly — and make notes of what happens on each day. This is especially helpful when you have multiple storylines going — or in my case, multiple books that intersect and overlap — and you want to make sure that Tony isn't in the hospital in one book, when he's supposed to be at the county fair on the same day in another book!
Michelle Levigne
http://www.Mlevigne.com
Visit Tabor Heights, Ohio — A friendly little town on Ohio's North Coast, where sweet romance is always in the air!
Ha – now you're getting it. These are the things no one can tell you or show you or teach you; sometimes you must realize it on your own. My method is to do a flexible, short general outline of what's going to happen. I then do a page of characters, bolded, and add characteristics as I go, the ones that aren't all developed early on. I have settings, I have notes, I write moments about who meets whom when and how – I have these as separate documents in the same folder as my manuscript, and have them all open at the same time as I write. Sometimes I end up adding more to my scene/setting/character documents than my main ms, but I can often insert those scenes as I go.
I agree with Michelle. One note is great. I am using the new office 10 and there are improvements to one note that make it work with word even better.
If you can't do one note, Ywriter is a free program that is easy to learn and keeps track of a lot of things. I tend to use that, one note and the snowflake pro.
I started off as a panster and now I loosely plan. It takes a lot of time to write a book and without planning I noticed a lot of my writing is useless. Wasted time, not good!
I think the only way to get characters right is to understand personality of real people first. We writers are masters at that because we are people-watchers. But learning your characters first, like they are family members, helps to not write them into those "he would never do that/say that/think that" situations. And the fun thing is that even real people have what looks like conflicting pieces about their personality–but they are documented. There is a ton of info. on the web. I blog about character on Fridays and I write about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator for the lay-person (or writer!).
Nikki Studebaker Barcus
Living Life One Lesson at a Time
http://www.nikki-studebaker-barcus.blogspot.com
Wow. I'm impressed. People who use a software program to organize a story are way ahead of me. I'm an old school writer: write up the notes and print them out so I can look at them on paper while I deal with the story developments on screen. (I began writing on a typewriter in 1982, graduated to a personal computer at the end of 1983, and have reluctantly advanced through the various stages of computer technology as necessity demanded.) I do develop an outline of my story, sometimes quite extensive. The last book I wrote had about 60,000 words in it and the outline for it was about 30 typed pages. My outline grows as my story progresses. I sometimes write out of sequence when I know a particular encounter among characters is coming up and the words spring to my mind unbidden. Take advantage of that type of inspiration whenever it happens and file it appropriately to insert when needed. I have character sketches that also develop as the story progresses. And even though I do a lot of planning and developing before the first word of Chapter One goes down, I also do an incessant amount of rewriting. I have a mantra. The essence of writing is rewriting. One big benefit of the planning I do is that I almost never have to toss out a scene because it doesn't move the story forward or isn't relevant. My rewriting is constantly in the form of improving the concept I already have or adding details to it. So there you have an extensive explanation of what works for me.
I used to work off a very loose outline, but I struggled in the middle of the book. Then, I broke down and plotted every scene of my book before I wrote it. Setting, characters, whose POV it's in, what the character wants and why he can't have it. It made a huge difference!
Hi Karin,
I haven't tried the One Note idea although I know quite a few writers who use that. I tend to create best with notebook paper and pencil at first and then as thoughts start to gel I move them all to the computer. There's something about doodling and idea clusters (or clouds) that get my creativity sparking.
Good idea for a post. I like getting other's opinions on this. I think the way a person creates a story is very fluid and can change with each story written.
I've had plotting issues, too. I'm finding it's helpful get out a pen and a notebook and let my POV character tell me the story. It's like she's telling me about this period in her life over a cup of coffee. (Sort of; it's harder on my wrist than drinking coffee.)
Wow! Thanks, guys!! This is great info – I'm looking forward to trying something new (after I figure out which method to use).
I tried OneNote for awhile, then switched to MyBase Desktop.
Advantages: It's less expensive than OneNote and does a better job of capturing the links and images from Internet pages when you download them for future reference.
Disadvantages: Its file cabinet structure is not as user-friendly as OneNote, so you have to be very deliberate about how you organize your files.
For more information go to http://www.wjjsoft.com
Hi Karin;
I'm happy to see how you've grown as a writer…You've got a good thing here.
Personally, I'm with the pencil and paper back stories of characters & then put them in a notebook/folder…adding information as I go along. I've tried computer programs, but I get distracted by this tab or that option & I allow myself to play with the program instead of writing. 😀
I use a perpetual calendar – printed one many moons ago – and take blank calendar pages, make up the months over which the story covers. Each day & or chapter in the story is noted on the large calendar squares & developed on paper to go in the notebook under timeline.
My current WIP has six calendar pages and boy!…has it ever helped me not to feel overwhelmed by not knowing which day, week or month such & such happened & in which chapter.
The notebook sits on my table next to my computer table along with my Synonym Finder & Dictionary…I also use multiple cataloges to cut out figures to help me with descritions & the ability to keep the individual characteristics consistent. I have a dry erase/cork board and each character sits pinned to the board hung on the wall directly above my computer. Any other pics of them goes in the notebook under characters…I get clothing descriptions this way too. I use the dry erase for the current chapter, day/week/month and characters involved. This changes by which chapter or day/week/month I happen to be working on.
Sorry to be a day late…Joyfully glad you did this, Karin.